If I Die

simply ceasing to exist—but I already knew that.

Tod whispered his secrets, and I swallowed them whole, then fed him with my own. My hands wandered and his explored, waking in me cravings and impulses like I’d never felt. I wanted things—I wanted him—not out of curiosity and deadline-driven determination, but out of a raw need to experience all of him. To know and be known like never before. To share everything I had and everything I would ever be with him. And for the first time, the strength of my own hunger didn’t scare me. Because it was my hunger.

Then, finally, Tod groaned, pulling away to sit up on the couch, his hand splayed across my stomach, over the material of my shirt.

“What’s wrong?”

“Not a damn thing.” He brushed one curl back from his forehead, eyes churning with a craving that surely mirrored my own. “But I need a break.”

“Why?” I sat up, frowning.

“Because you feel really good, and I haven’t done this in a long time. Not since I died. So I kind of need to stop or…not stop.”

Then I understood, and my face burned so hot my cheeks could have been on fire. “Oh. I’m sorry.” Embarrassed, I put both hands over my face, but Tod pulled them down gently, and his blue-eyed gaze met mine.

“You’re embarrassed by proof that I want you? If either of us should be embarrassed by this, it’s me. But I’m not. I just need to cool down, so I can want you again in a few minutes.”

The blaze in my cheeks turned inward, scalding a trail down my center to points lower, until I thought my body would roast itself alive if he didn’t stop looking at me like that. Yet I hoped he’d never stop looking at me like that.

Tod laughed, and I groaned when I realized he’d seen what I was thinking—a twist of overheated blue?—in my eyes.

“How ’bout some lunch?” he said, and I stood, grasping at the offer of a distraction.

“I think we have some sandwich stuff…”

He followed me into the kitchen, and pulled open the fridge, then bent to investigate the meat drawer. “Just give me a minute. I’ll think about cold cuts.”

I burst into laughter. I couldn’t help it.

“Cold cuts are funny?” He stood, and I shook my head, still laughing behind one hand.

“I was thinking about something else,” I said, but he only watched me, waiting for an elaboration. “Em wanted to know if blood flow would be an issue for you, and now I can tell her that it’s definitely not a problem.”

Tod frowned, but good humor swirled lazily in his eyes. “I’m dead, not impotent. Nasty rumors like that must be quashed before they gain momentum. Feel free to emphasize how very functional I am.”

I laughed again, setting a loaf of bread on the counter while he sniffed a package of sliced ham. “How functional are you? And on a completely unrelated subject, if I get kissed for stupid arguments, what would happen if I did something really bad?” His pale brows rose, and his irises twisted faster. “How bad are we talking?”

“I don’t know. Failing to correct inaccurate, sexually defamatory rumors?”

“That would be bad.” Tod dropped the ham on the counter and pulled me closer, pressing me against the closed refrigerator door, and a spark shot up my spine and set fire to my lungs. “I think I’d have to take the situation in hand.” His right hand found my left one and his fingers intertwined with mine. His skin was warm against my palm while the fridge was cold against the back of my hand. With him pressed against me— all of him—I could feel how much he still wanted me. And that knowledge was exciting. Intoxicating.

“What if that wasn’t enough to do the trick?” I whispered, made bold by the blatant need churning in his eyes. “What if I were persistently bad?”

“That might require a stronger approach.” He leaned toward me and dropped a series of tiny, hot kisses down my neck, headed for my collarbone. I reached up with my free hand to feel his hair—the curls were so soft—and his left hand found the slight curve of my hip, fingers pressing into my skin beneath the hem of my shirt, like they wanted more than they could possibly find there.

“I don’t think this is fixing your little problem,” I whispered, as his hand wandered slowly over my waist and toward my ribs, over my shirt now.

Tod straightened and gave me a frown. “You should be careful, tossing descriptors like that around in a situation like this. My ‘problem’ isn’t little. Unless you’re drawing some pretty wild comparisons. Please tell me you’re not drawing wild comparisons. Or blood-relative comparisons.”

“Nope. No comparisons. That’s one limb of your family tree I’m not going out on. Are you comparing me to Addison?”

“To Addy? Hell no. Genna, maybe…” he teased, and I frowned, though I had no idea who that was.

“So how do I stack up?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know.

“Kaylee, you burn so bright that everyone else looks dim in comparison. You’re all I see, and all I want to see, and I would be happy if this moment never ended. If I could spend the rest of my afterlife doing this…”

He leaned down again and started a new trail of kisses beginning at the hollow beneath my jaw, his hands flat against my lower back, like he couldn’t touch enough of me, even if we’d had nothing but time.

We spent the rest of the day on my couch, ignoring a succession of movies in favor of each other, holding back my fear of death and incubi with the feel of him. With the stories he told and the questions he asked.

Hours later, someone knocked on my front door, and I came up for air long enough to glance at the time on my cell phone. Almost 3:00 p.m.

School was out, and that was probably Emma at the door, and I knew I should go answer it. But I wanted one more kiss. One more minute for just me and Tod, and this moment we’d stolen from eternity.

One more minute, then I would do the right thing. The mature thing. I would start learning how to let it all go….

“I thought Sabine wanted in on this,” Emma said, helping herself to a cold soda from my fridge. She’d come over after school expecting our game plan powwow to include all four members of the Eastlake super league, but Sabine and Nash were, obviously, still MIA, and Tod had gone to check on them. And maybe to cool off again. “Don’t tell me she’s mad at you. She ought to be thanking you for finally giving her what she wanted.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said, then decided I didn’t want to spend any of what little time I had left rehashing that morning’s catastrophe. “Here’s the short version. Nash fell off the wagon—hard—and Sabine’s babysitting him.”

“What wagon?” She popped the top on her can and sipped from it.

“He’s on frost again, Em.” And Nash-on-frost was very different from sober-Nash.

“Ohh…” Emma dropped into one of the kitchen chairs and pulled one knee up to her chest. No doubt she was remembering Doug, her boyfriend and one of Nash’s best friends, who’d died of a frost overdose in December. “Is this because you broke up with him?”

“No,” Tod said, appearing beside me out of nowhere, and that time I didn’t even jump. “He’s upset because she broke up with him, but he got high because he’s an addict. He makes his own choices.”

“Okaaay…” But Em looked unconvinced, and I couldn’t quite quash the remnants of my own guilt.

Tod took my hand, his fingers winding around mine, and my chest tightened. Everything between us was new and shiny, a thrill that would never fade, thanks to my own imminent death, and the excitement was compounded by the fact that we were about to go fight evil together—like a one-up mushroom for our entire relationship. Yet Tod looked grim, even for a reaper. “Why didn’t you tell me what he did to you?”

Crap. Sabine must have told him.

“What did he do?” Em sat up straight, eyeing us both expectantly.

“Because I knew you’d blame yourself?” I said, throwing his own words back at him, but all I got was a deeper frown.

“What happened to ‘no secrets’?”

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to talk about it. I was mad, and humiliated, and I just wanted to forget about it.”