And I can feel her heart pounding against my chest, matching the rhythm of my own.
"How?" Her voice is barely audible over the booming fireworks. "How does this end?"
I pull back enough to meet her eyes.
They're blazing with fury and fear and need—desire she's trying so desperately to hide, that I've seen in a thousand photographs but never up close, never this close, never close enough to taste.
"With you," I tell her, "exactly where you belong."
Another firework explodes. Blue this time, cascading across the sky.
She shoves me. Hard.
I let her go.
Every cell in my body screams at me to hold on, to pull her back, to pin her against that railing and kiss her until she stops fighting.
I let her go anyway.
She stumbles back, chest heaving, eyes wild.
For a moment I think she might hit me again—and God, I hope she does—but instead she stares at me with something that looks almost like grief.
"This isn't over," she says.
"No." I straighten my shirt, touch my fingers to my cheek where she slapped me. The skin is hot and swollen. I'll wear the bruise for days.
I'll treasure every second of it.
"It's only beginning."
She walks away. Doesn't run—too proud for that—but she walks fast, her white dress disappearing down the stairs and into the crowd below.
I let her go.
I could chase her. Could press my advantage, corner her somewhere private, make her admit what we both know is true.
But the taste of her skin is still on my lips from that brief brush against her ear.
The feel of her body is still burning against mine. The echo of her pulse still throbs beneath my thumb.
I can wait a little longer.
She'll come to me.
When she's exhausted every other option, when she's beaten herself bloody against the bars of the cage I built, when she finally accepts that there's no way out that doesn't lead through me.
She'll come.
And when she does, when she finally stops fighting and surrenders to what's been burning between us since she was sixteen years old—it will be worth every second of the wait.
I turn back to the fireworks and watch them paint the sky in colors of fire.
Happy Independence Day, Liberty.
Enjoy it while you can.
CHAPTER FIVE
