if there is?”
His own jaw clenches as he says, “Then I’d like to ask him something.”
“What?”
He runs his eyes over my body.
My wild, wind-whipped hair, the tingling tip of my nose, my parted and painted lips. My heaving chest under his vintage leather. My bare belly.
He stares at each part of me like it belongs to him. Like he can stare at those favorite little spots of his whenever and for however long he wants.
He can. He can.
But still.
It makes things happen inside my body. It makes me break out in goosebumps and it makes me bite my lip. It makes me arch my spine and makes my nipples bead.
He lifts his eyes, a flush covering his cheeks. “I’d like to ask him what the fuck is he doing, letting you run around town like this. Your friends, I understand. Maybe they’re a bunch of clueless schoolgirls like you. But what the fuck is his problem?”
I draw back. “Excuse me?”
Instead of answering me, he touches me.
With his other hand, he touches my lip again. His broad thumb is probably smudging the lipstick at the corner, but I don’t care.
I don’t care about anything right now except him and his rough thumb.
“What’s the name of this one?” he rasps.
“Dream Broken Darling.”
“You’re the darling?”
I shake my head, hypnotized. “No, he is.” You are. “I-I like sweetheart.”
“So what is he doing allowing his sweetheart to go where she doesn’t belong, wearing something she shouldn’t?”
I grab his wrist then and dig my nails in. “My darling doesn’t control me. I can do whatever I want. I can…”
He licks his lip then and I trail off.
“Because if it was me.” He presses that thumb in the middle of my lower lip, tugging at it. “You wouldn’t be setting foot out of your room like this, let alone frolicking around town in the middle of the night.”
“If it was y-you?”
He nods slowly. “If it was me, I’d keep you reined in. A girl like you needs that.”
He’d keep me reined in.
If it was him.
If he was my boyfriend.
That’s what he means.
He means that if we were together, he’d keep me on a leash.
He’d keep me bound like I’m an object or a pet. A fuck doll like he called me back at the bar.
A doll who’s blinking up at him and whose lips he’s playing with, whose wrist he’s holding captive and whose nails are digging into his wrist.
“A girl like me?” I whisper.
“Raw, natural and stunning.”
Did he just… Did he just describe me the same way I described this bridge?
He did, didn’t he?
Something blooms in my chest. Something like flowers. Gardenias, the symbol of secret love.
“I… You…”
He puts pressure on my chin then. “If you were mine, I wouldn’t let you ride around on that bike of yours in the middle of the night either.”
“My bike?”
“Because you do that, don’t you?” He swipes his thumb on my lip, an impatient movement. “When you think everyone is asleep, you sneak out of the house. You take out your bike and you go on rides. You ride for hours and come back at the break of dawn.”
Yeah, I’d do that.
I’d take my bike out for a ride. I’d come here or go to my other favorite places and stay out for hours. But I’d be careful not to wake anyone up. Leah would’ve been furious.
But I didn’t know that someone was awake. That someone knew about my nightly excursions.
“Y-you know about that?”
“Clearly, not everyone was asleep.”
“But you never said anything.”
“Maybe I was keeping your secret too,” he whispers with grave and gorgeous eyes.
I don’t see it coming – what I do next.
Maybe it’s the fact that he called me stunning and he’s been talking about me being his. Or the fact that he just told me he is my secret keeper.
He’s been my secret keeper like I’ve been his.
Whatever the reason is, it makes me close the remaining distance and let go of his wrist. It makes me put my hand on his bicep and tilt up my neck and go in search of his mouth.
It makes me kiss him. Or try to.
Because he stops me at the last second.
He lets go of my hand, the one he had in his hold all this time, and grabs my hair in a fist, pulling me back.
With a low, dangerous tone, he tells me, “It’s time to go back.”
I need a smoke.
Which is a surprise because I just smoked outside of Dr. Lola Bernstein’s building before going in for