Текст книги "When the Stars Align"

Автор книги: Jeanette Grey

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Chapter Seven

Living in the tropics without goddamn air-conditioning was for masochists.

Christ. Jo mopped her brow as she stormed into her room, tugging at the overshirt she’d just about sweated through on her walk back from the lab and dragging it over her head with a growl.

“Are we mad at the shirt now?”

Somehow managing not to have a coronary or jump five feet in the air, Jo jerked around to find Carol sitting at the head of her bed. Fuck. Jo turned and dropped her gaze, flinging her shirt onto the pile of laundry in the bottom of the closet.

“The shirt’s fine. The climate’s on notice, though.”

“Yeah, it’s rough.”

Carol was one to talk. She was in another one of her stupid, cute sundresses, her hair tied up and off her neck, the one fan in the room pointed right at her face.

Meanwhile, Jo was in a tank top and baggy shorts, sweating like a pig and feeling naked, and—

And Adam was leaving tomorrow. For almost a week. To go hang out with that bitch who wouldn’t even give him a straight answer or make time in her day for him. In air-conditioning. And Jo was going to sit here boiling alive and pretending not to care.

Whatever. God knew she had plenty of experience with that at least. Maybe not the boiling part, but the rest of it she’d been practicing her entire damn life.

If she were back in Chicago and feeling like this, she’d spend some quality time with her punching bag, but no. She was stuck here, and Adam’s send-off dinner was in an hour. Part of her wanted to say fuck it all and go hide in the lab for the rest of the night. Another part wanted to march over to his room and finally put this thing that was brewing between them out in the open. Fight it out or fuck it out.

But all of those options made her feel so cowardly she wanted to scream. She wasn’t avoiding her problems, and she wasn’t going to let someone turn her into the other woman. No way.

At the sound of movement behind her, Jo sighed and tried to collect herself. She shoved the damp flop of her hair off her forehead, frowning at the way the dye was starting to fade.

Then, out of nowhere, Carol asked, “Is it your arms?”

Jo’s skin went cold. “Excuse me?”

“Or your shoulders? That you don’t want anyone to see?”

“It’s…” What the hell was Jo supposed to say to that? Her insides squirmed, and she was about to tell Carol off. What right did she have to ask? Or to notice, even? So what if Jo always wore long sleeves? There wasn’t any law against it or anything. “No, I just…”

She faltered. Just what?

“It’s okay,” Carol said. “I’m not judging. I just figured, with it this hot, you must have a reason for wanting to dress like that.”

“Like what?” A lesbian? A tomboy? She turned to look over her shoulder at Carol, only to find her standing a couple of feet away, peering into her half of the closet in consideration.

Carol shrugged. “Like someone who likes to wear sleeves.”

Hesitating, Jo rubbed at her shoulder.

The thing was, Carol wasn’t wrong. Jo’s stomach dropped, remembering the time her father had taken her to the university that once. She’d been in ninth grade, and her rebellion of the week had been frilly tank tops and short shorts. She’d walked through the halls, past the other professors’ offices, and she’d felt the same way she did now.

Naked. Frivolous. Like she didn’t belong.

She’d done a complete one-eighty over the course of the next year. The harder her look, the boxier and more manly, the easier it had been to edge her way into the heavy engineering projects on the Science Olympiad team. The more the guys in the AP Chemistry class had let her into their fold.

She still wasn’t afraid of wearing a corset top out to a bar, but never with the people from her department. Never with anyone she’d have to interact with professionally the next day.

“Shoulders,” she admitted quietly. That had seemed to be the line.

Carol nodded. She reached into the closet to grab Jo’s towel off the hook. Before Jo could ask, she pushed the terry cloth into Jo’s hands. “Go. Shower or clean up or whatever. I’ll pick out something for you for tonight.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Of course I don’t. But I want to.” She cast a quick glance Jo’s way. “Girls help other girls out. And I figured with Adam taking off and all… maybe you’d want to look a little extra nice.”

Carol had clearly chosen her words carefully. Nothing in it to insinuate that Jo didn’t look nice in general—although Jo would be the first to say she didn’t. The only implication was the one about her and Adam, and…

And it wasn’t as if Jo could really deny it. Not after the way they’d acted on the trip to the rain forest.

She took the towel and swallowed hard. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Grabbing her toiletry case, Jo turned and made her way out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom, which was blessedly empty. She seemed to be on a roll with not being too much of a bitch today, so she called out, “Anybody mind if I get in the shower?”

