Page 92 of Touch the Sky

“Okay, well, your mom is,” she interrupts, “and I still live in your house. This could still mess my whole life up.”

I wish I could tell her where she lives doesn’t matter, but I know how this looks for her. I know what she’s scared of. I just wish I could make her understand she doesn’t have to be.

“Tess, you are not getting kicked out of the house for something as ridiculous as hooking up with me.”

Even saying it out loud feels ridiculous. I try to picture what it would take to make me dump her and Shel on the street, and I can’t come up with a single thing.

“Or evennotwanting to hook up with me,” I add. “If you told me right now that was the worst sex of your life and you think I have BO so bad you need to go barf in the muck pile, you still would not get kicked out of the house. Whatever happens with…with this…”

I pause and gesture between us.

“It’s not going to affect that,” I tell her. “Yeah, I think you’re hot as fuck, and I would really love to see you naked sometime, but I still respect you,d’accord? I respect you a lot. What you do or do not want with me doesn’t change that. I promise.”

I step around the saddle I’ve been leaning on and move close enough to focus on the green of her eyes.

I don’t say anything else, but every inch of me is screaming into that open line between us, begging her to believe me.

“Thank you,” she murmurs. “I…I want to trust that.”

We stand like that for another few seconds before she adds, “And I want to see you naked too.”

A rush of heat sweeps through me. I swallow, and I watch Tess’s gaze drop to my throat.

She raises her hands to press her fingertips to her temples.

“God, what’s wrong with me?” Her voice is hoarse. “I just can’tstopwith you. I really can’t, Jacinthe. I don’t think it matters whether this is stupid or not. I think I just have to have you again.”

It hits me then: how her anglo pronunciation of my name annoyed me the first time I heard it, and now I think it might be one of the sexiest sounds in the world.

“You can have me.”

I take a step towards her, and then another, until I can plant my hands on the saddle she’s standing behind.

We’re close enough to kiss. She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth and then releases it, leaving the pink skin shiny with spit.

“Câlice, Tess,” I hiss. “You can have me whenever you fucking want.”

That’s when the sound of a car door slamming up at the house echoes through the yard.

We spring away from each other like a SWAT team just repelled down into the barn. Tess lets out a shaky breath.

“This is honestly…overwhelming,” she says.

My hands flex as I try to figure out if I should reach for her or not.

She needs someone to steady her.

I don’t know if that’s supposed to be me.

“Look,” she says. “Shel is staying late at school on Tuesday. They’re doing some kind of volunteer project with the kids. I don’t pick her up until seven. What if we just…went somewhere? To talk this over?”

She begins to shiver. I watch as she crosses her arms over her chest to clutch her upper arms.

I step up beside her, hovering my hands just over her shoulders.

She closes the gap and leans into my touch.

“I know a place,” I tell her.