Page 106 of Riding the Sugar High

My eyes flutter closed. With everything else that’s happened this afternoon, I completely forgot about the police. She must have been freaking out—god, I’m such an ass.

“They’re still working the case, and from the look of it, they’re hardly going to stop,” I say as I think of the slew of questions Josie and Connor asked me. “They’ve made me repeat the same information we already gave them, and tried to scare me with the prospect of prison time.” With a shrug, I meet her concerned gaze. “Nothing new.”

“And the scrunchie? Did they test it already?”

“Remember that first night?” I ask as I think of the accident, then my panic attack. “You asked me for three movements, and?—”

“You touched my scrunchie.”

“Uh-huh. Left lots of big ol prints on it.” I can’t help but chuckle at the sheer luck of it. “They have no way of proving it’s yours. And I could have entered Derek’s property any time before or after Friday night.”

“So they have nothing?”

I nod.

Her shoulders relax as she fidgets with a strand of grass. When her eyes meet mine, I can almost see the question flashing through her mind.Then why were you so upset when you got home?But she swallows it, and instead, points at my arm. “I like your tattoos.”

God, it’s hard to think when she looks at me lik that. “You’re about to ask me what they mean, aren’t you?”

“No,” she says pointedly. Then, jerking her chin up, she asks, “Are you calling me nosy?”

I smile wide. Too wide. “Yes.”

“Then Idon’tlike your tattoos.” She pouts, but the uplifted corner of her lips betrays her.

“I have forty-six of them, so I won’t tell you the meaning of every single one, but—” I sit up and show her my wrist. “I’ll give you three.”

“Today, or in life?”

My heart twists, but I smother it.

She’s leaving. She’s leaving.

“Just choose.”

She perks up, her eyes scanning up my arm like she means business, and I know I’m playing a stupid, dangerous game. Now I’ve got her eyes on me, scrutinizing me with too much attention. Making me want to do and say more stupid things. Dangerous things.

“This is only a minimal portion of your tattoos.”

With a sigh, I bring forward my other arm, begrudgingly holding them side by side for inspection.

“Still...” she says as she points to my chest.

Lowering my arms, I cock a brow. “I just gave you my jacket. Now you want me to strip down?” I hold out my arms again. “Just. Choose.”

“The word you have on your back.”

Of course, she’d pick that one. When did she even see my back?

“What?” She shrugs. “I chose.”

“That’s...” I run my finger over the sharp edges of a small rock. “Fratello. Aaron spent a couple of years in Italy when we were younger, and I visited him for my eighteenth birthday. One night, we drank too much and got the Italian word for ‘brother’ tattooed.” I hum, and the sound comes out gravelly as the memory of the tattoo studio we ended up at sours the taste in my mouth. “He got it on his arm because he carried me with him even when he was away. I got it on my back because I always...”

The words stick to my throat, and as I try to breathe through the stabbing pain in my chest, Primrose’s small hand finds mine. She squeezes, and I glance up to see a compassionate look in her eyes—a patient understanding.

Her hair blows softly with the wind, and the strands trapped under my jacket frame her round face and rest along her neck. There’s a reddish hue over her cheeks, probably because of the cold, and her plump, heart-shaped lips look delectable in that pink lipstick, like the candy she loves so much.

God, she’s so beautiful it hurts. So close that if I leaned forward, I could press my mouth to hers. I could cup the back of her neck, feel her melt against me, and sink my teeth into her.