Would You Rather

by Allison Ashley

She found everything she wanted in his eyes.

Noah straightened and pulled the ring from his finger. He held up the band between them. “You really think this is what’s keeping me here? I’d be here, with or without it.

“I can’t wait to find a guy who looks at me like that.”

Noah had done nothing different tonight. He’d always looked at her like that.

But then his fingers slid across her palm, linking their fingers, and a tiny piece of the wall she’d built broke off and crashed to the ground.

“I’ll take you wherever you’ll let me.”

Sometimes he made love to her slow and sweet, as if he were trying to communicate from the very depths of his soul.

“Why does people loving you make you feel guilty?”

“But you can’t throw yourself on the fire for everyone. There will be nothing of you left.