Page 83 of Some Kind of Haunted

He stares at me for a moment, like he doesn’t understand why I’m not berating him for not saving my mother the way grown-up Jack certainly would have.

“The point is she told me about you,” he says, a little more fiercely now. Back to the Jack I know, always with the warnings and the dire and the everything is about to end, and badly. He takes my hands in his, pulls them off his face. “She told me about us.”

He sounds growly and indignant. He does not release my hands.

“What about us, exactly?” I ask.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t feel it,” he mutters. “From the very first moment.”

“Feel what, Jack?” I demand of him, squeezing the hands that hold mine. “If you can’t say it, then I don’t think you felt anything.”

He scowls down at me. “You looked up at me from the booth, our eyes met, and there was a jolt. It was like getting a swift kick to the stomach.”

It is exactly what I felt. That wild jolting moment. He describes it like a blow, though I’m not sure I would. It was more like something being unlocked.

A release. Not an attack.

I’m tempted to get my feelings hurt that he took it that way—but I can’t quite get there.

It’s the way he’s looking at me, something like affront all over his gruff, beautiful face. It’s the way I can tell he can’t bring himself to let my hands go.

Maybe it’s the demons or the stories about my mother or having to sleep in creepy antique stores. Maybe without all of that I would have just stood here in this moment, let it roll over me, and then let both of us go our separate ways.

If his gaze didn’t drop to my mouth. If I didn’t feel that kick he described all over again.

“You could,” I tell him, without articulating what I mean.

But his gaze lifts to mine again. He knows what I mean.

He knows exactly what I mean. You could touch me, kiss me, find the fuck out.

Yet, Jack doesn’t move. “Aren’t we dealing with enough danger?”

It’s kind of funny the man who has contended with demons his entire life—who has been lured by them and saved from them, studied them and tried to stop them—thinks I’m dangerous.

It’s a hell of a lot better than crazy, I’ll grant you.

Maybe that’s why I decide to dive into danger rather than sidestep it. If he won’t find out, I will.

So I close the distance between our mouths and I kiss him, again.

And I brace myself for him to set me aside—again.

Once he does, I will really have to contend with why I throw myself into unwinnable situations. Is there a brick wall in the vicinity? Let me pound my head against it!

But first, I kiss him.

And this time, Jack kisses me back.

It’s a rush of heat. His mouth is hot and frustrated. I’ve never kissed someone who was this infuriated, and not by me, really. That, I’m used to. Jack is pissed about this situation.

By our connection.

But I can taste him and I know, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this man does not hate me. He does not find me repulsive.

It’s quite the fucking opposite, and knowing him like I do by now, I suspect it’s the distraction from his mission that’s the real issue here.

Though that’s not an issue right now.