me, deep need smoldering behind his eyes. The intensity of that need—the staggering depth of his longing—slammed into me like a wave on the side of a ship, threatening to knock me overboard. To toss me into that turbulent sea, where the current would surely carry me away.
His finger traced my lower lip, his gaze locked onto mine, and my mouth opened, ready for his again.
His hesitance was a terrible mercy. I could barely breathe with him touching me, so overwhelmed was I by … everything. But he smelled so good, and felt so good, I didn’t want him to stop, even if I never breathed again.
This time I kissed him, taking what I wanted, delighted and astonished by his willingness to let me. My head was so full of Nash I wasn’t sure I’d ever think about anything else again …
Until the bedroom door opened.
Nash jerked back so fast he left me gasping in surprise. I blinked, slowly struggling up from the wave of sensations I wanted to ride again. My cheeks flamed as I smoothed my ponytail.
“Dinner, huh?” Ms. Hudson stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest, a fresh smear of chocolate on the hem of her shirt. She frowned at us, but didn’t look particularly angry or surprised.
Nash rubbed his face with both hands. I sat there, speechless, and more embarrassed than I’d ever been in my life. But at least we’d been caught by his mother, rather than my uncle. That, I would never have recovered from.
“Let’s leave the door open for real this time, huh?” She turned to leave, but then her gaze caught on the computer screen, where Alyson Baker’s picture still stared out at the room. Something dark flickered across her face—fear, or concern?—then her expression hardened as she leveled it at her son.
“What are you two doing?” she demanded softly, obviously no longer referring to our social interaction.
“Nothing.” Nash’s expression carried just as much weight as his mother’s had, but I couldn’t read anything specific in his, though the tension in the room spiked noticeably.
“I should go.” I stood, already digging my keys from my pocket.
“No.” Nash took my hand.
Ms. Hudson’s expression softened. “You really don’t have to,” she said. “Stay and have some cookies. Just leave the door open.” She eyed Nash on that last part, and tension drained from the air as her frown melted.
Nash rolled his eyes but nodded. Then they both turned to me, waiting for my answer.
“Thanks, but I have some homework to finish….” And Nash’s mother had just caught us making out on his bed, which felt very much like the end of the night to me.
Nash walked me to my car and kissed me again, his body pressing mine into the driver’s side door, our hands intertwined. Then I drove home in a daze and floated straight to my room, ignoring every less-than-subtle hint for information Sophie tossed my way. And only later would I realize that I had, in fact, forgotten all about the dead girls and was still thinking about Nash when I fell asleep.
5
“INSIDE OR OUT?” Nash set his tray on the nearest table and dug in his pocket. Coins jingled, barely audible over the clatter of silverware and the buzz of several dozen simultaneous conversations, and he pulled out a handful of change, already turning toward the soda machine.
The autumn morning had dawned clear and cool, but by third period, it was warm enough for my biology teacher to open the windows in the lab and vent the acrid scent of chemical preservatives. “Out.” Lunch in the quad sounded good to me, especially considering the swarm of student bodies in the cafeteria, and the dozen or so people who had already noticed his fingers curled around mine in the pizza line.
Including his latest ex, who now glared at me from within a cocoon of hostile cheerleader clones.
I glanced over my shoulder at Emma, who nodded. “I’ll get a table.” She turned and dodged a freshman carrying three ice-cream bars, who almost knocked her tray from her hands.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, then stopped to watch her, his expression a blend of blatant lust and longing. Emma didn’t even notice.
Nash pulled two Cokes from the machine and set one on my tray, then we wove our way around two tables to the center aisle, headed straight for the exit. I could practically feel the eyes of my classmates trained on my back, and it was everything I could do not to squirm beneath their scrutiny. How could he stand people watching him all the time?
We were two feet from the double doors leading into the quad when they swung open, only inches from smacking into my tray. A gaggle of slim girls in matching letterman jackets brushed past us, several pausing to smile at Nash. One even ran her fingers down his sleeve, and I was startled by the sudden, irrational urge to slap her hand away. Which proved unnecessary when he walked past her with nothing but a distracted nod.
Sophie was the only one who even glanced my way, and her expression could hardly be considered friendly. Until it landed on Nash. She let her arm brush his as she passed, glancing up into his eyes, a carnal smile turning up one corner of her perfectly made-up mouth in blatant, unspoken invitation.
Seconds later, the dancers were gone, leaving behind a cloud of perfume strong enough to burn my eyes. I stomped through the still-open doors and down the steps. Nash jogged to catch up with me. He carried his tray in one hand, and his opposite arm snaked around my waist, fingers curling around my hip with an intimate familiarity that made my pulse spike. “She’s just trying to piss you off.”
“She says she’s been in your backseat.” I couldn’t keep suspicion from my tone. Yes, his hand on my hip made a very public statement, and that—along with his silence on the matter of my mental health—finally put to rest my stubborn fear that he’d planned a quick hookup over the weekend, and would be done with me by Monday.
But Nash had never even tried to deny the rumors of his past exploits, and I couldn’t stand the thought that Sophie had been one of them.
“What?” He stopped in the middle of the quad, frowning down at me in obvious confusion.
“The back of your car. She says there’s a rip in your backseat and wants me to think she’s seen it up close.”
Nash chuckled softly and started walking again as he spoke, so that I had no choice but to follow. “Um …yeah. She put it there. She was wrecked the night I took her home, and she threw up all over the front floorboard. I put her in the back, and she got some stupid buckle on her shoe caught in the stitching and ripped it loose.”
I laughed, and my anger melted like Sophie’s makeup in July. In fact, I almost felt sorry for her—but not too sorry to dangle that little nugget of information in front of my cousin the next time she flirted with Nash in front of me.
The quad was actually a long rectangle, surrounded on three sides by various wings of the school building, with the cafeteria entrance on the end of one long wall. The fourth side opened up to the soccer and baseball practice fields at the rear of the campus.
Emma had claimed a table in the far corner, mostly sheltered from the wind by the junction of the language and science halls. I sat on the bench opposite her, and Nash slid in next to me. His leg touched mine from hip to knee, which was enough to keep me warm from the inside
