He’d offered to give me a lift home, and I couldn’t find either of my friends, so I sent them a text letting them know I was ducking out early. Bailey had almost certainly gone off to some bedroom with Tyler, and as for Janel… Well, I’d have to track her down later to get the whole story.
“Thanks again, but I could have gotten an Uber or something,” I told Ivan as he walked me up to the porch. His foreign scent still lingered around me. The awkwardness over the kiss that wasn’t had mostly faded, and Ivan was back to being funny and charming, like nothing had ever happened.
“It’s cool; you have no idea how jealous my friends are right now,” he said, winking at me, and I grinned back at him.
“Well, just imagine how many girls are currently seething at me, Captain,” I said teasingly as he strolled easily alongside me, hands tucked into the pouch of his basketball hoodie.
“Yeah, there’s probably a few of them wondering where I went,” he said with a strange grimace.
“But you are going back, right? Night’s still young,” I said knowingly. Surely his night was going to end like all his friends’—in bed with someone or other.
“Well, since you shot me down so hard, I’ll have to console myself somehow, won’t I?”
We stopped a few feet from the porch steps and looked at each other.
“Fair warning: Next time I want to kiss you, I’ll know better than to ask for permission,” he said archly, his gaze drifting to my mouth. His green eyes lingered on me longer than they should have, and all at once, I got the feeling that we were being watched. It was probably just paranoia, but it was uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, tracking my gaze as I glanced around at the darkness that surrounded us.
“Nothing,” I said reassuringly, giving my head a shake.
“Well, I’ll head out then. See you around.” Ivan leaned toward me, and I immediately turned to give him my cheek. He bent down—he had to bend quite a ways—and kissed my cheek, his lips warm against my skin. I had once made the mistake of jumping into something while I was still entangled with Jared, and I refused to do the same thing with Neil. Even though we weren’t together and I didn’t owe him anything, I valued my feelings for him too highly to pursue anyone else. Despite the unrelenting disappointment about how things were going between us, the things I felt for him hadn’t changed, and they weren’t going to change. Because, when you really love someone, they become a part of you, and there’s no replacing them.
I wasn’t sure exactly when Neil had become a part of me. Maybe he had been from the start.
From the moment I looked into his dazzling eyes on that city sidewalk.
And no matter how sad or frustrated I was, I would jealously guard that part of him that lived inside me.
Because I could still dream, and in my dreams, he could love me.
“I think I’d better go inside.” I half-turned, and Ivan’s jaw tensed up before he arranged his lips into a tight smile. He was just about to say something more when someone else beat him to it.
“Yeah, I think you should.”
That voice—intense and rough—obviously did not belong to Ivan.
For a second, I thought I had hallucinated it, but that was impossible. The shivers that moved over my body could only have been caused by one person: Neil.
I went very still before turning slowly, searching the darkness for him. A moment later, I picked out a dark silhouette on the porch steps, barely outlined by the distant lights from the front walk. My arms fell slack against my sides, and I stood there in shock. I squinted to make sure it was indeed him, and as I did so, he lit a cigarette. I saw his face in the glow of the lighter, a stormy glower making his perfect face look ominous.
Even cloaked in that diabolical aura, he was breathtakingly beautiful. I blushed like a schoolgirl and struggled to draw in a full breath.
“Hey, Tinkerbell,” he said softly.
5
“If you want me, it has to be just me!”
Selene
I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my head.
After greeting me, Neil stared into the middle distance, looking lost in his own thoughts. He kept taking long drags from his cigarette and then blowing out the smoke in a methodical, automatic fashion. It felt like he wasn’t really present.
His body was, but his mind was far away.
“Who’s this guy?” Ivan asked with an edge of concern in his voice. I had no idea how to describe—let alone explain—Neil and what he was to me.
