This fucking kills me.
“Rosabelle—”
She moves back a step and I follow blindly, listening as her heels hit the baseboard. Then she turns us, tradingplaces so I’m the one backed up against the wall.
I’m breathing hard. Confused. “What—What are you—”
She pushes up the hem of my shirt, exposing my upper body, and the cool night air on my chest leaves me almost disoriented. I feel wasted. Drugged out of my mind. The ghostly moonlight and surreal texture of the dark make this all feel impossible, and when her fingers slide against my bare skin, I think I’m dreaming.
I’m lightheaded, rigid and straining for control.
She keeps her hands on me as she brings her face to my torso, and I feel her warm breath, her silken mouth skimming ridges of muscle. “Fuck,” I gasp. “Rosabelle—”
My heart is beating out of my body.
Her hands glide up my chest; her nose grazes my ribs, her lips a whisper. I inhale sharply as she rests her soft cheek against my wild, beating heart, and then, just when I think I might lose my fucking mind, she turns her face, pressing a tender kiss just above my rib cage.
I think maybe I could die from this. Just this.
When she draws back I feel like I’ve been shot. I can’t even move right away. I don’t know what just happened to me. It takes a full second for my mind to catch up to my body, and when it does I feel volcanic, desperate like I’ve never been in my life. I catch her in my arms, turning her around—
Nazeera bursts back into the diner, the bell ringing ominously as the door slams open.
34
James
Nazeera comes to a sudden and complete stop at the threshold, wearing weapons like ornaments, and stares at us in shock.
Her visible horror is somehow not enough to clear the heat from my head. I’m so far gone it doesn’t even occur to me to be embarrassed.
I feel like I’ve been recently murdered.
I can’t remember how to speak.
“I was gone for like twenty minutes,” Nazeera says, stunned. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
In response, Rosabelle puts half the diner between us. She retreats so far into the shadows I can hardly see her face. I look in her direction anyway, spasms of feeling still branching through my veins, stealing my breath. I can still taste her on my tongue. I can still feel her mouth on my skin. I tug blindly at the hem of my shirt, checking to make sure I’m decent. I’m grateful it’s dark in here. There’s nothing I can do about these pants.
She kissed mychest.
I feel drunk. I want to lie down on the ground.
Nazeera shakes her head at me in disappointment, then wordlessly tosses a rifle in my direction.
I catch it on instinct.
She tosses me a magazine. I catch that, too.
“Well,” she says, “at least part of your brain still appears to be working.”
“Yeah,” I say, taking a breath. I feel like maybe someone should punch me in the face.
“So?” says Nazeera, glancing between us. “Did you ask her?”
“What?” I take another breath. “Ask her what?”
“James!”