Nobody spoke up, so Jo stepped inside and locked the door behind her. She stripped, unlacing her boots and piling her clothes atop them before starting the water, keeping it lukewarm. The spray felt good on her overheated skin as she stepped in, the soap that followed even better. Rinsing off, she turned the temperature as cold as it went and braced her hands against the tile as she let it wash over her.

Her nipples hardened, making the barbell running through the left one stand out all the more. She gave it a little tweak between her forefinger and thumb and felt it in her cunt, squeezing her eyes shut and twisting her neck to the side to suck in a greedy lungful of air through her mouth. She dropped her hand away from her flesh. Opened her eyes to cast a glance down her frame.

She’d never really given a good goddamn about what men might think of the things she’d done to her body, the metal and ink she’d put there to make it feel like her own. But it was hard not to wonder how Adam might react. So many of her assumptions about him had been wrong, but he still gave off such a vanilla vibe. If he saw her like this, would he be aroused or repulsed?

She rolled her eyes at herself as she turned off the water. The boy had seen her neck and her face, and he hadn’t run yet. The rest of it couldn’t come as too much of a surprise.

She really, really hoped he’d be aroused.

The heat in the air crept back in as she dried herself off, humidity making a mist cling to the medicine cabinet mirror. She swiped at the surface until she could see her own reflection. Flushed skin and big, dark eyes and hair dripping into her face.

She dug into her bag for her hair goop and scooped some out with her fingers. She combed it through the wet strands, then pushed the ends behind her ears. Tilting her head to one side and then the other, she looked deeper. Something in her chest thrummed.

There probably wasn’t much point to this. She burrowed deeper into her kit all the same, until she got her hands around the little pack she’d buried in there without exactly knowing why. Makeup wasn’t part of her usual routine, and all she really knew how to do with it was get ready for a club—or Halloween, not that there was much difference between the two in how she dressed. She could do this, though. Look normal. A little extra nice, just in case.

Wiping the mirror down whenever it got too fogged up for her to see, she dabbed concealer under her eyes and blended in foundation. A tiny bit of eyeliner and lip gloss.

When she stepped back to get the full effect, her shoulders fell. She looked ridiculous. Not strong and powerful the way she did with crimson lips and smoldering eyes. Not normal like she did with nothing at all. She felt like a doll. And now Carol was going to play dress-up with her.

What was she doing?

Resisting the urge to just wash it all off, she wrapped her towel around her chest and zipped her bag, hauling it along with her as she stormed to her room. If Carol tried to put her in a dress, she’d just say no. Wear the same plain shit she wore every day, and if anybody didn’t like it, they could kiss her ass.

At her and Carol’s door, Jo stopped. Carol was sitting on her own bed again, her earbuds in, her attention seemingly on whatever she was reading, but her posture was too stiff. She was waiting. Steeling herself for the worst, Jo turned to her own bed, and…

And it really wasn’t so bad.

It was her own damn skirt—the only one she’d brought. Knee length and army green with about a million pockets. And laid with it, one of Carol’s tops. It was black, thank God, with short sleeves. A little flowy and gauzy, but over one of Jo’s typical undershirts, it’d be okay.

“Just a suggestion,” Carol said.

Jo’s throat didn’t quite know how to work. She flexed her jaw. “Thanks,” she managed.

“You’re welcome. I have some jewelry, too, if you want.”

“Nah.” She stepped closer to touch the fabric of the shirt. It was soft. “I have my own.”

She kept her back to Carol as she dressed, tugging on her underwear before dropping the towel and strapping on one of her few bras that was meant for more than keeping her boobs from bouncing and her piercing from showing. She dressed without thinking too hard about what she was doing, only noticing once she was done that Carol’d left out some sandals, too. They were strappy and black with a barely there heel. Jo stared at them for a long minute.

“You’d be a hell of a lot cooler.”

Carol wasn’t wrong. Jo stepped into them. They were a little snug, but not too bad. Before turning to face the mirror attached to the back of their door, she opened the bottom drawer of her dresser, shoving aside the rest of the stuff she’d stowed in there until she came up with the silk change purse. She only owned two necklaces, and one of them was a black studded choker. The other, though, was a delicate silver chain with a small oval locket.

