“It’ll get uglier.”
“That isn’t flirting.”
“It wasn’t trying to be.”
Jade leaned down and pressed a kiss near the edge of the bruise, soft enough that it didn’t hurt and hard enough that every thought in me went quiet.
Then she lifted her face. “There. I was nice. Don’t get attached.”
I was already attached.
I caught her face in both hands and kissed her again.
This time she opened for me with no trick behind it. Her tongue met mine, and her hands moved over my chest, my shoulders, the tattooed skin she’d only seen in motel light before. I lifted her onto the counter, and she hooked her legs around my hips, pulling me between them.
The kitchen window threw morning light over her face, her loose braid, the black tank she’d worn too many hours, the overshirt hanging off one shoulder. She looked exhausted and dirty and alive.
I wanted to call her mine, not as a claim over her, but because it was the closest word for what I felt and the only one I didn’t have the nerve to say.
I kissed the side of her neck, then the small hidden mark behind her ear.
Jade’s fingers dug into my shoulders.
“That mark almost ruined me,” I said against her skin.
“It saved Crystal.”
“It did both.”
Her breath caught. “Don’t make it sound important.”
“It is important.”
“Dex.”
I lifted my head. “Jade.”
Her real name landed between us and stayed there.
She stared at me for one long second, then pulled me back to her kiss hard enough to knock my common sense loose.
I carried her to the bedroom.
It wasn’t smooth. My ribs objected.
“You’re an injured idiot,” Jade said.
“You’re welcome to walk.”
She tightened her legs around my waist. “Don’t get dramatic.”
By the time we reached the bed, both of us were breathing hard.
The room was plain: gray sheets, a dresser, boots by the closet, and one window with the blinds half-open and sun cutting across the floor. There was no neon, no stale motel air, and no sound except our breathing and the small catch in Jade’s throat when I set her down on the mattress.
I knelt and unlaced her boots.
She froze.
