Chapter 11
Nova
Ameena is telling a story about Zoe as a child and everyone is laughing. I’m trying to listen, but Locke isn’t here.
He slipped out the back door ten minutes ago. I’ve been pretending I didn’t notice and I’m running out of things to pretend with.
Ameena finishes the story about Zoe climbing onto the roof and stands up, stretching. “I’m going to put the kettle on. Anyone want tea?”
A few murmurs. She disappears into the kitchen and comes back a second later.
“Well.” She looks at it almost defeated. “I’m out of water.”
“Bucket’s still out by the well,” Rane says. “It’s full, just needs to be brought in.”
“I’ll get it,” I say, and I’m on my feet before any of them can move.
Kyron catches my eye as I pass, one eyebrow raised, that infuriating smirk already forming.
Dammit.
I push through the door and don’t look back. The night air hits me and I breathe deep.
The well is at the far end of the yard, near the tree line. I can see it from here, the stone lip pale in the dark. And standing next to it, is Locke.
Because of course he is.
He’s leaning against the well like he owns it. Arms crossed, his head tipped back. He looks like a different person when he’s not carrying the weight of everyone in the room. It looks good on him.
My chest does something stupid.
He looks up when the door shuts behind me.
I cross the yard. Grab the bucket handle where it’s sitting on the lip of the well.
“Ameena needs water,” I say.
“I’ll get it.”
“I’m already here.”
“Nova—”
“It’s a bucket of water, Locke. I think I can manage.”
He reaches for it. His hand closes over the handle and I don’t let go.
We’re both holding the bucket now. His fingers are an inch from mine on the handle. He’s looking at me with that expression — the one where he’s trying to be patient and coming off as condescending.
“You were unconscious twelve hours ago.”
“And now I’m standing.”
“You shouldn’t be hauling water.”
“You don’t get to decide what I should be doing.”
His jaw tightens. “I’m not trying to decide anything. I’m trying to—”
“Help? I don’t need help carrying a bucket.”
“You weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet and you just—”
“Just what? Turned into a giant fire bird? Yeah, I heard.” I tug the bucket toward me. He doesn’t let go. “Pretty sure that makes me tougher than the bucket.”
“Let go of the bucket, Locke.”
“No.”
“Locke.”
“Nova.”
I yank.
He yanks back.
The bucket tips.
Well water — cold, dark, straight-from-the-ground cold — dumps over both of us.
I gasp. He swears. The bucket clangs against the stone lip of the well and rolls into the grass and I’m standing there soaked from the chest down, my shirt clinging to me, and Locke is dripping from the arms and shoulders and his face is doing something I’ve never seen before.
He’s trying not to laugh.
“Don’t,” I say.
He presses his lips together. A sound escapes anyway.
“Don’t you dare—”
He laughs. Not the quiet half-laughs I’ve heard from him before — a real one, startled out of him, and the sound is so unexpected that I forget to be annoyed.
A giggle breaks out of me before I can stop it and then we’re both standing there in the dark, soaked and stupid, and I’m laughing so hard my ribs ache.
“This is your fault,” I manage.
“You’re the one who yanked it.”
“You wouldn’t let go!”
“Because you were going to hurt yourself!”
“With a bucket?!”
We’re both still laughing and I’m freezing. My shirt is plastered to my skin and water is dripping off the ends of my hair. Locke runs his hand over his face, pushing the water back, and his shirt is clinging to his chest and arms in a way that I’m absolutely not noticing.
I’m noticing.
He looks down at himself. Looks at me. His eyes drop to where my shirt is soaked through, clinging to everything, and come back up to my face so fast I almost miss it.
Almost.
“We should probably get out of these wet clothes,” he says.
I nod because, yeah, that makes sense. It’s cold. We’re soaked. We’ll get sick if we just stand here dripping. I’m already reaching for the hem of my shirt when it hits me.
What he said.
What he actually said.
I stop. My hands are on my hem. His eyes are on my hands. And the laughter is gone and something else is in its place and the six inches between us are suddenly not enough and also way too much.
“I—” I start.
“You don’t have to,” he says quickly. “I didn’t mean — I just meant we’re wet and—”
“I know what you meant.”
We stare at each other. Fireflies are drifting through the yard behind him. I hadn’t noticed them before — tiny gold lights blinking between the trees, making everything look unreal.
His heart is hammering. I can see it in his throat, the pulse jumping.
“At the lake,” he says, and his voice sounds like it’s being dragged out of him. “When you shifted. When you were falling.”
