The grief inside me opened, and something warmer rushed in behind it. Reckless. Alive. Desperate to prove I was still made of blood and breath and want, not just bruises and damage.
I rose on my toes and kissed him.
Not a brush this time.
A real kiss.
For one heartbeat, Dylan forgot to be careful.
His hand slid to the back of my head. His mouth moved against mine with a restrained ache that made my knees tremble for an entirely different reason. The world narrowed to him, to the cold wind and his warm hands, to the taste of midnight and danger and something I had no right wanting.
Then he pulled away like it cost him.
“Careful, Beautiful,” he said roughly.
I reached for him again.
He caught my wrists gently.
Not hard.
Never hard.
But enough.
“You’re still seventeen,” he said.
My cheeks burned. “A kiss isn’t illegal.”
“No.” His voice was low. “But that’s not what you’re asking for and we both know it.”
I swallowed.
“And even if age wasn’t part of it, your father is Edge. The enforcer. I’m newly patched, not suicidal.”
“You’re scared of him?”
“I’m intelligent about him.”
That almost made me smile.
Almost.
Dylan’s thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, tender enough to undo me.
“This kind of thing burns people,” he said.
I looked back at Mandy’s grave.
The wildflowers trembled in the wind.
“Exactly,” I whispered. “That’s why.”
His expression tightened.
“Destiny.”
I loved the way he said my name. Like a warning. Like a prayer he didn’t believe in but couldn’t stop repeating.
