She looked away, appearing distracted, unsure, rubbing her palm repeatedly over the edge of the counter. “I don’t doubt you love me, but I don’t think you want to get married for the right reasons. We’ve barely had a chance to be together—”
“Yeah,” I said. “And you want to up and move to the other side of the continent.”
She swallowed. “I thought I explained why this meant so much to me.”
“Maybe you should explain how much I mean to you.”
Her gaze sharpened and her cheeks flushed. “Maybe we don’t mean enough to each other if neither one of us is willing to move.”
A weight dropped in my stomach. “I asked you to marry me. Doesn’t that prove I’m ready to do whatever—”
Her hand tightened into a fist. “That wasn’t a proposal of marriage. That was an ultimatum.”
“I never said, ‘Marry me or else,’” I hissed.
“No, you didn’t. Did you need to? You were trying to seize control of this situation, like you always do.”
I shook my head, trying to deny what we both knew was true. It had been my power play and she’d seen right through it. “Emilia—”
“Stop the bullshit, Adam. You called your fundraising buddy to make sure I’d be going to UCLA. First, you’re prepared to buy my way in to medical school if necessary and then you hedge your bets with a wedding ring.”
My mouth opened to shoot out a hot reply, but I didn’t have one because she was mostly right. But hell if I was going to tell her that. Instead, I said nothing.
She blinked, looked away. “I think we jumped into this”—she motioned between us—“too quickly.”
I was on alert now, every muscle in my body tensing. I moved up to her, put an arm on the counter on either side of her, trapping her. Our faces were inches from each other. She drew back far enough to look in my face, but that’s as far as she could go. “You don’t get to run away, Emilia,” I said in a quiet, firm voice.
She closed her eyes and then opened them again, swallowing. Her hands pressed flat on my chest but didn’t push me away. Even that simple touch sent jolts of need right through me. “I’m not running away,” she whispered.
My mouth sank to hers and my hands went to the back of her head, holding it to mine as my body commanded her surrender. She slumped against me, falling into that kiss, and her mouth opened to mine. She tasted like coffee and chocolate and roses. Mine—everything in my body imprinted it on hers. The declaration was in my hands as my thumbs splayed to rest against her temples, in my kiss, in my hips as they pressed to hers. I got hard immediately and could have taken her right here. This desire was a gravity well and I was falling, endlessly falling.
She separated from me with an abrupt jerk, gasping as if coming up from underwater. “Stop it,” she breathed. “Stop overwhelming me.”
I stared into her eyes for a long moment. Who was overwhelming who, really? She opened her mouth to speak again and I waited, tense, coiled.
She pushed me back and I relented—one step, anyway. My arms fell away from her, fists knotting at my sides.
“What do you want?” I asked.
She took a deep breath. “I don’t know. Especially if you are going to make me choose right now. I don’t know.”
I clenched my teeth, burning with anger. “Then maybe we are wasting our time, here.”
Her jaw dropped for a moment and the color drained from her face. It was time for the moment of truth. It was time for her to figure out how badly she wanted this. She sucked in a deep breath. “Maybe we are.”
I swallowed, a vise around my throat. “So you are going to let this break us up?”
“No. You are going to let this break us up.”
I’d never really liked the idea of playing chicken, but I would do it if necessary. If she yielded first, then it would be worth it.
“I’m not the one who won’t commit to us, who’s actually seriously contemplating moving away. I’m not going to put up with half a relationship and that’s exactly what we’d have. If you go away, we go back to being gamer friends—FallenOne and Eloisa talking in game chats, if you even have time for that with all your studies. Do you want that?”
She watched me with big eyes as she slowly shook her head.
“Then you need to decide.”
“Now?” Her voice trembled.
“What’s the point in putting it off? You have the choices before you now. Stay here, go to UCLA and we stay together and maybe even get married. Or go to Baltimore and—”