Page 60 of Ink & Stardust

“Keep that shit up, Converse, and you’re likely to never get rid of me.”

Maybe I don’t want to get rid of you,I think but don’t say. In fact, I don’t say anything at all.

I fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat against my cheek and when I wake several hours later, I’m still in the same position. Still tucked into Kai’s side, his arm wrapped around me. His soft breathing filling the otherwise silent room.

I don’t want to get up. Hell, I could stay right here for the rest of my life and never tire of the sight of the beautiful man nextto me, but I force myself upright just the same. Force myself to slip out of the too-warm bed without waking him. Force myself to leave when all I want to do is stay.

I’m already in way too deep. I can feel it in my bones, a rattle I can’t shake. He’s gotten to me, even when I swore he wouldn’t, couldn’t.

It’s just sex.

Just sex...I repeat the mantra in my head.

I ran into this to numb my broken heart, but I have a feeling I won’t have a heart left at all if I stay on my current path. But even knowing that I’m on a collision course with destruction, I can’t turn away. Not from him.

Sometimes, we just have to lift our hands and let fate take the wheel and hope it doesn’t run us straight off a freaking cliff in the end.

Chapter Ten

“You going out with us tonight?” Maisie asks, drawing my focus from the book I’m currently trying to read. Note that I saidtrying. It’s kind of hard to focus when Maisie and Charlotte are both home, flittering about.

“No, I think I’m going to stay in tonight,” I tell her, marking my page before setting the book face down on my desk, throwing in the towel on getting any actual schoolwork done, at least until they leave.

“What, why?” Char pouts as she reenters the room, now in a fluffy robe, her hair wrapped up in a towel, fresh from the shower.

“I think the better question is who.” Maisie gives me a pointed look. “You two have spent nearly every day together for the past two weeks. I’m starting to feel neglected.”

“It has not beeneveryday,” I disagree, knowing I didn’t see him at all this past Wednesday because he spent the day with his grandma and didn’t get back until late, much to my disappointment.

But she’s not exactly wrong, is she? We have pretty much been inseparable the last couple of weeks, at least physically, anyway. Whenever we’re together, we’re almost always naked. Except on Sunday. Sunday, Kai is all business, saving the bulk of his schoolwork for that day. Though he did invite me to sit with him at his hidden table in the far corner, and of course, I agreed, having studied with him the last two Sundays.

We don’t really talk or anything during this time, but that doesn’t stop him from playing footsie with me under the table or reaching over to brush my hair out of my face when I’m too focused on what I’m doing to notice it has fallen forward. And while I much prefer him naked on top of me, I have come to look forward to our study sessions.

It’s strange being so comfortable with someone and yet feeling like you’re going to jump out of your skin every time they walk in the room, all in the same breath.

“You have to come out with us.” Charlotte pulls my focus back to her. “Hoes before bros.”

“Speak for yourself,” Maisie snaps playfully. “I am no hoe.”

“You two.” I shake my head on a laugh.

“You really should come with us, though,” Maisie continues. “It’s just dinner and drinks. Totally casual.”

“How do you intend to drink when you’re only nineteen?”

“I have my ways.” She grins.

“A friend of hers is bartending,” Charlotte informs me.

“He’ll serve us without IDs,” Maisie finishes.

“What kind of friend are we talking here?” I arch a brow in Maisie’s direction.

“Just a friend.” She rolls her eyes.

“Who desperately wants to fuck her.” Charlotte snickers.

“Shut up.” Maisie sticks her tongue out like a toddler.

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