“This is definitely illegal,” I said.
“So’s everything that feels good,” he answered.
He crouched to set the lantern down between us. The light painted him gold again, the same shade as that night outside the restaurant. He looked at me for a long moment, as if trying to memorize something.
I told myself to look away. I didn’t.
Sometimes we fought about nothing. I accused him of being reckless. He accused me of being afraid. We both won, which meant we both lost.
After every argument, he’d appear with something strange: a tiny framed photo of a dead moth, a pressed leaf sealed in glass, a fortune cookie note that readbetter luck next time.He claimed he found them all by accident. I knew he was lying, but I liked the lie. It was almost tender.
The night it rained, we stayed in at my place after Silas announced he’d stay out. Damon cooked, if you could call it that, something with noodles and too much garlic. Kissing was impossible afterward. The window fogged, thunder rolling somewhere far off, and he wore an apron that made me feel things no apron ever should evoke.
He leaned against the counter, watching me eat straight from the pan.
“You’re impossible,” he said.
“You’re the one who keeps coming.”
“Correction,” he said. “I come for trouble.” He smiled, that low, knowing curve of his mouth that always made it hard to breathe. “You’re cute when you pretend you don’t want me here.”
I set the pan down, walked over, and kissed him until the storm drowned the rest of the world out.
If anyone asked, we were still nothing.
Not friends. Not lovers. Not anything that needed to survive daylight.
But his jacket was hanging on my chair now, and my toothbrush was in his bathroom, and every time he touched me, it felt less like a mistake and more like a confession neither of us wanted to say aloud.
I told myself it was doomed, that love stories like ours burned out fast.
Then I looked at him, laughing, alive, and warm, and thought maybe the burning was the point.
And whenever I saw Nick for lunch or coffee or the movies, the heat of Damon’s kisses lingered on my lips, and my heart cracked a little more.
ELEVEN
Damon
I shutmy laptop like it had all hell’s porn on the screen when he knocked on the door. For your information, that wasn’t it at all, but that was beside the point now. What mattered was that my heartbeat raced like a frightened rabbit.
Holding my breath, I walked over to the door and opened it. Seth stood alone in the hallway.
He had that confident expression on his face that concealed the fact that he was nervous. I didn’t blame him. It had taken a lot of persuading before Seth was comfortable coming over to my place. I’d had to speak to every single one of my teammates to make them swear on their sticks and blades that what they saw around here would remain inside the house.
Griffin had pledged his assistance, well aware of what it was like to have to sneak around. He offered to kick any ass necessary should one of our brothers spill the truth to the wrong people.
Blizzard Breakers wouldn’t find out about Seth’s visits; that much was certain.
“Come in,” I said, moving from the door.
“Do you ever wear a shirt?” Seth asked, hiding the excited flicker that sparkled in his eyes.
I shut the door after him and lifted a T-shirt off the back of my chair. “Should I?”
Seth pressed his lips and glared at me, nostrils flaring and gaze locking onto mine. He deflated in surrender. “No, don’t.”
I laughed and tossed the T-shirt aside, then stepped closer to him and put my hands on his hips. His clothes were cold from the outside, and his nose was adorably red. The heating in the room was meant to bring me to a boiling temperature. What could I say? I liked to be comfortable.