“Declan,” I breathe.
His eyes shut for half a second, like the sound hurts. When they open again, they’re darker. Hotter. Torn.
He leans in that last inch—
—and stops.
The muscles in his jaw jump. He drags in a breath like it tastes bad.
“I can’t,” he mutters. The word scrapes out of him. “Your father said I’d burn you. He wasn’t wrong.”
The confession hits me harder than a rejection. He isn’t stopping because he doesn’t want me. He’s stopping because he thinks he’s the contamination.
He’s a collection of damage and discipline. A live wire with a hand on the doorframe and my name in his mouth.
“Then maybe stop starting wars in my name,” I say, because it’s easier than saying I almost wanted the burn.
A real ghost of a smile flickers across his mouth. Gone almost instantly.
“Working on it,” he says.
His hand drops from the frame, leaving the metal cold. The absence of his body heat hits me like a gust of winter air.
“Go inside, Addison,” he says, voice back to rough and steady. “Lock your door.”
My fingers tighten on the handle. “You going to wait until you hear it click?” I ask softly.
He holds my gaze. “Yeah.”
The honesty of it punches the air out of my lungs.
I slip inside the building. The door is heavier than it looks; it closes with a solid, echoingthunk.
I turn the deadbolt on instinct. The mechanism slides home with a clean, final sound.
Through the narrow pane of glass, I see him.
He’s standing there under the harsh light, hood up, hands in his pockets, like a sentry posted at my door. The second the lock engages, he exhales. His shoulders drop half an inch.
The truck’s headlights flare a moment later—a brief, short flash in the night.
Then they cut, and he disappears down the drive, swallowed by the dark.
He tracked me. He waited for me. He stalked me across town just to make sure I got inside a locked door.
He’s the last person I should want anywhere near my walk home.
Which is exactly why my heart is pounding because he almost kissed me.
Chapter 10
Declan
Idon’tsleep.
Again.
It’s Monday night—two days since the benching kept me off the ice, two days since I waited in a freezing parking lot, two days since she was in my truck.
