I held her tight, weaving my fingers into her hair, fusing her to me. She tasted both new and familiar, a contradiction that made me red-hot with need for more. I angled closer, my chest ramming against hers, my arms wrapping around her waist and back, pulling her flush against me, on me, so I could feel all of her. So she could feel all of me.
She kissed me hungrily. Her hands trekked my arms, chest, shoulders. There was no hesitation. Noshould we, nocould we. She kissed me like she already knew the answer.
A car door slammed shut just outside. Heels clicked on the path.
We jerked apart like guilty teenagers, hearts pounding, breathlessly staring at each other.
Her hair was tousled, her lips swollen from the force of our kiss.
“Shit,” I whispered.
“Cushions—” she hissed, already scrambling off me.
I followed, but right before she ducked out of the fort, she turned back.
We faced each other, breaths mingling, our mouths nearly brushing again.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Then she stepped away, and the spell broke.
We worked in frantic silence, tossing cushions back onto the sofa, straightening things just as Simon and Nicole stepped inside.
I ran a hand through my hair, keeping my expression neutral, but Simon’s gaze flicked between Rio and me, his brows knitting together.
Or maybe I was just imagining it.
Maybe.
But I could still taste Rio on my lips.
17
Rio
ONCE OR TWICE ... OKAY, more times than I cared to admit, after Owen had gone back to Europe, I found myself watching the sky and wondering if he was looking at the same one. But then I’d remember—the eight-hour time difference meant we weren’t even seeing the same color of sky. I’d look down and see the streets of Blueshore or the lawns of my soon-to-be-deserted college, while his gaze probably met the winding cobblestone alleys of some grand European city.
We weren’t looking at the same things. We weren’t the same.
Back then, I told myself it was just nostalgia—because he’d been an escape, a symbol of something bigger, better, something to aspire to. A success story in the making. A great dream while it lasted. I wasn’t missinghimas much as I was missing the version of myself I was when I was with him.
But now ... now I knew with certainty that when his knee healed and he left—and I knew he would because he was working hard toward it and his improvement was tangible—I wouldn’t just miss the idea of him. I’dmisshim.
Worse, I wouldn’t just miss him, but also my heart that he’d take with him for the road.
Looking through the car windshield on the way back from Simon’s, I cursed gravity—because it was the only way to explain the inevitable, forceful pull between us. But no matter how strong it was, we still weren’t the same.
Next to me, Owen was silent, maybe swallowed by guilt, too. That was the second emotion I’d seen on his face when my brother and Nicole walked in. The first was even more unsettling—a fierce willingness to torch everything for the sake of one moment.
Yet, feeling him next to me, his scent lingering on my skin, his touch etched on my body, his taste still in my mouth—I knew that if he so much as leaned in, I’d be caught in his gravity all over again.
Like guilty delinquents, exercising their right to remain silent, we walked up the path from the back of the house.
My mind ricocheted between all the reasons I couldn’t go for it, and the fact that we were about to be alone on the second floor, with two bedrooms waiting on either side, minutes after the kiss we’d shared—the heat, the hunger, the way he’d pulled me to him like he had a right to. And I let him, because I wanted it just as much.
“Your brother sure took his sweet time,” Walter announced from the sofa the moment we stepped inside.
Every light in the house was on, and Walter was wide awake.
