Page 90 of The Kiss of Deception

All I’ve brought her is stitches, scrutiny, solitude.

“You didn’t steamroll me into anything. I had a choice.” She plays with a dark curl before pushing it behind her pierced ear. “And what if someone did catch me in old clothes? I’m just too much of a control freak. I was taught not to let others see me without my armor. Cultivate a proper image, maintain it under all circumstances.”

I don’t point out it’s exactly what she’s allowing me to see. I don’t point out she hasn’t hidden from me for a long, long time, her ice queen act dropped behind the curtains of our home.

Zoe throws a snowy pillow at my face. “Your turn.”

“My turn?”

Aware I’m avoiding the question, she arches a brow. “The worst part of this. For you?”

She watches with intent as I stuff my mouth with baked blueberries. Not because I need time to think of an answer. Because I immediately have it.

The worst part of us is the sweetest part.

To have her close all the time—so damn close, so far away. She’s one arm away, yet I can’t reach for her.

I would sacrifice the world for her. But am I ready to sacrifice this, whatever relationship we’ve built over the past few months, for a possibility at something real?

Is there even a possibility, at all?

I’m too afraid to reach for her only to find a cloud of smoke vanishing through my fingers, a delusion fueled by wishful thinking.

“I might need a new wardrobe,” I say. I run a thumb over my bottom lip, eyeing her deliberately, head to naked legs to mushroom toes. “Seeing as you keep stealing my clothes.”

Zoe looks down, seeing herself through my dilating pupils. “’Cause they look better on me.”

“Yeah,” I murmur. “They do.”

“So.” She pulls the hair from her ears, covering the faint pink on her cheeks. Then, as though she forgets herself, she tucks the same strands again. “I’m doing you a favor.”

“Yeah?” I drag myself closer to her on the carpet. “So, you’re wearing them for me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” She’s quick to deny.

I rub the same thumb over the corner of her mouth to wipe smudged chocolate, her breath fanning it as it hitches. I I bring the thumb back to my mouth and lick the chocolate, taking my time to taste it. “So you wear my clothes for you?”

She lifts her eyes from my finger on my mouth, sensing a hidden double entendre in the question she barely heard.

“I wear them because I want to.” She raises her chin. “And because I have to do my laundry.”

I don’t think all her clothes are dirty, but I don’t point that out. “Hm. I might start stealing your clothes, too.”

“You can.” She mirrors me, gaze crawling over me like mine had over her. “Sorry to disappoint, though—I don’t think they’ll fit you.”

“I don’t want to wear your clothes, love. I don’t want you to wear them, either.” I tug the hem of my shirt she wears. “I like you in mine. You look good in them.”

Holding my eyes for one, two, three heartbeats, Zoe pulls herself to trembling knees.

“Yeah?” She leans, a whisper caressing the shell of my ear. “I look so much better without them.”

Groaning at the high ceilings, as image after image of Zoe in my clothes and Zoe out of my clothes crowds the forefront of my skull, I pinch my eyes shut like it might help.

It’s futile.

She’s carved into my eyelids.

“Sweet dreams, Blackstein.”

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