Page 46 of The Outsider

She looked up, and she did look at his face this time, and her mouth went dry. Oh no. Oh shit. She could not afford to have a crush on this man. She was way too cynical to have crushes. She knew better than that.

Bad boys had never appealed to her. Because they smelled like cigarettes and alcohol, and dead ends.

Because she was way too smart to hitch her wagon to a man who was only headed to prison. She hadn’t chosen to be associated with her father, and had been. She didn’t see the point in expanding her convict network by choice.

But apparently, she was susceptible to this. To his innate goodness. Maybe that was the problem. He was a cop. And what could be more forbidden to somebody like her? Everybody wanted that, right? Good girls wanted bad boys. Apparently she wanted him. This man who stood in stark contrast to everything she’d ever known. This man who represented a system that she had been trained to be afraid of.

That added up.

Because people were dumb like that.

And apparently so was she.

She didn’t want to stop dancing with him, though. Because it was fun. Because he spun her in a circle. Because her dress swirled up around her thighs, and it made her feel feminine and pretty. Because she feltsmall and protected when he held her in his arms, and she couldn’t think of a time that she’d ever felt that before.

Because it was different. And in that moment, so was she.

She didn’t want it to end. And she was desperate for it to. Because it felt like her body was waking up.

That made sense.

Normally she was cold. Normally she was hungry. Normally she was worried about survival, so how could she think about this? But sometimes she did. Like when she had readThe Wolf and the Doveand she had wondered what it would be like. To be forced to be comfortable. Chained to a bed. Vulnerable, but protected. Warm. Safe. But the dangerous thing, the barbarian, would become your greatest ally because of love. Because of desire.

That had definitely stirred a lot of things inside of her. And this felt... like that. Except it was dangerous, because he was real. And so was this moment.

The fire sparked, flecks of orange on a black sky.

Stardust.

And then finally, the song ended. She wanted to cry. And then she wanted to hide. Because it had to be obvious to everybody around her what was going on. That her heart was threatening to burst through her chest, that she felt dizzy, and not just from being spun.

How did anybody get anything done with him around? She supposed that his brothers were handsome too, and she spent a lot of time with them. Butthey weren’t him. How come nobody else seemed immobilized by that? By his magnetism.

She had never known anybody like this.

Nobody had ever made her want to throw caution to the wind.

But she couldn’t. She could imagine what might happen if she stretched up on her toes and kissed him. She could imagine those strong arms taking her and pushing her back. Holding her away from him. Worst of all, she could imagine pity in his eyes. That such a pathetic creature would think that a man like him would want to kiss her.

Because he wouldn’t. Of course he wouldn’t. It was... unthinkable.

So she moved away from him. “Thanks,” she said. “For the dance.”

“No problem,” he said, his eyes completely unreadable. And anyway, she couldn’t stand to look at them for another second.

She went back to the food table. She wasn’t hungry, but she ate another piece of pie, because she didn’t know what to do with herself and she thought that might do something to quiet the blood in her veins. He felt loud. Hot.

She was worried that everybody could hear it.

And without his touch, without his hold, she suddenly felt cold. She shivered, and fought off a wave of irritation. She didn’t want him to see her shivering.

But it was like there was an invisible string bonding them together, because in the next moment, he was there.

“You’re regretting that you didn’t bring a coat now, aren’t you?”

Her heart did a little shimmy in her chest. “I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

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