Switch

I inched away from him, but Austin grabbed my wrist just

as a bazilion watts of supernova bright light lit the entire

dance floor. Austin stil looked good. I must not have

looked like Frankenstein, because he reached to brush my

hair from my forehead. He smiled again as the lights went

down and the beat of the music started its rapid thump-

thumping, the same as my heart.

It was different when he kissed me. I felt different. His

mouth opened and I let him inside me. His tongue stroked

mine as his hand came up to curl in my hair. He didn't pul

it, though my body tensed in anticipation.

Austin nuzzled at my earlobe. 'You stil taste the same.'

Fortunately, I remembered the reasons I'd broken off our

relationship. Unfortunately, I stil remembered al the

reasons we'd ever hooked up. When Austin ran a fingertip

reasons we'd ever hooked up. When Austin ran a fingertip

down my bare arm along the sensitive inside flesh to press

his fingertip just over the pulse at my wrist, I knew he felt

the way my heart sped up at his touch. Time hadn't

changed that. Maybe it never would.

Maybe that was okay.

'Come home with me,' Austin said.

'It's too far.' Forty minutes I'd have driven in a heartbeat back in the day, just to get in his pants. It wasn't too far.

Just too long.

'Paige,' Austin said with a grin like a shark. 'I moved to Lemoyne.'

Just across the river. Fifteen minutes, tops, if you drove

realy slow or got stuck in traffic. The world fel out from

under my fuck-me pumps, but Austin was there to catch

me. The crowd moved and danced around us, but we

stayed stil. I looked deep into his blue, blue eyes, made

bluer by the strobe lights.

'What the fuck,' I said evenly, 'did you do that for?'

'New job,' he reminded. 'Remember?'

'New job,' he reminded. 'Remember?'

I tried to recal if he'd said where McClaron and Sons

was, and couldn't. He should've told me, I thought, and

hated myself for being irrationaly angry. I tugged my arm

from his grip. 'I have to go check on Kira.'

'She's fine. She's with Ethan.'

I tried to level him with a glare, but I'd never been able to

level Austin. He'd laid me out cold a thousand times with a

look, but though I'd practiced and perfected my steely-

eyed look of cold disdain, it slid off him like oil. I bit my

lower lip and lifted my chin.

'If he's anything like you, I'd better make sure she's okay.'

'Paige.' Austin's hand snagged my wrist. Puled me close.

'If she's anything like you, she can handle him.'

The night it ended between us, we'd fucked up against the

wal of our shitty, third-floor apartment on Cumberland