Taking care not to twist the links, she extricated it. Brought it up to her throat and fastened the clasp at the nape of her neck. The metal sat cool against the space between her collarbones, and she ran her thumb over the locket’s hinge before squeezing it once.

Before she stood and turned around, she pulled in a long, slow breath. Then she opened her eyes and looked.

And there in the mirror was… her. Only a little extra nice. A little more skin.

A few more memories pressed against the center of her ribs.

Adam gave his things one final check. Five shirts, five pairs of socks and underwear. Five days home in the continental United States, and two of them with Shannon. Maybe.

He’d been looking forward to this the entire time he’d been here, and now that it was time…

He was still looking forward to it. The trip would be a good break, a good chance to find some perspective. He needed to get his head on straight and figure out what was happening with his life.

But no matter how excited about it he was, a nervous itching teased at the back of his mind. He’d finally gotten himself settled in here, and leaving, even if only for a little while, felt like abandoning something unfinished. Like pausing a movie when it was getting to the good part. He wanted to know what happened next.

Pushing his anxieties down, he started piling the stacks of clothes into his duffel bag. It fit with room to spare, and he stood there, considering for a minute. Without really thinking about it, he patted his pocket for his phone.

Before he could pull it out and check the icons for any alerts or missed calls, a knock sounded on his door. He looked up to find Jared leaning against it. He was fiddling with his own phone, tapping something on the screen.

“Yeah?” Adam asked.

Without looking up, Jared gestured toward the other house. “Kim says dinner’s almost done.”

Adam smirked. The two of them had been disappearing together a lot recently. It didn’t surprise him much that she’d been the one to message Jared that it was time to come over. “Is that all she had to say?”

“Shut up.” Jared hit another couple of keys, then palmed his phone and tucked it away. “You ready to go or not?”

Casting another glance at the shit he was taking to Baltimore with him, Adam nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” With a nod, he zipped up his bag.

But instead of moving from the door, Jared grinned. “You didn’t forget about protection, did you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Just checking. Because I have extra if you need any.”

The back of Adam’s neck heated. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Dude.” Jared snorted. “I worry about you all the time.”

“Thanks. I think.” With that, he shouldered past Jared and out into the hall.

As it happened, he hadn’t forgotten about condoms. He’d had the safe-sex talk drilled into his skull about a million times; he basically didn’t leave home without one. He sure as hell didn’t leave town to see his maybe-girlfriend without a solid half dozen.

Even as he’d been packing them, he’d wondered if it was worth the bother, though. The lack of sex—the lack of contact—these past few weeks had been getting to him the way it would any red-blooded male. If he’d still been in the mind-set he’d had when he’d arrived, he probably already would’ve been imagining the things he and Shannon could do, how good it would be to touch her again, even if it wasn’t serious. But he wasn’t.

Shannon wasn’t the one he thought about any more on those hot, lonely nights when he took himself in hand.

With Jared trailing along behind him, he crossed the path to the other house, where he knocked twice before tugging open the door and striding through. And there, right in front of him, was the girl he did think about. The one he couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Wow,” he said, freezing in his tracks.

Jared narrowly missed slamming into him, but Adam didn’t move. He just stood there, soaking it in.

It was definitely Jo all right, all glinting metal and bright blue hair, but she was showing off her arms and her legs, and the lines of characters inked around her ankle. Pale, unpainted toes that never saw the sun.

“Hey.” She shifted her weight, leaning back against the arm of the couch.

Adam jerked his gaze up to her face. Even there she looked different somehow. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he liked it. A lot.

“See?” Jared said in a mock-whisper, clapping a hand on Adam’s shoulder as he stepped around him. “This is why I worry about you.”

“Fuck off.” Adam moved to let him pass. It brought him farther into the living room, closer to Jo, and the fire that hadn’t lit in his belly thinking about Shannon and him together in a hotel room all weekend ignited. Turned his skin to ash, and he was still feet away, and Jo’s posture was tight. Closed.

There was a tilt to her head, though. An invitation, maybe.

He took another step closer and cleared his throat. Shoved his hands into his pockets. “You look, ah, nice. Tonight.”

She raised an eyebrow skeptically.

He wanted to shove his foot into his mouth. “I mean, you always look nice, but you look…”

“Extra nice?” she volunteered, a ghost of a smile playing across the corners of her mouth.

“Yeah.” He nodded.

Her grin widened. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”

He didn’t look any different from usual, but damn if it wasn’t nice to hear.

