My hand curls around the edge of the record shelf behind me, like that’ll keep me upright.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I whisper.
“I know.”He drags his gaze down my throat, slow enough to make me feel every inch of it.“And yet, here we are.Me wondering if you taste the same ...and you?You’re wondering if I still know how to ruin you.”
Fuck.
He’s close enough now that all I’d have to do is tilt my chin and his mouth would be on mine.The temptation hovers between us, hot and palpable.
“I came here for music,” he says, backing up half a breath, just enough to meet my gaze.“But now I think I might want something a little louder.Something raw.”
His fingers brush the bin beside mine, slow and deliberate as he picks up a record without looking.“Like you.”
I should slap him.Or push him.Or laugh.
Instead, I breathe him in.
Let the want wrap around my rib cage and squeeze.
He’s right.I do feel it.
Still.
Always.
There’s no denying it—not with him standing so close.Not with every nerve ending alert to the possibility of what he might do next.
I want to be reckless.I want to lean in and see if he’ll really kiss me, right here in the middle of the store with Aretha playing in the background and a bin full of Fleetwood Mac digging into my back.
But I don’t move.Not yet.
Because bad boys don’t get to come back.
Unless I let them.
ChapterForty-Nine
Roderick
May 15th, 1997
She’s so fucking close I can barely think.
There’s something about the way she stands—arms crossed like a shield, chin tilted just enough to fake indifference—that makes me want to tear the whole performance apart.Her gaze flicks to my mouth and back again as if she didn’t mean to, like her body betrayed her before she could control it, and, God, that one look nearly undoes me.
Kit Dempsey.
The only girl I’ve ever wanted to write a love song about.
The only woman who’s ever made me believe in something bigger than myself.
The only heart I ever broke that I still dream of holding again.
She’s right here, breathing the same air, trying to pretend we don’t remember what the other tasted like.
I shift forward.Not enough to make it obvious, not enough to break whatever fragile thread is holding her still—but enough that I can feel the heat rising off her skin.May in Seattle isn’t hot, but inside this store, it’s warm, close, and thick with tension, and she’s standing so still, so carefully, like she’s afraid the whole fucking world might tilt if she moves an inch closer.
And maybe it would.
