Page 23 of Rogue

She shudders and it’s not just from the Santa Ana wind that’s picking up again.

“So, this Edge guy… he’s your ex?” I ask.

She lifts her head and looks at me, smirking. “Are you getting territorial?”

Yes. The answer is yes. God help me.

“He’s just a friend,” she says and lays her head back down against my shoulder.

What is it about this woman? First she pries all my deepest and darkest secrets out of me and now she already has me getting possessive. Which I never do. And I haven’t even kissed her yet.

That last part’s the only thing I can do something about.

So I lean down and fix that.

And man, I knew kissing her would be something. But I didn’t expect it to be sunrise, noon, and sunset all rolled into one. And everything good in between.

She kisses me back, not hard, but with the kind of urgency that tells me she’s been waiting for it too. I lift her into my arms and deepen the kiss.

And for the next what feels like forever everything but the feel of her lips on mine and her fingers in my hair is all there is. And all there needs to be.

For the first time in a very, very long time I feel hope again. It’s such a soft, tiny little thing, hope. Easy to miss. Easy to forget about.

And I have.

But right now, I have hope that the future will be a lot brighter than the past has been.

Then she goes and pulls away, smoothing down her shirt which I’ve lifted as I slid my hand under it.

“This was great. I had a great time, but I have to get to work now,” she hastens to explain, her eyes still all soft, her lips glimmering from the kissing, but her words the ones you say when you want to end things.

“What? You just got off,” I say, chuckling even though I don’t even feel like smiling.

She laughs. “That’s the life of a first-year resident doctor. I think I have a day off in a couple of weeks. Maybe.”

She’s already standing, the sun rising behind her, coloring the horizon a bright yellow.

I stand up too.

“I’ll take you home then,” I say, since what else can I say?

“Just to the hospital, thanks,” she says. “All my stuff’s still in my car. I don’t have a home here yet.”

Now there’s a lot of reactions I could have to that, but the strongest is sadness. For her. Because she has no home. Because I think that’s what she meant.

“You can stay at the clubhouse until you get settled,” I offer. Or forever. I’d like that second one better.

She smiles, but it fades quickly as she shakes her head. “No. Thank you, but no. I’m good.”

Then she starts walking away, the wooden boards creaking under her feet, audible even over the crashing waves below us.

I have to jog to catch up to her, because I spend way too much time rooted to the spot, thinking that hearing her retreating footsteps so clearly was some kind of omen.

There’s lots I still want to say to her. To tell her. To hear her tell me. But this feels like a goodbye. And I never did know what to say when it came to those. I don’t even try.

But the way she holds onto my waist as we ride back to the hospital doesn’t feel like a goodbye. It feels like the start of something I didn’t even know I wanted.

I try to kiss her again as we’re saying goodbye in front of the hospital. But she averts her face and her eyes, mutters something about not wanting to kiss anymore because she likes it too much.

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