“But, you can’t. You already beat me, Nick—just call the front desk and go downstairs. I haven’t got enough gas money to get home, I didn’t pay my insurance and my best camera broke. There’s no way I won the bet, and the bet was the only thing that could save me.” Nick doesn’t speak. His eyes rove over my face again and again learning every inch as I speak. I plead with him, but he doesn’t listen. He stays there at my feet, holding my face and making my heart pound harder and faster. “Go! You have to. My business is already over. There’s no point in both of us losing everything we wanted.”
His hands slip off my face and I think he’s going to leave, but he doesn’t. Instead Nick turns and says, “I never wanted this. I only did it because of the way you treated me.”
“I’m not the kind of girl that would crush on a guy if he belongs to someone else. Nick, I was young and handled it wrong. I’m so sorry, but sorry doesn’t change what’s going on now.”
“It does.” He rubs his face and shakes his head. “I’m not that guy. I found my shadow, my anchor, and she’s sitting right here beside me. She gave me her kiss and I gave it back. I hurt her over and over again, and still she’s here, listening, even though I don’t have a chance with her. Not after all this.”
Sophie’s words make sense now. She saw it and I didn’t—we were both turning into the same person—someone jaded and heartless. Neither of us chose it, it just happened, and Sophie stopped it. I don’t know what to do. I feel like it’s my move, but I’m frozen. Whatever I say next changes everything. I could destroy him. When he speaks, there’s a tremble in his voice.
My eyes search the room and land on the thimble next to me on the nightstand. I take it in my hand and fiddle with it. Nick turns and looks at me. I stand and walk over to him, but this time instead of a snide comment, I hold out the object.
“I’ve worn this every day since I was twelve, until I gave it to you.” It’s an innocent statement. I reach for his arm and lift his hand, placing the symbolic kiss in the center of his palm and closing his fingers around it. Nick watches me intently as I lift his other hand and bring it to my lips. My body is tense and I can’t breathe, but I also can’t stop. Pressing my lips to the center of his palm, I close my eyes for a moment while I savor kissing his hand, and then pull away.
Tension lines Nick’s body, like he can’t believe I just did that. It was innocent and sexy at the same time, and if the man keeps looking at me like I’m a goddess I’m going to cry. Watching him, I shrug my shoulders like it doesn’t matter when Nick doesn’t respond. He stands very still, staring at me.
Worry that it was too weird or wrong fills my chest. Just when I’m about to turn away, he takes the thimble and presses it to his lips. “You see through me. I’m a sheet of glass to you.” I’m breathing too hard. We’re standing nose-to-nose when he slips the necklace into his pocket. “Don’t break me, Sky.”
“Ferros are unbreakable,” I say. “As soon as that door opens, everything will change.” I feel his eyes moving up and down my body and I want more. I want him, but I’m afraid. I can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t because this feels like a dream.
“It will. You’ll go back to being my idol and I’ll keep my distance the way I did before.”
My stomach twists as tingles spread over my skin from head-to-toe. The way he looks at me says everything. “What if I don’t want that?”
“Then show me,” he whispers. “Show me want you want, Skylar.”
CHAPTER 29
I’m nervous and have trouble finding the words. “I’m not a one-night-stand kind of girl.”
“Neither am I.” He reaches for me and tangles his hands in my hair on either side of my head, watching me, waiting.
“Deegan was a fluke.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I’ve only ever been with one guy before, and I—” I’m breathing so hard that my chest is rising and falling. Every time I inhale, my chest brushes against his and I die a little. It shoots feelings through my body that I haven’t felt in a long time, but they’re magnified. It’s different, better.
He strokes my hair, pulling out the pins and letting it fall loose down my back. “And you what?”
If this doesn’t make him run, nothing will. I drop the bomb and wait for him to jerk back. “I was in love.”
I can’t read him. Nick stays perfectly still, looking into my eyes. “And now?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair. Tell me. Say it, Sky.”