“Please,” he said, closer now.  “Comfort me.”

I blame the please.  Hearing that word coming from those lips was hopelessly disarming to me, so when he pulled me to him again, I didn’t fight him.  I laid my head over his black, traitorous heart, and let the tears fall.

I was weary of trying to suppress them, and they came out freely for a time as I quietly sobbed against my enemy’s chest.

How could you find comfort in the soul that had shattered you?

I didn’t know, but perversely, I found it anyway.

Eventually I pulled back, not looking up at him, eyes trained on the wet spot I’d left on his beautiful suit jacket.

My hands went to my face, feeling at my cheeks as I realized that my makeup was in ruins.

“I’ll need to go upstairs and redo my makeup when we get back,” I said blankly.  My mind was worrying about something small in an effort to avoid thinking about something big.

“Well, there’s no hurry.  The bloodsuckers will be there all day I’m sure,” he murmured, and not so much the words but his proximity had me stiffening.

His face was moving closer to mine, then closer.  His hands cupped my face, angling it up to his.

I kept my gaze pointed down, but it didn’t matter.  He wasn’t concerned with my eyes.  He wanted my lips.

He took them unrepentantly, passionately, devouring me like he always did, as though he’d never have enough.

And I let him have them, the fight gone out of me.  I’d always had a weakness for his kiss.  That’s why I hated them so vehemently.

I started shifting, falling against my seat back, though there wasn’t far to go.

It was the damnedest thing.  Every time he kissed me, all I wanted to do was lie down flat on my back.  That urge was quickly followed by one to open my arms, and then my legs.

It was a natural inclination.  Instinctual and all the more powerful for it.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

“I have to remind myself to breathe—almost remind my heart to beat!”

Emily Brontë

PAST

“Let’s ditch school,” I told Dante.

“And do what?”

“Go watch movies at my grandma’s house.”  She wouldn’t be there.  She was gone from seven a.m. to seven p.m. every single working day like clockwork.

And Dante never said no to movies at my house.  It had become our thing lately.

In fact, it had become my favorite thing in the world.

He shrugged.  “Fine.  Whatever.  I’m not in the mood for school anyway.”

We walked back toward my place leisurely, side by side as we strolled, so close that our arms and hands kept brushing against each other.

The third time it happened, he took my hand and laced our fingers together.

A thrill ran through my entire body, and I couldn’t hold back a smile.

Neither of us said a word about it.  He’d been doing it more and more lately when we were alone, but we never talked about it.

We’d been doing lots of things when we were alone together that we never talked about.

Nothing like what his mom had suggested, in fact all of it could be called more or less innocent, just physical contact that kept progressing, lingering until we couldn’t seem to stop.

But he’d never even kissed me.  I was starting to worry about it.  From what I heard other girls talking about concerning boys, it seemed like if he wanted to he should have tried to by now.

It didn’t take us long to walk to my grandma’s house.  Okay, house was a generous term.  It was a rundown two-bedroom trailer on a plot of land that belonged to Dante’s family.

Still, it was the only place we had where we could be alone.

I let him pick out the movie.

He chose Gladiator even though we’d already seen it like five times.  But neither of us actually cared what we watched.  The movie was not why we’d started spending all of our free time doing this.

I turned it on and Dante sprawled out on the couch, his big body taking up most of it.

As much as I complained about how fast I was growing, he was growing much faster.  He towered over me, and his lean body had started to develop muscles I couldn’t help but notice.

And as fast as he was growing, he was still as graceful, as comfortable in his own skin as he’d always been.  I hadn’t seen him suffer through one awkward faze yet.

It was infuriating.

I shot him a pointed look at his spot on the couch and moved to sit on my grandma’s ancient recliner.

This was another game we played.  I wouldn’t sit with him until he asked me.

No.  Cajoled me into it.  I resisted every time.  I knew I couldn’t make anything too easy for him.  Grandma had slapped that bit of wisdom deep into my skull.

“Psst,” he called to me.

I ignored him, eyes glued to the screen.

“Scarlett,” he tried.  “You don’t have to sit on your grandma’s nasty old chair.”

“That couch is just as nasty,” I pointed out.  Everything in the place was nasty.  Old and cheap and dirty.  I lived here and even I thought so.

“Well, you don’t have to sit alone over there.”

“You’ve taken up the whole couch.  Where would I sit?”  As I said it, I shot him an arch look.

He grinned at me.  He was sprawled out, long arms perched at the top corner of the sofa.  He kicked one knee up, throwing the other on the ground, and patted his thighs.  “You can sit right here.”

I eyed him warily.  This was new and a little intimidating.  “I’m hungry.  Do you want a snack?”

“Do you have snacks?”

Of course not.  We never did.  It was a wonder I grew so much with the lack of food available when I was at home.  Then again, I got free lunch at school and had dinner at Gram’s more often than not.

“No,” I said, sorry I’d asked.  But I was hungry.

“You should let me give you money for food,” he added, his tone careful and blank.

This was a very old and very sore subject.  And he knew it.

I glared at him.  “I won’t take any more of your charity.  It’s bad enough your Gram buys me clothes for school and feeds me dinner almost every night.”

His jaw set stubbornly, and I was pissed and bummed.  If we got into a fight, it would ruin the rest of the day.

But then he sighed and looked away, breaking the tension.

Sometimes when we locked eyes, it was like predators having a standoff.  One wrong move and—blood.

On the flip side, if one backed down then—peace.

He’d backed down for this one, thank God, because I never could have.

He paused the movie.

“Well, I need food,” he said.  “Is it all right if I order myself a pizza?”

“All right.”

“I can’t eat a whole one myself.  I’ll only order it if you promise to eat some, too.”

That was a compromise I could live with, and he knew it.  It didn’t feel so much like charity if he was feeding himself and I was just sharing.

I grabbed the phone and brought it to him.  While he dialed, I sat down carefully between his thighs.

We’d never done this before.  Usually he just put his arm around me and we’d progress through varying degrees of touching each other tentatively.  I’d lay my head on his chest, sometimes, if he was extra bold, he’d rub my knee with his hand.

Once we’d even spooned, my back to his front both of us turned to the TV.  That had happened two weeks ago and it’d been the most exciting moment of my life.

But sitting between his thighs felt like a decidedly bigger step.

Tentatively I leaned back into his chest while he dialed up the pizza place.

“Any toppings you prefer?” he asked me

I was having a hard time finding my breath.  “Whatever.  You pick.  You’re paying.”