Page 94 of Last Fall

The flush reached her cheeks. “Getoverhere.”

I didn’t lean her back. Instead I stood in front of her, cupped her face, careful not to ruin a thing. “You can be a bad influence on me all you want. I promise Idon’tmind.”

She reached behind my neck, her hand warm against my still-bare skin, and pulled me down on top of her. “And you always have permission to ruin mymakeup.”

“Not your hair?” I asked between kisses that had to be doing a number on herlipstick.

“Never ruin the hair.” She wrapped her legs around my waist. “It’s actually pretty hardtomuss.”

“Is that achallenge?”

She bit her lower lip and batted her lashes. “Maybenexttime.”

I growled, grinding against her. “You sureaboutthat?”

Knock, knock, knock.“Stop with the sex! Time to roll out!” Wesyelled.

Zoe sighed. “Yes.I’msure.”

Even though I didn’t like it, I rolled to the side and allowed her to escape to the bathroom to fix her makeup. Her phone rolled down the mattress and hit my thigh. It vibrated and the screen lit up with notifications for Zoe Hyde’sInstagram.

“HeyZo?”

“Yeah?” she called. I could see her running her fingers throughherhair.

“You don’t post pictures of yourself veryoften.”

She stared at her reflection for a few beats, then sighed, coming to stand in the doorway. “Yourpoint?”

“Are you worried he’ll find you one day?” I still hadn’t pushed for the details I craved but I needed to know if she was indanger.

She stared at me for a long time. Then, “No. But I don’t tempt fate. I don’t like completely hiding my face from my fans. I go to events and take pictures. I have headshots on all my social media. But that’s all with my pen name. He could find me if he wanted to and so far he hasn’t. I’m not in hiding but I won’t broadcast my image out there more than I need to,either.”

“Is hedangerous?”

Her hands tightened into fists at her sides. “Only to me. Behind closeddoors.”

I went to her on instinct, wrapping her up in a giant hug. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upsetrightnow.”

To my relief she squeezed me back. “Iknow.”

I tilted her head up so I could see her eyes. “I just care about you and I want to understand.” I felt so close to her but in these moments the secrets she kept to herself seemed so huge it was like I didn’t know heratall.

“Now isn’tthetime.”

“I know,” I said quickly because I could feel her heart rate increasing, see how fast she was spiraling. “I’m not asking you to explain anything right now. I’msorry.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay.” Then she leaned her forehead into my chest. “You need ashirt.”

Hopefully it was a good sign—proof she believed me—that she made a joke about my partial nudity. “I’m going to miss you this week.” Six straight days on the road followed by another six-game block at home. And then we were done with the regular season. It was the absolute worst time to try and nurture a newrelationship.