The air feels like it’s gone out of our balloon.
“So…” she says lightly. “See you next Tuesday, then?”
I let out a breath that feels like defeat. “Yeah. Next Tuesday.”
She steps past me, brushing my arm as she goes—the briefest touch, but enough to send a shock through me.
Then she turns, smirking, eyes glinting with something wicked and sweet.
“Don’t worry,” she says, voice low. “We won’t tell Damien about our little…hang.”
“Probably best to keep it between us.”
“Oh, and I almost forgot this.” She reaches into her purse, grabs something, and hands it to me. “Your card.”
“Ah. Right,” I say as I take it. “Would have been a shame if you had to deliver it again.”
She winks, and walks away, hips swaying like she knows exactly what she just did to me.
I stand there in the cold night air, pulse still thundering, wanting her more than I’ve wanted anything in a long, long time.
Tuesday can’t come soon enough.
Chapter Nine
ELENA
The cool night air hits me like a slap the second I turn the corner.
Not because it’s cold.
Because I nearly kissed him.
Because he had me pinned—gently, but undeniably—against a brick wall.
My body isstillhumming.
I walk fast at first, like motion might somehow dilute the intensity still burning under my skin.
It doesn’t.
Every step echoes the same thought:
Did that really happen?
I touch my lips with my fingertips—totally involuntary—like maybe they’ll still be warm from him almost being there.
“Oh my God,” I whisper to no one. “Oh my God.”
People pass me on the sidewalk: couples, friends, a guy eating pizza straight out of the box, and every single one of them looks stable, normal, sane.
Meanwhile I’m floating down the street like a woman whose molecules just rearranged.
I replay it.
His hand braced beside my head.
His eyes were dark and intense, starving but trying so hard to be good.
