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I take the dare instead, climbing to my feet. He evades me easily, shifting out of my reach with the grace of a dancer. The second time I snatch for the cigarette, he’s ready for me, and puckered lips deliver a cloud of smoke directly into my face. Rather than cough, my lips part, letting in every cloying bit of air.
The action backfires. Sucking him down into my lungs only soothes the itch in my skin for a heartbeat. The moment I exhale, the pain returns like a slap, so raw it’s crippling.
“What am I doing here?” I choke out. My knees buckle. The next second I’m on the floor, face in my hands, stomach clenching up into a knot.
“Alright, alright. Here.” My wrist is snatched from above, a thin sliver of tobacco shoved between my fingers before I can react. He guides the butt to my mouth, and I see flames, lighting up the end.
“Inhale,” Daze commands.
I do so slowly, relishing the burn of every ounce of tainted air over the tender flesh of my throat. I hold my breath so long my lungs protest, and it takes another order to get me to exhale.
“Blow.”
The moment I breathe out, a face comes into focus, gray-eyed and emotionless. Most people these days look at me with pity. He simplylooksat me. I’m not sure which scrutiny is preferable.
Maybe it’s him. I’m used to being gaped at, but no one else tempts me to stare back. Gawk.
He’s older than I first thought. At least late-twenties or early thirties. Tiny lines and wrinkles distort what once was boyish perfection, leaving him weathered. Hard. He’s more worn out than the floor, and I can’t stop myself from swiping my thumb against his chiseled jaw, feeling him for myself.
Ouch.He’s not like I expect, as cold as concrete. He’s softer. Burning.
“Why were you at the bridge?” I murmur. Maybe I really want to know. Or I just want the noise. Talking fills the silence, and suddenly that’s all that matters. Blissful chatter where Hale’s voice can’t echo. “Were you really ‘sightseeing’?”
He shakes his head but doesn’t shrug off my touch. That emboldens me to add. “Your friend Ben made it sound like you’re…involved in something dangerous.” I’m still touching him, trailing my thumb down to the corner of his mouth. “He kept looking at me—”
“Now you’re paranoid as well as depressed?” His eyes narrow, their color changing like the churning surface of the bay. I stare, both riveted and alarmed. He’s unreadable one minute. Unbearable the next, brimming with emotion. Then he laughs, and all expression vanishes. He’s empty again.
“Tell me something,Frey,” he says. “And don’t lie to me. Your plan wasn’t to jump. You wanted to cause a scene.” He taps my chin in return, sliding the pad of his thumb over my skin.
“A what?” I ask, blinking innocently.
“Attention,” he growls, finding the corner of my mouth—we’re mirror images of each other now, and I can’t recall a more perilous feeling.
My heart hammers like crazy, my skin on fire. No man has ever touched me like this. Ever.
But,a part of me scolds,I touched him first.
“Pretty little thing about to jump off a bridge. I bet you thought the whole world would stop and stare. That’s what you wanted. To be fucking seen. But you should have questionedwhomight be watching.”
He was. A man with blood on his hands who thinks I’m pretty.
“You want to know what I really want?” I ask him tiredly. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to be good. I want to do something bad. Like smoke.”
“That request I can oblige.” He rears back, a wicked grin shaping his lips. For the first time, I realize that he’s on his knees, down to my level. I crane my neck to meet his gaze, and I’m left eyeing a square chin and broad nose that flares as he takes me in.
“Open,” he commands after taking a drag of his lit cigarette.
The other cigarette trembles in my grasp. I’ve never smoked before in my life. Rather than lift it, I wait. When he exhales, my lips part, and I inhale him all the way down to the base of my lungs.
He smells good beneath the nicotine and blood. Like heat and strength and those weird intangible things young women aren’t supposed to notice in men. Attraction is a foreign concept in my world. Lust is a sin. Even kissing Colton was flirting with a dangerous line. Father would kill me if he knew. He’d kill me twice if he knew I was here, committing a worse sin than Hale and his drugs ever could. Until marriage, my only worth lies in being a virgin, untouched and pristine.
But I don’t feel clean. I feel so dirty I can’t stand it.
“Stop being polite,” Daze scolds. I flinch at his tone. It’s like he’s inside my head, scoffing at what he sees. “Just say why you’re here. What you really fucking want from me.”
“Answers,” I blurt. “Tell me about the tattoo. Please. I mean… Now.”
“Fine, but I doubt it means anything to someone like you.” He dismissively eyes my skirt and sweater. “It’s the symbol of the Saints. Ever heard of them?”
