Of course, he does. Through the haze he's standing in, it somehow registers that she is as scared as he is, and it's that which anchors his feet to the floor and keeps him from turning around and running out the door. He had gone cold when she'd said "Gaza," and as her words crashed into him from across the room, his instinct had been to somehow escape.
But as his vision clears and he sees that she is afraid, too, a courage he doesn't recognize wells up in his veins. "So this is it then."
"Yeah," she breathes.
He takes one step forward. "You have to know that – you terrify me." He hears his own voice as if it were miles away, but the reaction on her face is immediate. Her words are like a plea,
"Why, Josh?"
His heart is hammering in his chest, but he knows that there isn't any turning back now. Taking one more step towards her, he's in free-fall. "Because I need you. Because without you - - - I can't breathe. Because I've wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you."
A tear spills over her eyes. "Josh. . ."
He is standing in front of her now, his own hand trembling as he lifts it to her face, wiping away the tear with his thumb. His voice is a whisper. "I love you, Donna – I have, for all this time."
She is trying in vain to stop her tears as the most beautiful smile he has ever seen slowly breaks over her face. "Josh, I -"
But her smile was his answer, and he can't wait any more. In a second, one hand is against the small of her back, pressing her body against his, and the other tangles in her hair as his mouth closes over hers. Their lips meet with equal passion, and in the heat of their first kiss, eight years' worth of longing, fear, and denial goes up in flames.