Page 101 of Cinder
“I just—” he starts, then stops, glances away for half a second, then back. “I don’t do halfway. Not where Elle’s involved.”
“I know.”
His eyes move to mine, and he shakes his head. “You don’t have to run away.”
My pulse stumbles, but I shake my head gently. “I’m not running,” I murmur. “I just… think we both need a second.”
He studies me for a moment before nodding. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Okay.”
I hesitate, then bend down to his level, just enough to press a soft kiss to his mouth. His hand comes up automatically to my cup my face, and for a second, it almost pulls me right back in again.
“I meant it,” I whisper against his lips. “I’m not running.”
His jaw works as I rise again. “Good.” He swallows. “Don’t.”
“You should get some rest, though.”
He huffs, fingers trailing up my arm lightly before he lets go. “You too.”
I turn toward the kitchen to head to the back door, and as I step outside, warm and shaky and still tasting him on my lips, it doesn’t feel like the beginning of being pushed away.
If anything, it feels dangerously like the opposite.
Chapter fifteen
Convenient, given your profession
Evan
This couch isn’t built for good sleep.
My back knows it before my eyes even crack open. My shoulders are stiff, one leg’s half tangled in the blanket. The room is still dim, early light just starting to press at the edges of the curtains.
I don’t move straight away, instead listening to the hum of the fridge and Gus shifting at the edge of the couch. He must have climbed up sometime after Penny left. After I’d had another freezing cold shower and collapsed back here with my thoughts.
This is usually the part where I overthink. Where my brain starts replaying everything, and I get ahead of it by drawing lines and putting distance in place before anything can shift too far.
But the second-guessing doesn’t come. There’s no spike of panic or instinct to build a wall, not with Penny.
My only thoughts are the memory of her in my lap, grinding against my cock and whimpering in my ear when I told her to come for me. The feel of her soft skin under my palms, and the way she told me she wouldn’t run. The look in her eyes when I told her that this wasn’t nothing.
I sit up slowly, resting my elbows on my knees, then decide on another shower. Something to wake myself up this time—I have some time to kill anyway, now that Beck’s enforced a late start.
When I’m out of the shower and dressed, the house has shifted. Music from their kitchen dance party carries down the hallway, and Elle’s voice cuts through at full volume.
“And then if you cut the crusts off like THIS because it makes it more ear-a-dynamic—”
Penny’s responding laugh is bright. “Where’d you learn that word?”
“Uncle Ghost told me.”
“Ah, because obviously we want a sandwich to fly…”
The floor is cool under my feet as I move down the hall, and I stop just in the doorway to the kitchen, leaning my shoulder against the frame.
Penny’s barefoot on the tiles, hair loose down her back, my fire department hoodie swallowing her frame. It hangs long enough to brush her thighs, and my eyes linger there for a moment, realising it’s the same hoodie I’d tossed on the dining chair last night.
Thief.
