Night School: Resistance (Night School 4)

Her lungs felt strangely tight. ‘I just wanted to … I mean … thank you for what you did tonight. You were so calm.’


Carter exhaled and shook his head. ‘Someone shot your grandmother tonight and you’re telling me I was calm? I’m not the cool-headed one, Allie. I’ve never seen anyone so steady under pressure. You were amazing. Are amazing.’

He reached for her hands then and she let him pull them into his, although she knew it was wrong. Knew it couldn’t be anything.

But she wanted it to be something.

She could feel the strength in his fingers. And yet his thumbs brushed her knuckles with the softness of butterfly wings.

‘You are the most amazing person I know.’

She needed to stop this before it went too far. ‘Carter …’

What should she say? Don’t? Stop? We can’t?

That would be the right thing to say.

What she wanted to say was entirely different. But she couldn’t say that.

Could she?

Jump.

He studied her face intently, as if he could hear her internal struggle. As if he knew she was deciding something.

‘What?’ His fingers ran up her bare arm to her shoulder. His eyes were urgent. As if this was their last chance. ‘Say it, Allie. Say anything.’

With her whole heart she wished that was true. Wished she could say anything. Because, if she told him the truth, what would she say?

‘Carter … I love you.’





41





Forty-one





Allie’s heart seemed to stop.

The words hung in the air like smoke; incriminating her.

I did not just say that, she thought, panicking. Why did I do that?

But it was too late to turn back. You can’t recant a declaration of love. It cannot be withdrawn or stricken from the record. It’s there forever.

She stared at Carter in shock, as if he was the one who’d said it, and waited for him to recoil. To look embarrassed. To tell her she was wrong. A horrible person.

A cheater.

He’d gone dangerously still – so still he didn’t seem to breathe.

Then he sagged back as if some unseen force that had been holding him up had suddenly let go. His breath came out in a ragged sigh.

‘Oh God, Allie, I love you, too.’

Something cold inside of her began to thaw. All of her confusion left her. Because the answer was right in front of her.

She couldn’t love Sylvain because she was in love with Carter. She always had been.

They reached for each other at the same time, and then, at last, his lips were against hers and they were kissing with the pent-up desire of months of trying not to want each other.

Exhilaration made Allie’s head swim. She’d wanted this for so long. Dreamed of it. But she’d thought it could never be. Now his lips were against hers – warm and familiar. His breath was soft inside her mouth, filling her lungs.

After everything that had happened, she needed this. Needed him. Needed it to be OK.

She knelt closer to him on the unfamiliar bed, twining her wrists around his neck.

He whispered words against her lips that she couldn’t make out but she knew what he was saying. That he loved her. That they should always be together.

His hands slid down her spine, flattening against the small of her back, trying to pull her closer, but it wasn’t necessary, she’d wrapped her arms around his neck and was pulling his body down on top of hers.

When she lay flat on the bed, he propped himself up on his arms so as not to crush her against the unforgiving mattress, and covered her face with kisses. Kissing her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose, her chin.

Then his mouth returned to hers.

Butterflies swarmed in Allie’s stomach. Wonderingly, she explored his body, running her hands over his shoulders, down the bare skin of his arms, up the flat plane of his stomach, the shallow curves of his chest.

He was so warm. So alive.

‘Is this really happening?’ she whispered. ‘I’m not dreaming … am I?’

He sat up, pulling her with him with easy strength until she sat facing him, her legs tangled up with his. Cupping her face between the palms of his hands, he held her as if she were made of the most fragile glass. His eyes were as serious as she’d ever seen them.

‘This is not a dream.’

‘But how?’ she said, still stroking his shoulders, feeling the muscles move beneath her fingers. Solid and real. ‘What will we do?’

His hands slid down to her waist and he pulled her forward until she could feel his breath on her cheeks.

‘We will find a way,’ he promised her. ‘We have to. I won’t be apart from you any more. I won’t pretend any more.’

It was like he was reading her mind. Saying her thoughts aloud.

‘I feel like I’ve been lying to myself for so long …’ She touched the soft silk of his eyebrows, the hard, smooth angles of his cheekbones. ‘But I had to. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t want to be hurt.’

He closed his eyes, letting her touch him everywhere. ‘I will never hurt you, Allie. Never again.’