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“I’m eighteen soon.”
“You’re just a kid.”
Her breath hitched. “Is that really what you see when you look at me? A kid?” Peyton sat up, fixing her eyes right on me. “Because other men don’t look at me like I’m a kid. They look at me with lust in their eyes. You look at me with—”
“Stop, just stop.” I sighed deeply. “This… us, it can’t ever happen. You’re in high school, Peyton. And I’m… I’m no good for a girl like you.”
Not to mention the fact I worked there.
Hurt etched into her expression but she didn’t look away. “Being with you… it makes everything quiet, Xander.”
Fuck.
Fuck!
“Sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe.” Her voice was quiet. Too fucking quiet. “Everyone around me is getting on with their lives and I’m… I’m stuck. I dream about that night constantly. I dream about slipping under the water and feeling it fill my lungs. The cold water turning my blood to ice.
“I dream about you pulling me out. You think my friends want to hear that? That they want to know that I can’t get the image of my mom out of my head… the blood. So much blood.”
Silent tears guttered down her cheeks, shattering some piece deep inside me. Before I could stop myself, I pulled Peyton into my arms, sliding one hand into her thick waves and cupping the back of her head as I tucked her against my body.
“Ssh, I got you, I got you,” I whispered, gently rocking us as she sobbed quietly.
I knew what it felt like to be alone, to carry such a burden. My mother hadn’t neglected me, not at all. She’d loved me fiercely and fought to stay with me. But when she had finally lost her fight with the tumor, something inside me had broken, and never quite fixed itself.
I could barely remember her, just a glimmer of her soft voice and warm smile. The lingering memory of her singing to me and holding me. Twenty years later, I couldn’t remember much at all about her, but I could remember every minute without her.
Peyton’s slim fingers twisted into my sweater and I inhaled a sharp breath as she pressed herself closer.
The right thing, the wise thing, would have been to gently slide her off my lap and take her home. But as I held her, I realized we were past that. Past the point of pretending something wasn’t happening between us.
Even if I couldn’t act on it, even if I wouldn’t act on it, I could do this. I could hold and comfort her.
I could let her know she wasn’t alone.
But then I felt her shift. Her cheeks brushed mine, her warm lips skating across my face as she inhaled a shuddering breath. Then she was kissing me. Barely a whisper of a touch, yet I felt it all the way to the pit of my stomach.
“Xander,” she whispered, turning her head slightly and sliding her mouth against mine again. Harder. More determined.
My entire body shuddered as I smothered the involuntary moan rumbling in my chest. “Peyton, no…”
“Please, Xander. Give me this.” Her palms flattened against my chest, sliding up to my shoulders as she kissed the corner of my mouth, flicking her tongue over the seam of my lips.
Jesus. It felt good.
Too fucking good.
It felt like temptation and salvation, and sweet, sweet torture.
“Stop,” it was a ragged breath, “you have to stop.” I released a long breath, forcing my body to calm the fuck down. She was so close, too fucking close. And I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to fist my hands in her hair and crash my lips down on hers and kiss her until I didn’t know where I ended and she began.
But she was drunk, and I was…
I was screwed.
So fucking screwed.
“Y-you don’t want me?” Peyton lifted her tearstained face to mine, the raw vulnerability in her voice like a punch to the gut.
