Page 36 of Cross the Line
‘Don’t, Dev,’ she interrupts, her voice firm. ‘Just don’t. Let’s forget about it.’
The problem is, I can’t. I don’t think I ever will. And now that I know what she tastes like – sugar and the sweetest sin – I’ll never be able to get her off my mind.
——
Water splashing against my face has me spluttering and sitting up. My heart is still racing as the memory cuts out and I’m dragged back to reality. Ramrod straight now, I scan the yard, looking for the culprit, and when I spy Chava standing on the deck, I groan and slump back down. At least I’m not about to be murdered.
‘Man, how long have you been in this water?’ he asks as he looks me over, concern written across his face. ‘You’re redder than Mark when we leave him in the sun for more than five minutes.’
Our poor pale friend tends to turn the colour of strawberry jam when the sun finds him. I’ve never had the misfortune – god bless melanin – but apparently sitting in practically boiling water has the same visual effect.
‘Fell asleep.’ I mumble the lie, running my hands over my face. ‘Thanks for rescuing me before I drowned.’
‘That would be one way to get out of your contract,’ he chirps. He then holds up a plastic container. ‘I brought cake.’
‘I knew I kept you around for a reason.’
I haul myself up onto the edge of the hot tub, keeping my feet in the water as Chava toes off his shoes and does the same across from me, the container resting beside him.
‘What did you get up to all day?’ he asks, slowly kicking his legs. ‘I saw your board out front. You hit the water?’
I nod and drag a hand through my hair, still reorienting myself in the present as the night air brings my body temperature back down. ‘Yeah, Willow wanted to get some shots of me surfing, so we spent a couple hours out there.’
‘Oh,Willowwanted to spend time together, did she?’
I dip a hand into the water and splash him, leaving him cursing as he swipes it off his face. ‘It was purely professional, you dick.’
‘Uh-huh, sure,’ he says when he recovers. ‘When are you going to admit you’re into her?’
I glance at the Williamses’ house and back again. There’s practically no chance anyone is going to overhear our conversation, but I still drop my voice. ‘When I’m sure Oakley won’t murder me.’
‘Ah, so when hell freezes over.’ Chava nods sagely. ‘But honestly, man? I say go for it and deal with the consequences later.’
‘That’s because you’re a shit-stirrer with a death wish.’
He snorts. ‘You do dangerous stuff every day.’ But then he levels me with a look that has my head spinning all over again. ‘What’s one more risk?’
CHAPTER 13
Willow
I wake to Herman breathing loudly in my face.
With a groan, I sink my hands into the St Bernard’s fur and push hard against his chest. Of course, he doesn’t budge. He weighs more than I do, and my strength is no match for the love he has for me.
‘Herman.’ I crack one eye open. ‘Buddy, you’ve gotta move. I love you, I do, but could you give me a little space?’
He huffs, hot and loud, but acquiesces and flops down beside me. I pat his big head and smooth down his ears before rolling to the edge of my bed. I sit there for a bit to make sure I won’t get dizzy, then push myself up to my feet, grateful when my vision doesn’t swim with black dots. According to the clock on the nightstand, it’s a little after seven, though to be honest, I’ve been in so many time zones lately that time in general doesn’t feel real.
My laptop sits open on my bedside table, next to an array of stuffed animals and below a poster of the K-pop group I was obsessed with in high school. The screen is dark, but one tap on the macaron-crumb-covered keyboard would bring up Photoshop and the Word document I brain-dumped a bunch of captions for Dev’s future posts into. I thought they were pretty damn good at three a.m. Let’s see if that remains true in the light of day.
That review can wait until I’m with Dev, and I’m hoping to put that off for . . . as long as I can manage. I came a little too close to making bad decisions yesterday, and I need some distance in order to steel myself against his charm. Sometimes I’m not sure he realizes how flirty he is, no matter who he’s talking to. But other times I think he knows exactly what he’s doing and the effect it has. Especially on me.
But I’ve spent years burying this crush. When I drunkenly confessed my feelings, I didn’t expect anything to come of it; hell, I tried to brush the whole thing off.He’sthe one who made the first move. He’s the one who pushed me against the wall and shoved my dress up and let me feel parts of him I never thought I would.
But I didn’t say no. I didn’t put a stop to it until he pulled away. Even then, I didn’t want it to end, but fear kicked in, and I bolted down seven flights of stairs like an Olympic sprinter.
Some days I wish I hadn’t run. I wish I had stayed with my back against the wall and my legs wrapped around Dev’s waist. Who knows what would have come of it, but at least we wouldn’t be stuck in this strange holding pattern of lingering attraction we can’t act on. I’d give anything to go back to the way it was before I ruined it all.
