Noah freezes.
His breath stops somewhere in his chest, caught between his lungs and the words he can't say. He's still standing between her thighs, her bare skin warm against his palms, and everything in him wants to keep going—wants to taste every inch of her until she forgets her own name. But she sees it. Those sea-green eyes, dark with want, catch the flicker behind his. The terror beneath the hunger.
"Hey." Her voice is soft. Her hand comes up, slow enough that he could pull away. She cups his jaw, and the muscle jumps beneath his stubble. "Come back."
He can't. He's already gone—somewhere deep where the walls he's been building since September are cracking, mortar crumbling, and behind them is everything he's never let anyone see. The loneliness. The wanting. The part of him that's been holding his breath since the first time she looked at him in that lecture hall, head tilted, challenge in her eyes.
"I see you," she says. Not teasing. Not triumphant. Just truth. "I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere."
His eyes close. The world goes dark, and for a second there's only her palm against his jaw, her breath on his lips, the solid weight of her thighs bracketing his hips. Something in him breaks open—a seam he's been stitching shut for years, thread by thread, denial by denial. It tears. Clean. Irreversible.
When he opens his eyes, there's no hesitation left.
He lowers his mouth to hers. Not hard. Not hungry. Soft. Deliberate. A kiss that tastes like surrender—like laying down a weight he didn't know he was carrying. Her lips part beneath his, and she makes a sound, small and broken, like she's been waiting for this version of him.
He pulls back just enough to look at her. Her hair is spread across his desk, catching the lamp light. Her chest rises and falls, quick and shallow. She's bare beneath him, open in every way that matters, and she's not looking away.
"Ava." Her name, quiet. Not a question. Not a warning. Just a fact, spoken into the space between them.
Her thumb traces his jawline. "I know."
He lowers himself over her, elbows on either side of her head, his forehead resting against hers. The lamp casts their shadow on the far wall—one shape, blurred at the edges. He can feel her heartbeat through his chest, or maybe that's his own.
His forehead stays pressed to hers, their breath mingling in the warm space between. Her hand slides from his jaw into his hair, fingers threading through the dark strands, and he shivers—a full-body tremor he can't control. She feels it against her chest, against her thighs, everywhere they touch.
"Noah." His name, soft. A question he's been waiting for.
He doesn't answer with words. He shifts, lowering himself until his lips find the hollow of her throat, where her pulse flutters like a trapped bird. He presses a kiss there, slow, deliberate. Then another, higher, along the line of her jaw. Each one says what he can't.
Her breath catches when his mouth reaches her ear. "Tell me," she whispers. Not demanding. Just asking. "What are you thinking?"
His eyes close against her skin. The question hangs between them, heavy and inevitable. He's been thinking since September—thinking in circles, thinking in equations, thinking in ways that led nowhere. But here, now, with her bare beneath him and her fingers in his hair, the thoughts finally have shape.
"That I've been afraid," he says, his voice rough, barely above a murmur. "Not of you. Of this." His thumb traces the curve of her ribs, featherlight. "Of what it means that I can't stop thinking about you. That I don't want to."
Her hand stills in his hair. He feels her exhale, slow and shaky, against his cheek.
"I've been afraid," he continues, the words coming harder now, like pulling splinters from deep in his chest, "that if I let myself have this—have you—I'd lose the thing I've spent years building. The grades. The applications. The future I told myself I wanted." He pulls back just enough to meet her eyes. "But I'm more afraid of what happens if I don't."
Her sea-green eyes are bright, wet at the edges. She doesn't blink. "What happens?"
He cups her face, his thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. "Then I spend the rest of my life wondering what it felt like to be this alive."
The sound she makes is small and broken, and she pulls him down into a kiss that tastes like salt and surrender. Her arms wrap around his neck, pulling him closer, and he goes willingly—letting the weight of his confession settle between them like something sacred.