Behind them, the rest of the gang had gathered in the kitchen, and the sounds of plates and silverware clanging intruded on their bubble of space, but Adam could scarcely hear it.

Her neckline was open, the fabric soft, and that contrast alone was enough to make his breath go tight. Like he was watching himself from a distance, he saw his own hand rise, and then he was touching her skin, her collarbone, grazing a little silver chain that draped along the long, proud column of her neck.

“You don’t usually wear jewelry.” He let his fingertip trace down toward the pendant hanging from the necklace.

“No.” Her inhalation made her chest rise, her voice holding the barest hint of a tremor. “I don’t.”

Darting his gaze from the fall of silver to the open lights of her eyes, he licked his lips. “It doesn’t look like you.”

“It was my mother’s.”

And it felt like it took something from her to say that. She didn’t talk much about her life beyond this little island and this slice of time, except when she was using her own history to cut him down. This was different. This was new, and it made him crave so much more.

It made him want everything, and for a second, it felt like all he had to do was ask for it.

Then, just before he reached the metal locket, her hand closed around his, stilling his movements. Her skin was warm, but it sent a chill up his arm as she stopped him.

“Sorry,” he said, pulling back. Remembering himself and where and who they were.

“It’s okay.” She didn’t let him go, holding on as their hands fell away. She stroked her thumb across the point of his pulse.

He got the message. Some things he could touch. Others he wasn’t allowed to—yet.

“It’s pretty,” he said, gathering himself. Turning their hands so he could intertwine their fingers.

“Thank you.”

Out of nowhere, he blurted, “I’m glad you came.” And it sounded stupid. This was her house after all. They had dinner here as a group more often than not. But usually, Jo found reasons to avoid it, to stay at work until the stars had all come out and everyone else had left.

“Well, you’re about to go off on your big adventure, right?” She shrugged as if she didn’t care, but her eyes were pinched. “Won’t have a chance to give you a hard time for almost a week.”

“What ever will I do?”

“Whatever you want to.” It came out a little too serious. A little too real.

And it wasn’t true. If he was going to do whatever he wanted, he’d be swooping in, closing that last bit of distance. Changing this push and pull into the press of bodies and a conversation of tongues and teeth and lips.

Maybe he should. He grasped her hand more tightly.

But before he could make up his mind to take that last step—to try his luck with this girl who seemed so impossible and yet so close—the air was broken by a sound. One even more unlikely than a kiss.

Shannon’s ringtone.

Chapter Eight

Adam hadn’t even meant to do it. One minute he was holding Jo’s hand, leaning in to finally touch her, and the next he’d torn himself away. His palm felt cold where his skin had been pressed to hers, but that didn’t slow him down. He reached instinctively, immediately for his phone, his heart in his throat from just this one small sign of contact, this connection to home.

And that was all it took.

For a second, Jo’s mouth dropped open, her hand still in the air, confusion on her brow. Her gaze darted from Adam’s lips to his eyes to his phone. And then in a flash, her defenses snapped into place, every line of her going hard.

Adam was an idiot.

“I’m sorry,” he said, silently counting the rings in his head. He needed to pick up, now, or he’d lose Shannon.

But turning his back on Jo felt like losing even more.

Jo held her hands up, palms facing out. “No. You should get that.” Her voice went pointed. “Might be someone important.”

She moved to shove past him, but he caught her. Clasped her wrist. “You’re important.”

“Sure.” A bitter laugh spilled past her lips. “Tell your girlfriend I said hi.”

“She’s not—”

Shannon wasn’t his girlfriend. She hadn’t been for a while now, but he’d been clinging to the idea of her as if she were. And nothing about it was fair. Not to anybody.

Disappointment darkened Jo’s eyes. She pulled her hand free with force, and Adam let her go. She brushed past him and headed toward the kitchen.

In his palm, his phone buzzed, and he cursed, following Jo with his gaze even as he slid his thumb across the screen to take the call. He brought it up to his ear and froze, swallowing hard, taking in the stares of every single other summer student here. All focused on him.

He was a bastard.

Fuck. He’d have to deal with them later. For now, he ducked his head and made for the door. Tried to keep the hope out of his tone as he answered, “Hello?”

“Hey, Adam?”

And it didn’t matter that Shannon wasn’t his girlfriend anymore. Hearing her voice for the first time in almost a month had a piece of his chest breaking free—a weight he hadn’t even recognized suddenly gone. With a smile on his face and a lightness behind his ribs, he pushed through the door and out into the open space beyond.

