I swallow hard.
“I won’t.”
It’s a promise I’m quick to make because DJ Mars is right.
I’ll need to be prepared.
“If you get into trouble, call me.I’ll come,” he says, and I nod again.
“Don’t just say yeah.Tell me your digits,linda.”
“Sure,” I grin as I say my number out loud, shaking my head because it’s ludicrous.He can’t possibly remember it.
“Good, now smile because your man is watching and I wanna make him jealous,” he whispers, and I laugh again.
David is a flirt.Harmless, but still a flirt.
But I do smile because I can’t help it.But also, maybe it’s because I know I shouldn’t be remembering Nathan’s hands on my waist earlier—hot, confident, reverent.
Or the way he kissed me like a man who’d been starving for sixteen years and finally found food.
Or the way my heart has the nerve to hope.
I shouldn’t let my fantasies blur with reality.
I shouldn’t want him.
But God, I do.
And that is the most dangerous thing of all.
Because I can’t confuse this whirlwind marriage, this protective act, this desperate solution, with the girlhood wish I buried at seventeen.
That Nathan Thorn could ever truly be mine.
David spins me again, and I try—really try—to keep the mood light.But his words cling like smoke, curling into all my hidden doubts.
The world is full of vampires.
And suddenly I feel every pair of eyes in this glittering rooftop restaurant.
Staring.Whispering.Judging.
I’m out of my depth.
Out of my league.
Out of my damn mind.
Before the thought spirals any further, something warm and solid presses against my back.
A hand—big, steady, unmistakably familiar—rests at the small of my waist.
My breath catches.
“Nate?”I breathe.
I don’t even need to turn to know it’s him.
