?Chapter 902:


    Mercifully, reason crashed back like cold water against her body’s eager betrayal. The tangled wreckage of their past demanded resolution. How could she surrender to intimacy when chaos still reigned between them? She jerked backward, evading his approaching lips.


    Cole felt sharp disappointment pierce him as distance opened between them. Yet, understanding tempered his frustration. Her retreat made perfect sense. His advance had been too bold, too sudden. He straightened, forcing respectful space to return between them.


    “Such a liar,” Elliana teased, making no attempt to pocket the checks yet. yful fire sparked in her eyes. “Falling for me at first sight, yet pretending to despise me, even mocking me… You have a future in acting, you know.”


    Her barb didn’t faze him. Instead, amusement curved his lips. “And you? Are you going to tell me that getting into my car that day was an ident? Wasn’t it a calcted strategy to capture my attention?”


    “Ha!” Elliana’sughter rang low and triumphant. “Coincidence never factored into it. Every detail was orchestrated from the moment I first saw you. Even driving the same model car was part of the n.”


    Her confession zed with shameless honesty. She hadn’t simply admired him from afar—she had actively hunted him.


    Cupid’s arrow found its mark, piercing Cole’s chest with devastating uracy. In one fluid motion, he caged her against the leather seat, his hands braced on either side of her head. He lowered his face until their breaths merged in the charged atmosphere surrounding them.<fn180a> Newest update provided by Find[?]ovel</fn180a>


    Electric tension crackled through the car’s interior, heat rising to dangerous levels.


    Elliana’s heart thundered against her ribs, yet this time, retreat never crossed her mind. Instead, she met his stare with unwavering courage, studying every angle of the magnificent face hovering inches away.


    Cole’s attention dropped from her eyes to her lips, desire roughening his voice into velvet gravel. “So, we’ve established the truth—we’re drawn to each other like mas, aren’t we?”


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    Elliana nodded, her whisper barely audible as it reached Cole’s ears. “If you weren’t lying, then it’s true that we both have feelings for each other. You imed your affection for me exceeded my imagination, and I confess the same depths within my heart.”


    Cole felt those words pierce straight through to his soul—the sweetest melody he’d ever encountered. Romance possessed such devastating power when wielded with sincerity. The world around him seemed lifted by invisible wings, weightless and shimmering.


    His gaze traced her rose-petal lips while desire deepened in his eyes, his voice dropping to gravel. “Since we like each other, shall we be together?”


    “Alright,” Elliana breathed.


    Her immediate surrender surprised him. Euphoria crashed over him like a tidal wave as he drew closer, stopping mere heartbeats from her lips. His question emerged as a lover’s intimate whisper, “Could I kiss you?”


    The question had burned in him for countless moments. Desperate hunger consumed him—he craved her kiss above all else.


    Her lips beckoned with perfect shape and that precise shade that haunted his dreams. From their first meeting, this primal need had wed at his restraint. Sleep had brought him visions of iming her mouth with wild abandon. In those fevered dreams, her lips had carried the essence of ripe peaches, their sweetness branding itself upon his memory.


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