“Hi. Shannon. Yeah, it’s me.”

Jo didn’t watch Adam as he paced around the little area between the two houses. As he trailed his fingers along the rail of the wooden fence at the back of the lot.

She definitely didn’t obsess about what the hell he’d been talking about with that girl that had left him looking so damn relieved.

Fidgeting, she scooped up a forkful of the rice and beans Anna’d cooked tonight. It was good, savory and flavorful and not full of bacon, and she gave Anna an approving nod of thanks. Nobody had had to accommodate Jo’s diet, but they’d each made a point of it whenever they decided to step up and make dinner. She just wished she could fully appreciate it.

Then she caught herself staring out the window again, and she forced her gaze away.

What the hell had she been expecting? Just because she’d dressed like a girl for once and let him touch her neck. Let him hold her hand and talked about her mother of all the ridiculous things. It didn’t mean he owed her anything.

Finally, the door to the house swung open, and Jo trained her gaze on her plate. Across the room from her, Jared hopped off the end of the chair he’d been sharing with Kim, dumping his dish on the coffee table and taking his beer with him as he went to intercept. Jo didn’t watch the way he steered Adam toward the kitchen. She didn’t keep track of how long they lingered there, just out of sight.

Around her, there was a conversation going on, but she couldn’t focus on it. Even if she could, she had nothing to contribute. So she sat there, mechanically eating and swallowing and taking less than measured pulls on her drink.

She was so damn restless, this nervous fluttering sort of energy beating around inside her chest, and it didn’t make sense.

When Adam and Jared hauled themselves out of the kitchen, Adam had a nice full plate and a drink of his own. Jo held her breath as he made his way into the room they were all gathered in, but instead of coming over to sit by her, Adam let Jared shove him into the seat he’d vacated next to Kim. And what the hell was that supposed to mean? Plunking himself down on the floor, Jared tucked back into his dinner, and Adam finally got to start his. Jo’s fork scraped porcelain, and she stopped, crinkling her brow when she found her plate empty.

She chewed the inside of her lip as the agitation inside her simmered and brewed. She should’ve eaten slower, should’ve paced herself. Short of fiddling with the clinking ice cubes at the bottom of her glass, what did she have left to do with her hands?

What reason did she have left to be here?

These people didn’t know her; they didn’t care about her—she’d made sure of that with the way she’d acted. The only person who’d taken the time to push past her defenses, the one guy who’d looked at her as more than a fuck or a bitch or an obstacle in so long…

He was leaving for a week. Going to see a girl he clearly wasn’t over.

And all of a sudden, Jo couldn’t breathe.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, pushing off the sofa and letting her plate clatter as she set it down. Half a dozen pairs of eyes turned to her, and the vise around her lungs squeezed tighter. “I need some air.”

She didn’t look at Adam for real this time as she made her escape. She shoved through the front door of the house and out, not stopping until she hit the fence. Bracing her hands against the wood, she bent at the waist, pulling in air in great heaving gasps and closing her eyes.

Stupid. Dressing like this and pretending to be part of their little club, hanging out and eating dinner like she was one of them. She should be like that weird guy, Tom—should just stay in her room and at the lab. Then she wouldn’t have to feel these kinds of things. Wouldn’t have to want what she couldn’t have, and what she usually went to such lengths to avoid.

She’d just started to get herself put together again when the door to the house swung open. It banged against the frame, and she tightened her grip on the railing. Chances were, it was just Carol or someone coming by to check on her. Jo would tell her she was fine, and Carol would leave, and it would all be okay.

The sounds of footsteps came closer and closer until they were right there. But instead of a quiet voice calling out, a body leaned itself against the railing beside her, settling in as if to stay. She sucked her lip ring between her teeth and opened her eyes. The body wore navy Nikes and tan cargo shorts. And it had really, really muscular calves.

Adam, then. Of course.

Dread and anticipation twisted themselves in her gut, rising and falling and sinking and soaring. But for the longest time, Adam didn’t say a word. Jo bit down harder on her lip as she forced herself to look at him—really look at him. Not at his shoes, but at his face. The sharp jut of his jaw as he stared ahead into the trees in front of them. The golden cast of his skin in the fading light.

After a moment, she couldn’t look anymore.

With a sigh, she let her lip ring go. “You here to ask me if I’m okay?”

