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When I broke the surface again, Alek was laughing.
“You jerk!” I yelled. I pushed myself over to him and jumped onto his shoulders, sending both of us under the water.
This time when I surfaced, we were both laughing. “See?” Alek questioned. “This is what fun looks like. It’s not so bad.”
“Maybe not,” I replied. “But I’m freezing cold.”
“Alright, I guess this counts. Although, typically you should stay in until your lips turn blue.”
“I can’t even feel my lips,” I retorted. “They’re definitely blue.”
Alek surprised me by reaching out and grabbing my chin with one hand, holding my face still while he took a long, deliberate look at my lips. The heat of his hand on my face spread through my core like a wildfire.
I stared at him in awe while he took his time observing the color. “Yep,” he said after a while. “Definitely blue.”
I splashed him and pushed myself back toward the edge of the lake.
As the two of us crawled out of the water, I became acutely aware of my now soaking-wet bra and underwear. I only caught Alek staring once, and the heat in his eyes nearly made me melt. He waited a few seconds before he jogged ahead of me, running to the trunk of his car. I followed.
“Here,” he said, pulling a towel from the trunk. I stood, shivering, while he wrapped it around my shoulders. “We’ll dry off a little and then hit the road. It’ll be late by the time we get back to the city.” He got a towel of his own and wrapped it around his own body before starting the car. We both dried off for a few minutes before pulling our clothes back on and heading back into the city.
On the way home, I stared at the stars out the window until the city lights drowned them out. I promised myself I would try to remember.
Until I could see those stars again, I would try to remember how beautiful the middle of nowhere could be.
ChapterSix
Iordered a pizza for delivery, making sure the security cameras caught Natalie coming inside before it arrived. My mother hadn’t seen me on the camera in a couple of days, and she had been suspiciously quiet over text.
That part sucked the worst. Not knowing if she was going to bust through my front door at any given moment.
What if she had known what I was doing? What if she knew where I was last night?
There’s no way, I thought to myself. If she knew what I had been up to, I would already be back in her basement with chains on my wrists.
Everything was fine. Everything would be okay.
“I’ve never seen you like this,” Natalie said with a mouth full of bacon pizza. “I mean, look at you! You’re glowing!” She waved a hand at my face.
“Oh, shut up,” I muttered. “I am not!”
“You totally are!” She uncrossed her legs and leaned closer to me on the couch. “Tell me, what was it like? Did he kiss you again?”
“No, we didn’t kiss. And we won’t. This is all part of the deal I made with him, nothing more.”
She squinted her eyes. “A man doesn’t take you stargazing and skinny dipping at night because it’s part of some deal. He does it because he likes you.”
I could feel my cheeks heating, but I couldn’t stop it. Natalie and I had never had conversations like this before. Not when I was the subject, anyway. We had spent days and days gossiping about Nat and whatever poor soul had been sucked into her traps lately, but I was always the listener. I was always the bystander.
“He was nothing but respectful,” I said, taking another bite of my pizza with a noncommittal shrug. “And I don’t foresee anything changing in that regard.”
Natalie finally leaned back on the couch, but I could feel her lingering eyes. “Can you imagine what Theia would think if she found out?” I stopped chewing and snapped my attention to her. “What?” she asked defensively. “I’m just saying!”
“No, I can’t even think about that. Thinking about Theia finding out would literally paralyze me at this point.”
“What happens when this is all over?” she asks. “When your deal is done and Alek goes back into the shadows of the demon world?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know. I try not to think about that, either.”
