Chapter 4
Chapter Four
His boots meet the roof with a thud.
I close my eyes, the skin on my cheeks tight from my dried tears. The wind has picked up and a chill hangs in the air, frostier now that I’m away from the fire. I sit on my hands to keep them warm.
Derek drops down beside me.
Without turning, I know it’s him. His scent—cloves and cigarettes and cologne—wraps around me.
“You okay?” His tone is gruff, as if he doesn’t want to ask the question but can’t stop himself from wondering.
I dip my chin.
“Hey…” His voice is commanding. “Look at me.”
I do.
His eyes bore into mine. “Fuck,” he mutters, shifting closer. His hand cups my cheek gently, angles my face in the moonlight. The heat of his palm is so warm, it burns against my cold skin. But I don’t pull back. I barely breathe.
Derek Reiner is touching me, cupping my cheek, gazing into my eyes. What the hell is happening?
In an instant, his expression tightens. A muscle under his left eye ticks. His eyes harden, his mouth thins. “He hurt you?”
“What?” I shake my head.
Derek’s thumb swipes up my cheekbone, agonizingly slow. The tender action is at odds with the tension that radiates off him. “That fuckwit. Did he hurt you?”
Oh. He means Grant. “No.”
He narrows his eyes. “He take it too far? Demand too fucking much?”
My cheeks burn and I drop my eyes. Derek’s hand moves but instead of falling away, he hooks it around the side of my neck. The pad of his thumb trails up the column of my throat, slow and steady. He lifts my chin to meet his eyes again.
“Allegra,” he whispers.
“It’s nothing like that,” I admit, squeezing my eyes closed as embarrassment burns through me.
“What’s it like, then?” Derek whispers again, his tone careful, his touch soothing.
“He…he doesn’t want me. He was kissing Cynthia, my—”
“Friend.”
I open my eyes, force myself to nod.
Derek heaves out an exhale. His hand moves away from my face. The cold moves in, erasing Derek’s touch. It’s a phantom burn now, invisible to everyone but me.
Derek’s muscle ticks again and he blows out a swear. He palms the roofing behind him, leaning back and staring up at the sky. Same as me. Two strangers looking up at the vastness that wraps around us, lost in our thoughts, lost in each other.
At least, I’m lost in Derek.
Why is he sitting here? Was he worried about me? Where’s Levi?
“He doesn’t deserve it.” His voice cuts the quiet air.
I turn to study his profile. He keeps his gaze trained ahead.
“Doesn’t deserve what?”
Derek’s neck rolls slowly, his eyes find mine. Hold there. “Your first kiss.” His voice is raspy, threaded with undercurrents I don’t understand but they make the hairs on the back of my neck, along my arms, stand to attention.
“It’s stupid. Being seventeen and no one wants to kiss you. No one thinks I’m pretty enough,” I explain, the vodka I drank making a reappearance as truthful thoughts I’d rather die than voice tumble out. “Interesting enough. Sexy—”
“You’re enough.” He cuts me off, turning into me. Derek invades my space like a panther, sleek and stealthy. His body hovers over mine, hands planted beside both of my hips. “You’re too fucking much, Allegra.”
I frown. “If that was true, then—”
He kisses me.
Derek Reiner kisses me, Allegra Rousell.
His mouth lands on mine, hard and unyielding.
But in the next breath, his lips soften. They mold over mine, gentle and teasing. He tugs my bottom lip between his and sucks for a heartbeat, until my surprised gasp colors the air.
Derek chuckles lightly but when my eyes latch onto his, he sobers.
Balancing himself over me, he lifts one hand, threads it through my hair, and angles my face.
Then, he gives me the most soulful, sweetest, singularly best birthday gift of my entire life.
He kisses me with a reverence I didn’t know exists.
It’s sensual and heady, filled with expectations and understandings. It’s utterly perfect.
Derek pulls away slowly, his gaze glued to mine. His expression is serious, almost severe. “You’re too much, Stellina.”
“Stellina?” I whisper.
“Little star,” he explains, his voice raspy.
It’s as if the words are being tugged from him, coaxed out of a deep, hidden cave.
His expression is dark, unreadable, but his eyes blaze.
“You’ve already started outgrowing this place, these people.
” His chin lifts toward the flickering bonfire, the crowds of my peers. “That guy—”
“Grant.”
He nods. “And your friend.”
“Cynthia,” I supply.
“They don’t deserve you. No one here does.
You’re the most beautiful, captivating, mesmerizing woman here.
None of those girls hold a fucking candle to a little star like you.
” He clears his throat, shakes his head.
“It breaks my fucking heart that you can’t see it.
That you don’t get that. But one day…” he trails off, one side of his mouth hitching higher in an almost smile.
“One day, you will. And I hope you remember this moment.”
My heart beats so loudly, it rings in my ears. Derek thinks I’m beautiful? Mesmerizing… “I’ll never forget this kiss,” I breathe out on a promise.
He smirks. “This kiss is just the beginning.” His tone holds a warning I don’t understand.
He moves closer again, pressing his mouth against my forehead.
The action is tender but wildly different than the passion he just showed me.
It’s as if he’s friend-zoning me, placing me back in the box I never should have left.
Levi’s little sister, nothing more. Certainly not a woman he could ever consider as a potential hook-up.
“You’ll see.” His voice rumbles against my skin and I feel it in my chest, in my very being.
A whistle cuts the air and Derek pulls back. “Levi’s looking for me.”
I nod, feeling both empowered and bereft by his presence. It’s a confusing cocktail of emotions. “You should go.”
He takes my hand and tugs me up. “We both should. Not leaving you here to fall off the damn roof.”
I follow him carefully over the edge, down the ladder, and back around the barn. As we cross the entrance, Cynthia and Grant exit. Cynthia tugs her shirt into place and Grant drops his head.
“Alleg—” Cynthia gasps.
Before she can finish saying my name, Derek clasps my hand in his and tugs me away from my friend and my crush.
His hand is huge, the tips of his fingers calloused from all the time he spends playing guitar. A thrill runs through me at the feeling of his roughened skin, pressing and scraping against my sensitive flesh.
I make out Levi’s frame up ahead.
Derek drops his hold and gives me one last, lingering look. “Happy birthday, Allegra.”
I stop in my tracks, wanting to remember this moment forever. Derek’s look—all sultry rock star wrapped in sincerity—shifts something in my chest. His words—all promise and heat—open a future I never fully considered.
The world outside our little bubble, this second in time, beckons with possibilities. With options.
“Thank you, Derek,” I murmur, lifting my cool palms to my hot cheeks.
Derek grins and it’s sexy as hell. “It’s a big world, Stellina. I’ll be seeing you.”
Then, he lopes off toward my brother and I try to remain upright as my entire world shifts off its axis.
In the matter of a heartbeat, everything is different.
Everything has changed.
Especially me.