“Locke, don’t—”
“I tried to catch you.” He’s not looking at me anymore.
He’s looking at the trees. “You came out of the fire and you were falling and I ran into the water and it was boiling and I didn’t care.
I was going to catch you or drown trying.
” His hand scrubs across his face. “You landed ten feet in front of me. Ten feet. And I couldn’t close the distance. ”
I don’t know what to say. We’re standing here soaking wet in the dark and he’s telling me he almost died trying to save me and my shirt is see-through right now. I can feel my heart in my wrist.
“I’m not fragile,” I say. It comes out quieter than I mean it to.
“I know you’re not fragile. You’re the least fragile person I’ve ever met.” He looks at me and there’s something cracked open in his face. “I almost lost you, Nova.”
“You didn’t.”
“I almost did.”
“But you didn’t. I’m right here. Soaking wet because of your stupid bucket ego, but I’m here.”
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile.
“Next time,” he says. “I won’t miss.”
“Then I guess you better be faster.”
He looks at me. I look at him. The fireflies are drifting around us and we’re both dripping and this is absurd. This whole thing is absurd.
I should go inside. I should change into dry clothes and sit back down and stop standing in the dark with a man who looks at me like I’m the thing keeping him upright.
Instead I’m staring at his mouth.
“Locke.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want to run this time.”
His jaw tightens. His hands flex at his sides. I watch him fight with himself for about two seconds.
Then I close the distance and press my mouth to his.
He goes still.
For one horrible second I think I’ve misread everything. Then his hands come up, frame my face, and he kisses me back.
He’s being careful. Slow. His thumbs on my cheekbones, his mouth barely moving against mine. And his heart is absolutely slamming — I can feel it through his wet shirt, this frantic hammering that doesn’t match anything about the way he’s kissing me.
I fist my hands in the front of his shirt and pull him closer. The wet fabric bunches in my grip.
Something slips. Just for half a second — his fingers tighten in my hair, his mouth opens against mine, and I feel what’s underneath. Hungry. Desperate. Then he catches himself and pulls it back.
No.
I open my mouth against his.
He groans. His arm bands around my waist and he hauls me against him so hard my feet leave the ground.
His tongue slides against mine. I grab his shoulders because the world is tilting and I can feel all of him pressed against me — chest, hips, and lower, hard against my stomach.
The part I’m trying not to think about and completely failing.
“Nova.” My name comes out like a warning. “If you don’t want this to go further, tell me now.”
“I’m not running, Locke.”
He pulls back. Searches my face. Waiting for me to panic, to bolt, to do the thing I always do.
“Are you sure?”
“I just kissed you next to a well because you wouldn’t let me carry a damn bucket. Yeah. I’m sure.”
Something in his face breaks open.
His mouth comes down on mine and there’s nothing careful about it. His teeth catch my lower lip. His hand fists in my hair, tilts my head back. The angle opens everything up and I’m making sounds I can hear and can’t stop.
I pull at his shirt. The wet fabric clings and he has to peel it off and it shouldn’t be hot — it’s clumsy and awkward and the shirt gets stuck on his head for a second — but then it’s off and my hands are on him.
Warmth under his damp skin. My palms slide up his stomach and his muscles tense under my fingers and I trace a scar across his ribs before I think about it.
His breath hitches under my hands and the fact that I can do that to him, that my touch makes Locke Mercer’s breath catch, goes to my head faster than anything else.
“Inside,” I manage. “The porch — there’s a—”
“Here.”
“In the grass?”
His mouth finds the spot below my ear. His teeth scrape against the skin there and everything south of my waist clenches.
I stop caring about where we are.
I’m standing and then I’m not. His arm is behind my back, the grass is cool beneath me, and he’s above me. Braced on one arm. His body is huge over mine — not threatening, just covering me. Like nothing in the world can reach me as long as he’s between me and it.
His thigh presses between my legs and my hips roll up against it before I can stop them.
We both freeze.
“Sorry,” I say, face burning.
“Don’t.” His voice is raw. “Don’t apologize for that. Do it again.”
Oh.
He kisses me and I do it again. Rock against his thigh.
The friction through the thin joggers makes me whimper into his mouth.
I do it again, harder, chasing it. His hand grips my hip and pulls me tighter against his leg and I can feel how wet I’m getting through the fabric.
I should be embarrassed. I’m not. I’m rolling my hips like I’ve forgotten he’s watching.
The sounds I’m making aren’t words anymore.