There’s hurt in his blue eyes, but there’s also this sweet hope. “It changed me. You...changed me.”
“Good.” I break our connection and stare at the ground. “Good.”
Jonah nudges my knee with his. “Why do I feel like you’re breaking up with me?”
Who knew a statement could be like a tiny dagger to the heart? “We’d have to be a couple in order for that to happen. I’m a girl who hangs at a cemetery and you’re a boy who needed a break from normal for a few weeks.”
“We’re a couple,” he says.
I wish we had been. My skin prickles at what it could have felt like with his arms around me as he sat against a tree and pulled me close so that my back settled into him with his breath hot on my neck.
“We aren’t.” I rub my arms, feeling cold. A part of me is glad we never crossed lines. I like the memories of us as friends. I like that my heart can’t hurt because I never really gave all of it to begin with.
“We are.” Jonah jumps off the wall and holds his hand out to me. “I like you, Stella, and you can deny it, but I see in your eyes that you like me too. Today’s not over and I’m not the only one with a decision to make, so let’s be together. We have a couple of hours left before midnight.”
Before we turn back into pumpkins. “What happens at midnight?”
“I don’t know, but let’s find out.”
19
Jonah
With her hands shoved, straight-armed, into the front pockets of her blue jeans, Stella wanders around my house. I like seeing her here. She fits, but doesn’t. Everything surrounding her is high-priced, having been picked by Mom and a designer.
By the way she carries herself, Stella has class. More class than I’ll ever possess. Plus I like her style. From the roots of her dark purple hair to her rose barrette to her white cotton shirt, blue jeans that hug exactly right and purple shoes, she’s head-to-toe gorgeous.n feee ro
Like a weary bloodhound trailing a scent, Stella leaves the kitchen in the direction of the living room and I follow. She hasn’t said much. Occasionally she’ll pause over something and squish her mouth to the side, but other than that—nothing.
In the living room, she peers into a three-foot-tall blue floor vase that sits in the corner next to the double patio doors. When she straightens, she gestures at it with one finger like it’s contagious. “Is it an urn?”
“No.”
She reassesses it. “Then I don’t get it.”
Neither do I. “What do you think of the house?”
“What do you want me to think of your house?”
“I asked first.”
“You did.”
I mentally throw my hands in the air. I can never find a way ahead of her. “Want to see my bedroom?”
She tosses me an evil smile that turns me on. “Are you going to throw me on the bed and have your wicked way with me?”
I lower my head and hold my breath to keep in a moan. “No.”
“Then sure.”
I gesture for her to walk up the stairs. She goes and I’ll admit to watching her butt move from side to side. “What if I said yes?”
“What about it? Right or left?”
“Right. If I said yes, would you have come up?”
She takes a right at the top of the stairs and glances at me from under hooded eyelashes. “Yes.”
Screw me. “Really?”
She laughs and I have no idea what that means. Stella peeks into my bedroom and the left side of her mouth tilts up. “Nice.”
My eyebrows pull together, knowing my room isn’t anything special. Mom decorated it. I sleep in it. I never get bent out of shape over the contents. I c**k a hip against the doorframe across from Stella. “What’s nice?”
“It has a bed.”
All the air is sucked out of my chest. “Stella...”
She steps into me and rests her hand on my chest. I swear to God the heat of her fingers burns past my clothes to my skin.
“Where is your family?”
“Gone. To Lexington.”
Stella bites her bottom lip. “So...we have until midnight?”
I’ll give her a hell of a lot longer if we can figure this out. “Yeah.”
She reaches up to touch her barrette and I capture her hand, knotting her fingers with mine. I don’t want her nervous, not with me. “I didn’t bring you here to make out. You showed me a part of you; I wanted you to see where I come from.”
Stella moves her thumb on my chest and my blood becomes very, very warm.
“We should talk—about what happens after today,” she says.
I nod and even though I should place eight feet of distance between us and possibly a wall, I slip a hand onto the curve of her waist and nearly lose my mind when Stella’s breath catches in her throat.
“We’ll talk...soon.” Think with your brain, moron. “We should talk now.”
Stelsiz
“Jonah,” she whispers and those gray eyes plead with me.
My hand eases from her hip to her face, my thumb brushing against her cheek. Stella leans into me—all soft curves, all feminine, a heat that sparks and smolders at the same time. Her head tilts up as I lower mine and I know the moment our lips touch, any hope I had of returning to my old life will no longer exist.
20
Stella
A small voice yells at me from the back of my mind: this is more, this is more, this is MORE!
But as Jonah’s lips hover within a whisper of mine and his breath heats my face, I don’t care that I’m setting my heart up for a crushing blow. I fist the material of his shirt and it’s not to keep him close, it’s to prevent me from running.
For a few seconds, I want to know what it’s like not to settle or dream, but to live. To be the girl who’s cared for, to be the girl who’s cherished, to be the girl who’s kissed.
Jonah’s arm tightens around my waist and his fingers tunnel into my hair. His touch causes a hum along my body, a vibration in my blood, and as I push off my toes to cross that small distance left between us, my lower lip trembles with anticipation.
I hold my breath the moment our lips connect. The soft pressure is like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. His fingers move in my hair and the gentle massage creates a warming sensation throughout my muscles. Like stepping into a hot bath.
Jonah moves his lips and I follow along, drinking in his heat, his goodness. I inhale and I’m overwhelmed with the scent of spices, the scent of Jonah, and it causes me to desire more.