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“Marlowe.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been telling myself I needed to keep my distance because I was protecting you.”

“Yeah?”

“Tonight you waded into the Pacific in your underwear and told a binding to its face that you reject it.”

“Was it a test?”

“I didn’t mean it to be.”

He leaned across the console.

His mouth found mine in the dark. He tasted like salt and wine. His hand touched my jaw as if he were afraid it might break.

For a moment the kiss was only that.

His thumb moved once across my cheekbone, and I felt his discipline give just enough that I knew what he was holding back.

A little sound escaped my mouth, and he pulled back, enough to see me. The dashboard light caught the side of his face and the salt drying at his hairline and the look in his eyes that I’ve been trying not to forget ever since.

“I’m—”

“Don’t,” I said.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t apologize. Don’t pull away. Don’t be careful with me right now.”

He looked at me for a long second, then kissed me again, his hands finding my neck, my shoulder, and I was quickly lost in him, only wishing that time would stretch out and give me hours of just that. Since I’d met him, I’d chased the hunger flowing beneath his restraint like a river under ice. Now I felt it under my skin.

I was still holding the necklace. “Should I wear this?”

“If you want to. Forget about its past. Just think of it as a gift from me.”

“Did you pick it out?”

“Yes.”

“Did you dip it in blood and program it to lure me to a monster?”

“No. That was them.”

“Then I want to.”

He flipped on the dome light and took the necklace from me.

I swiped my hair aside, and he fastened the necklace around my neck. It rested right above my collarbone.

The drive home was warm and mostly quiet, maybe because we both knew we’d crossed some line that changed the space between us. He knew a little better now what he’d told himself he couldn’t have. Enough that his touch already felt less fused with caution.

But there was still a tension in his jaw and shoulders. I saw it in the dashboard light, when he didn’t quite relax after easing around a tight bend in the road.

He noticed me noticing. “We need to be careful. We can’t let our guard down.”

I turned toward him in my seat. “What are you afraid of, really?”