Then her head drooped, full of shame. Quickly, I crossed the space between us, and tipped her chin up so she had to look at me.
“You what?” I asked quietly. “You can tell me. I won’t judge.”
She looked like she wasn’t sure about that, then exhaled again. Her breath was sweet, white in the cold December air, tinged with champagne. Suddenly I wanted to kiss her. Actually, I always wanted to kiss her.
“It was envy. And hate.” Nina shook her head. “Of that fact that she has the freedom to even do this in the first place. Aren’t those some of the seven deadly sins?”
“Just envy. But I think unless you start Single White Femaling Jane, you’re not going to hell or anything. You’re allowed to feel jealous for a minute before you feel happy.”
“I am happy for her. I love them—so much. And they deserve every bit of happiness they are getting. They’ve earned it.”
“Hate, though?” I prompted. “What’s that for, then?”
“Not them.” Nina shuddered, as if she was fighting the emotion welling up, like a volcano trying to fight its explosion. “I…oh, God, Matthew. I hate…I hate…”
She bent forward, pressing her face into her hands. “Everyone else in there. Those men—”
“Those ‘men,’ if you can call them that, were straight-up douchebags, Nina. They don’t deserve your hate. They don’t deserve anything.”
“Even so. I do. I hate them. All of them, the ones just like them. So…so much. They don’t care about Eric or Jane. They don’t care about her school or dreams or anything else but their own stupid lives, their own ridiculous reputations. I hate all of it. This world. This life.”
Nina sighed, slumping against the railing. We stood there for a moment. She shivered, and I reached out and pulled my jacket closed across her body, then kept my hands locked in place, as much for proximity as to keep her warm. Nina blinked, her eyes wet. They still hadn’t lost that haze of fury. Not completely.
God, she really was magnificent. Enough to make me forget about the cold December weather. I was happy to be here, free again to look at her.
“What about me?” I asked cautiously. “Do you hate me too, doll?”
The air around us stilled as she looked up. Our eyes locked, green to gray. It was slightly uncomfortable—there was this feeling that this woman could see straight into the depths of my sad, sorry soul.
But even so, I’d never look away from her. I couldn’t. And I no longer cared what it cost me.
“No,” she said. “I could never hate you, Matthew.”
What about love? I wanted to ask. But I held my tongue, sensing that would push her too far over an already precarious ledge.
Instead, with my grip on the jacket, I pulled her a little closer, off the rail so that our chests were only an inch or so apart.
“How about forgiveness?” I asked, searching her face for a change. “Do you forgive me yet? Maybe a little?”
She examined me for a moment, and I thought she might say no. I thought she might say she could never get past my betrayal, my refusal to believe her in her worst moment, my insistence on believing the worst when I was presented with the truth. I wasn’t sure I would ever forgive myself for that.
But if she could, I’d find a way.
But instead of answering, she did something else entirely. She stood up straight again, looked me in the eye, and kissed me.
Chapter Eight
Nina
His lips were soft, and his hands were warm. With his jacket around my shoulders, I was enveloped at last in that familiar scent that comforted me in my dreams, though never so much as when I was curled on that rotting mattress at Rosie’s.
No, I didn’t want to go there. Not like I did most nights as I tried and failed to sleep in the plush comforts of Eric and Jane’s guest room. Just as I’d let myself go, allow my mind to drift toward sleep, suddenly I’d be back in that cell, swathed in the absurdly thin blankets, scratching at bites left by bedbugs, trying not to hear the sounds of wails and jeers from the dormitory down the hall. Praying those intrusive hands wouldn’t return that night or any other.
It hadn’t been long. Fifteen days was all. But it was long enough to stick with me. I was beginning to think it always would.
I inhaled deeply, allowing the sting of the cold air to penetrate those memories, keep them at bay. Matthew’s scent flooded me instead: the heady wool of his jacket, the light cologne he preferred, the overtones of soap, ink. Perhaps a tinge of cigarette smoke too? And now champagne.
It was all delicious. Intoxicating. I wanted to taste him forever.
My skin prickled with warning. I didn’t deserve this. And I was too angry for him to deserve it either. He had already proven that he was no refuge, no port in the storm when I needed him most.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t want him to be. Because he smelled good, and he felt good, and even more than everything else, he felt like home.
Below us, the city erupted with muted shouts of sirens and car horns. There were nights, even here in Eric’s stronghold townhouse, when I felt like the darkness that threaded through the city of my birth threatened to crash through my very windows and eat me alive. I was only just now beginning to realize how fear had eroded the core of me my entire life.
And now…with him…even though I shouldn’t, I felt so, so safe.
His tongue touched mine, begged to twist together, to dive into the taste of me. I groaned as my hands grabbed that silky soft hair and yanked. A pang of desire shot between my legs, where I was suddenly and disturbingly aware there was absolutely nothing guarding me from him.
Maybe not so safe after all.
Maybe a little bit dangerous. In
