thing. Would Jamison kill her aunt? If he did, something’s cracked inside him. But why else would he have set that fire? Maybe I’m missing something, or misunderstanding. I need to make that call.
“Should we get closer?” Allie asks and then quickly adds, “to stay warm. The temperature’s dropping already.”
“Um, yeah. Good idea.”
There’s a scrape as she adjusts and I adjust and suddenly her breath hits my lips. I freeze.
The air feels full of static that has nothing to do with the faded storm. Her hand courses over my hip to find my waist. In the blackness, I hear her breath catch, feel the absence of it against my cheek. What’re you doing? I want to ask, but it’ll shatter whatever’s going on between us. My fingers move almost on their own, graze the bare skin where her t-shirt has ridden up and linger there. “Are you okay?” I ask quietly.
She leans forward until our foreheads touch gently. Her hand curls around my neck. “Is this?” she asks instead of answering.
It’s everything I told myself it was wrong to want. I shouldn’t be feeling anything for her and instead the scent of her wet hair and the heat finally warming her skin and the goosebumps running across her collarbones, they’re intoxicating me. But it’s more than that. It’s how she does what she thinks needs to be done even if it puts her in danger. It’s how she came back for me in the garden when she thought I was gone. It’s her.
“Um... I don’t...” Nerves shake my voice. I could have her if I wasn’t such a coward, if I’d stood up to Jamison and told him things had changed and she was off limits. I’m lying to her about who I am, what I’m really after. But she lied to me about why she even let me stay with her in the first place. Things have clearly changed for both of us. I’m doing what I can to keep her from getting killed. The thought brings me back to the blood on the floor of the living room. I can’t shake the image. ...So how can she? “Allie, what’s—”
She leans. In the darkness, her lips miss, graze the corner of my mouth instead. She’s pressed tight against me. An embarrassed breath escapes her. “Please,” she whispers and I break.
My fingers tilt her head so her mark hits true and smothers out the word. Her lips are soft, hesitant, but her hand locks on my shoulder in a greedy grip. Every muscle she moves, every shift, grinds against me and yet her lips are so gentle I want to scream. She slips a hand to my chest.
My mouth moves across her cheek, down to her neck and then she finds my lips again. I tangle myself in her arms, one of my hands in her hair, tugging her closer. I can do this. I’ll give in, let go the way I want to, lose myself in breath and skin. Forget everything else. Why I’m here with her, why we shouldn’t.
Why I can’t.
My forehead drops against her shoulder.
“Please,” she moans again.
I’m not sure what to do. Never once, in all the nights I’ve spent at her apartment, has she so much as touched me and now she’s all over me. “Wait,” I pant.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers and this time I hear the sob buried behind the word.
“I have to…” My fingers thread through her hair once more but when she moves to kiss me again, I tip my head back and away.
“Why?” she says finally.
I’m not a saint. Hell, I’m not even a decent human being half the time. But I know what she’s after and why. My fingers curl against her hairline and then tuck a lock behind her ear. “I don’t want you to do this because you’re afraid.”
“I’m not,” she says at the same time I say, “Or because you’re sad and want to forget.”
She stills. In the darkness, I can’t see her face.
“Allie…”
“No, you’re right,” she says, her voice brimming with nonchalance so fake I wince out of secondhand embarrassment. “Stupid idea.”
“I’m sorry about the house,” I say.
“Stop. Talking.” She grates the words out through clenched teeth and I know I was right.
“I’m sorry about your aunt.”
She rolls away from me. “Please,” she begs. “Just stop talking. I don’t want your pity. I don’t want any of this. I don’t... ” I hesitate and then touch her gently. This time, she doesn’t brush me away. The