“You’re cheating.”
Emery smirks. “You’re just bad at math.”
I lean in, close enough to smell the berry-paint in her hair. “You’re ruthless, Grey.”
She bites her lip. “You can call me Emery, if you want.”
“Okay, Emery.” It feels good. Real. I’m not sure why we even started using her last name more often. Distance, maybe?
I don’t want that distance anymore. Distance is thelastthing I want in this moment.
Emery looks at me for a long time. “I like you, Silverwood.”
The air has shifted with her words. On the surface, they feel light and friendly, but the energy behind them is anything but. It’s heavier. More intense. “I like you, too.” And then for some reason my mind starts to backtrack from the intensity of this moment. “Even if you’re a cheater.”
Emery follows me into my cowardice and refuses to let me fall to it.
She leans in, and for a split second I brace myself for an ambush—maybe a headbutt, maybe a wisecrack whispered straight to my mouth. But what happens is stranger and infinitely simpler: she kisses me, quick and neat, like she’s just crossing a line to see if it’s really there.
The contact is soft, barely a breath, but it’s like the circuit in my chest finally closes. The whole room is whiplash silent. The pressure in my arm, the pounding at my ribs, the wiry tangle of pain under my bandages—gone. In its place is a new, electric ache, one I’m certain I’ve never had before.
I stare at her. Is that it? Was that a test, a prank, another non sequitur in the ever-expanding dictionary of Emery Grey? But no—she’s grinning, pink smudged across her cheeks, hair wild from static and whatever force just passed between us. Her eyes are shining, impossibly blue, and for a second she looks ten years younger and eons older at the same time.
I clear my throat, or try to. “You’re going to ruin me.”
She cocks her head, like she’s genuinely considering the possibility. “That’s the plan,” she says, and this time she doesn’t wait for me to process it. She pulls me back in, mouth hungry and careless, teeth catching on my lower lip like she’s trying to leave evidence.
She tastes like the marshmallows we’ve been eating, sugar and synthetic vanilla, but underneath that is the more complicated taste of her—her skin, her sweat, the penny-brighttang that tells me she’s half a second from climbing into my lap if I let her.
I let her.
She hitches forward, knees bracketing my thighs, and I know my face is burning but I don’t care. Her hands are on my jaw, my neck, the side of my head like she’s trying to learn the shape of it from memory. I’m afraid to touch her, afraid the spell will break, but then she grabs my wrist and shoves my hand up under her hoodie, where her stomach is bare and warm and impossibly soft.
The contact stuns me. I freeze, fingers splayed against her hipbone, and the heat of her skin feels like it’s burning through every layer of sense I have left. She makes a sound, a noise I’ve never heard from her before, and it’s so honest that my heart stutters.
“Okay?” she asks, voice low.
I nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”
She slides her tongue against mine, slow and deliberate, and I forget about everything else—the games, the bravado, Wyatt’s warnings, even the painkillers. I just want more.
The next kiss is longer, messier. We’re both shaky, but Emery doesn’t retreat. She gets bolder, tilting her head, tangling her fingers in my hair to keep me exactly where she wants. My pulse is hammering in my jaw, in my throat, everywhere she touches. My hands are on her now, arms, back, mapping muscle and bone and the sharp, sweet line of her waist.
I realize I’m grinning into her mouth, and she feels it, because she laughs, teeth grazing mine.
“See,” she says between kisses, “told you I’d win the horror movie.”
I choke out a laugh, breathless. “You’re a monster.”
She shrugs, then kisses me again, and this time I forget to keep score.
She’s relentless, and I never stand a chance. She kisses me until the world melts down to just us, two idiots on a bed, neither of us saying out loud what’s happening but both of us knowing it’s irreversible. It’s not just the attraction or the physicality or the way our bodies fit together like a puzzle with too many sharp edges. It’s the way she looks at me, the way she lets me see her—unfiltered, unafraid, like she’s decided I’m worth the risk of being known.
We break apart only when the sun shifts, burning our shadows across the comforter, and both of us are gasping for air, hair a mess, skin flushed like we’ve just run a marathon in place.
I have a feeling this is just the beginning of a marathon I never want to end.
CHAPTER 17
