I let her touch me the way she wants to, let her put her hands on my body and kiss me wherever, however she wants. She touches me in a proprietary way, like I already belong to her, and I don’t mind. I kind of love it. And I let her take the lead for as long as I can bear it. She’s pulling upmy shirt, running her hands across my bare skin and telling me how much she likes my body, and I really feel like—like I can’t breathe. I feel too hot. Delirious but sharp, aware of this moment in an almost primal way.
She helps me pull off my shirt and then she just looks at me, first at my face and then at my chest, and she runs her hands across my shoulders, down my arms. “Wow,” she says softly. “You’re so gorgeous.”
That’s it for me.
I pick her up off my lap and lay her down, on her back, and she gasps, stares at me like she’s surprised. And then,deep, her eyes go deep and dark, and she’s looking at my mouth but I decide to kiss her neck, the curve of her shoulder.
“Nazeera,” I whisper, hardly recognizing the sound of my own voice. “I want you so badly it might kill me.”
Suddenly, someone is banging on my door.
“Bro, where the hell did you go?” Ian shouts. “Castle brought dinner up like ten minutes ago.”
I sit up too fast. I nearly pull a muscle. Nazeera laughs out loud, and even though she claps a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, she’s not quick enough.
“Uh— Hello?” Ian again. “Kenji?”
“I’ll be right there,” I shout back.
I hear him hesitate—his footsteps uncertain—and then he’s gone. I drop my head into my hands. Suddenly, everything comes rushing back to me. For a few minutes this moment with Nazeera felt like the whole world, a welcome reprieve from all the war and death and struggle. But now,with a little oxygen in my brain, I feel stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Juliette might bedead.
I get to my feet. I pull my shirt on quickly, careful not to meet her eyes. For some reason, I can’t bring myself to look at Nazeera. I have no regrets about kissing her—it’s just that I also feel suddenly guilty, like I was doing something wrong. Something selfish and inappropriate.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what got into me.”
Nazeera is tugging on her boots. She looks up, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“What we just”—I sigh, hard—“I don’t know. I forgot, for a moment, everything we have to do. The fact that Juliette might be out there, somewhere, being tortured to death. Warner might be dead. We’ll have to pack up and run, leave this place behind. God, there’s so much happening and I just— My head was in the wrong place. I’m sorry.”
Nazeera is standing up now. She looks upset. “Why do you keep apologizing to me? Stop apologizing to me.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I wince. “I mean— You know what I mean. Anyway, we should go.”
“Kenji—”
“Listen, you said you didn’t want a relationship, right? You didn’t want to be my girlfriend? You don’t think that this”—I mimic what she did earlier, motioning between us—“could ever work? Well, then—” I take a breath. Run a hand through my hair. “This is what not being my girlfriend looks like. Okay? There are only a few people in my lifewho actually care about me, and right now my best friend is probably being murdered by a bunch of psychopaths, and I should be out there, doing something.”
“I didn’t realize you and Warner were so close,” she says quietly.
“What?” I frown. “No, I’m talking about Juliette,” I say. “Ella. Whatever.”
Nazeera’s eyebrows go high.
“Anyway, I’m sorry. We should probably just keep this professional, right? You’re not looking for anything serious, and I don’t know how to have casual relationships anyway. I always end up caring too much, to be honest, so this probably wasn’t a good idea.”
“Oh.”
“Right?” I look at her, hoping, suddenly, that there was something I missed, something more than the cool distance in her eyes. “Didn’t you just tell me that we’re too different? That you don’t even live here?”
She turns away. “Yes.”
“And have you changed your mind in the last thirty seconds? About being my girlfriend?”
She’s still staring at the wall when she says, “No.”
Pain shoots up my spine, gathers in my chest. “Okay then,” I say, and nod. “Thanks for your honesty. I have to go.”