“Would you tell me if you weren’t?”

“Nope.”

“Well. There’s your answer, then.”

He said it all so matter-of-factly, like he hadn’t been expecting any other response, and a hidden warmth rose behind her ribs at the thought that he knew her so well. But it wasn’t enough to burn away the vulnerability, the achy-sticky feeling that had sent her running from the house. It didn’t make her any less convinced she was fucking this whole thing up.

“You should go back inside,” she said. “Finish your dinner.”

“I had enough.”

“Right.” She huffed. “I’ve seen you eat.”

“I had enough for now.”

“I’m fine.”

“Who said this was about you?” His voice was teasing, the hand he nudged against hers even more so, and she wanted to scream. Here they went again, tiptoeing along this line between acquaintances and lovers, and if they didn’t pick a side sometime soon, she was going to lose her goddamn mind.

So because she was an idiot, she inched a little farther, right along the divide. Internally swearing at herself, she slipped her fingers under his, interlacing them against the wood.

“Oh,” she said, her throat tight. “Well, if it’s not about me, then I guess it’s okay.”

They stood like that together in silence for a minute, not exactly comfortable but not quite awkward either. His thumb stroked slowly across the back of her palm.

“So what did she have to say?” she asked, still looking away.

“Not much, actually. Just telling me when she’d meet up with me this weekend.”

“Oh.”

Was it just her, or did he sound sort of disappointed about that?

Not that she cared.

Then he leaned in, pressing into the bubble of air that surrounded them. And when he spoke again, it was quiet. Intimate in a way that hardly seemed fair. “We missed the sunset.”

They had, but not by much. Brilliant orange and pink and blue still spread out across the horizon, darkness creeping along beside it to fill in the spaces they left behind.

“It’s my favorite time of day,” he said, softly, like a confession. “The winds always come in. It feels like I can breathe again.”

She nodded. “The air gets less heavy.”

“And the stars…”

It was the thing that had made her reconsider her first impression of him. The way he’d sat out here at night, gazing upward.

“Scorpius.” The constellation’s name slipped from her tongue, and in her mind, she traced the shimmering arch of stars, the shining spiral that took up half the nighttime sky.

He grinned, soft and gorgeous, and so damn kissable. “Exactly.”

His hand rested warm against hers. It didn’t even matter that it was sweltering out, because the heat of his body was more searing, more present, and every place it didn’t burn itself into her felt suddenly, impossibly cold.

And fuck this. Just… fuck it. You don’t ask, you don’t get, right?

She barely even had to lean in, they were standing so close. She just pressed up onto her toes, swaying slightly to the side, and he was right there. His mouth warm. His lips soft.

He turned his head away, and everything inside of her flashed to ice.

“I’m sorry—” he started, but she didn’t want to hear the rest.

“Forget it.” No way was she apologizing. If anything, she wanted to deck him again.

How dare he? All these little signs he’d been throwing out. All these big ones. Holding hands and touching knees and talking about the stars weren’t things that people did. Not to her.

Except he didn’t do them all the time, did he? She laughed darkly to herself as she stepped away. She felt so stupid.

The last time he’d come this close, he’d caught her in her underwear, and now here she was, her arms and tits half exposed.

“Jo…”

“I get it.” She gestured at herself. “Carol’s clothes and everything. Easy mistake to make. Thinking I’m a girl or something.”

“Jo—”

“I’m just going to go—”

“Jo.” He grabbed her wrist with force this time, and it was only a conscious effort that kept her from lashing out—from using fists to try to defend what she couldn’t hope to protect. Her heart.

He didn’t let go as she tried to squirm free, and she gave up, facing him. Bracing herself. Jesus. She didn’t need to hear this shit.

“It’s fine,” she grumbled.

“It’s not.”

And there was an edge to his tone. A pleading note that made her stop.

He lifted a hand to touch her face, tilting her chin up. Asking her to look into those warm, blue eyes.

“I can’t,” he said.

It felt like a blow.

“Fine—”

“I can’t, but I want to. Christ, Jo. Isn’t it obvious?”

She’d thought it was, but then she’d tried to kiss him, and look how well that had gone. “You got a funny way of showing it.”

“I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment I saw you.” His throat bobbed. “Wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that, too.” He paused. “But…”

Right. Here it came. “But.”

But it’d only be sex.

But I love somebody else.

“But you deserve better than that.”

Her breath caught. She let her hand go slack inside his grip.