Page 3

“Will do.”
“I have to admit…” he sighs and peers over at me, “it’s kind of quiet without her here. She came roaring into Greystone like a lion. I miss the drama.”
I push my tongue against my teeth. He’s acting so nonchalant, so normal, that I’m almost wondering if I had a mental break and what I think happened between us didn’t. We’re hanging out like we’ve done pretty much every night since coming here. My personal night tally is 487, but who’s counting? “Right? Escaping Greystone?”
“Having her mate follow her everywhere?” he grumbles, like the idea makes him sick.
“I’m pretty sure a few girls wanted to claw her eyes out.”
“You were one of them.”
I kick out again, but Nathan brings his forearm up to deflect. He snatches my foot and places it over his thigh, casually laying his arm across my ankle. “As soon as I saw them together, I knew she wasn’t going to stay.”
“Lucky bitch.” I stare down the length of me, watching where we connect. We’ve done this so many times and I never even blinked an eye, but now every context is different. At least it is to me.
What we did could send us both Feral. For days afterward, I watched my back as if Greystone has hidden cameras in every room and we were spotted by security. Who knows? That could actually be a thing, and they just haven’t gotten to review the footage yet.
I lick my lips. “Nathan....”
He must sense something in the tone of my voice. “Don’t,” he warns, voice dropping a few octaves like he’s going to pull rank on me.
I recoil. He doesn’t speak to me in that way. Ever. “Don’t?”
He peeks at me, the hard line of his jaw flexing. When he sees my face, his own softens. “I’m sorry, okay? I just know what you’re going to say.”
I don’t even know what I’m going to say. For weeks, I’ve been trying to talk myself into thinking that what we did was some sort of daydream. Or drunken stupor. Or alien hostage situation.
None of which are plausible, but they’re more believable than what did occur. Acting like it never happened is driving me insane.
“I just miss you,” I tell him. “I miss the way it was before.”
“Mia.”
The warning tone in his voice says it all, but I’m not backing down from this. If something gets out, we need our stories straight. Hell, not even that. The two of us actually need to be on the same page, and a little part of me wants to know what chapter he’s on or if we’re even in the same book.
“Nathan, we need to talk about…” I drop my voice to a whisper, “the kiss.”
2
In Greystone Academy, one kiss can mean life or death.
In the moment it happened, it felt a little like that, too. Like standing on the edge of a jagged cliff. One step either way and our futures would be determined for us.
We were alone in my room, talking about our mates. The conversation turned dark. Into a territory I don’t like to think about. The kiss kind of just happened.
After he initially pressed his lips to mine, we broke away in surprise. Then we stared at each other. I was gazing into eyes I’d peered into countless times, only this time, it was different. In that moment, a need I hadn’t felt before pulsed inside.
We clashed into each other as if our mouths were high-powered magnets. Every sweep of our lips shot a spark of electricity into me. Like a hunger that needed feeding.
It wasn’t until I stepped away from the situation that I wondered how in the hell it happened. I’ve written off the feelings I had in that moment that probably weren’t real to begin with. It was just a longing, a searching, for the one man’s mouth I dream of.
Thankfully, Kinsey interrupted us before it went too far.
Nathan’s Adam’s apple bobs, the black scruff moving with it. The memory of those short, sharp hairs scraping my palm as I cupped his cheek is like a nagging buzzer that goes off every once in a while. “We don’t need to talk about it, though,” he whispers.
“What if someone—”
“No one saw anything,” he seethes.