“Melody,” he says again. “Is that what youreallythink?”
I look at him and I say the only thing I can.
“Prove me wrong.”
Something breaks in his expression before he kisses me softly. Not a kiss to seduce, it’s a kiss to keep. Then he wraps his arms around me, scooping me up in his arms
“I will,” he says, plants a kiss on my forehead.
Chapter thirteen
~JACE~
I wake up to the kind of sounds that make you never want to leave. No alarms, just seagulls, soft voices from outside, and the ocean waves.
Melody’s back is warm against my chest, her hips tucked into mine like we were made to fit that way. My arm’s slung over her, hand splayed low across her bare stomach.
And for the first time in… fuck, I don’t even know how long, I don’t want to move.
I just want to stay. I’m usually out the door the second I get it over with. But that’s the thing—this wasn’t me “getting it over with”. This was me doing something I’ve been craving for overten months. And it turns out the secret ingredient to great sex is… feelings.
That should scare me. But what really starts clawing at my ribs is something worse.
There’s another man. Who is technically me, but thereisanother fucking man.
I’m in a damn love triangle withmyself. The filtered version of me. The mask, the mystery, the safe little fantasy.
She sends him thoughts she won’t say out loud, confessions, shit that makes my stomach twist when I read it—because she doesn’t know I’m on the other end.
I glance down at her. Her lashes flutter against her cheek, and her lips are slightly parted. She’s still got faint marks on her hips from where I held her down.
Well, I’m definitely ahead of him. Ghost hasn’t hadthis.
I win.
I beat me.
...Right?
Except that smile dies before it even reaches my mouth. Because the second I think it, another thought hits me like a puck to the chest.
Melody’s split between two people.
Physically with one. Emotionally obsessed with the other.
Is this what she does?
What if next time, Jace is the guy in her phone, not Ghost? What if I’m the one getting the late-night texts—andsome other guyis in bed with her?
What if I just played myself into becoming the exact man I swore I’d never be again?
I feel it in my chest, that heat that starts cold. The kind that seeps into your bones when the past sneaks in and takes a seat at the table.
I’ve been here before. I’ve lived this before. Watching a girl lie to my face with lips that taste like another man.
I try my best to remind myself that Melody is not…that.I blink, trying to reason with myself.
Melody shifts a little in her sleep, sighs, and leans back into me. A sleepy little sigh rolls off her lips as she shifts again, spinestretching against me. Her legs tangle with mine and dark eyes blink open, still glazed with that lazy, post-sex daze.
