Page 100 of Cross the Line
This time, I draw my thumb across her brow, erasing the question there. ‘I was just talking to Reid and . . . he told me he needs someone who can make him stand out,’ I explain, trailing my hand down to cup her cheek. ‘He saw what you did for me and wants the same thing. I agreed that you’re the perfect person for the job.’
She drops her shoulders. ‘You’re kidding me.’
‘Not in the slightest.’
Still scrutinizing me like she doesn’t understand what’s going on, she exhales quietly. ‘He really wants me to work for him?’
‘He does. Told me he’d call D’Ambrositonightto make it happen.’
The pulse in her neck is fluttering against my wrist, or maybe it’s my own racing. Because if she decides that this won’t work, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t let her go now that I know what it feels like to hold and kiss and touch her. How it feels to love her. To be loved by her.
I need her with me. Always. As close as I can get her.
‘Think on it,’ I tell her, shifting closer. I need the contact, especially if she decides that life in New York is what she wants. ‘You don’t have to make a decision right—’
‘I don’t need to think,’ she blurts, covering my hand with hers to drive the words home. ‘I want to do it. At least for the rest of the season. I’m not ready to be done. And I’m . . .’ She takes a shuddering breath. ‘I’m not ready to leave you.’
I’m laughing before I can stop myself. Nothing about this is funny, but I’m so fucking relieved that my body can’t do anything else. I can only let it out in the most natural way it knows how.
‘We’d still have to be cautious,’ she follows up. She’s grinning against my palm, which softens the weight of the words, but she’s right. ‘I think it could work for us, though. And we wouldn’t have to be apart.’
We wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have to give up my sunshine. My guiding star. My heart and soul. ‘I want to kiss you so badly right now,’ I breathe out. I want to seal this agreement with our lips pressed together, with her body moulded to mine.
Her grin turns teasing. ‘You’ll smudge my lipstick.’
‘You can touch it up.’
‘Fine,’ she whispers as I lift my other hand to her face as well. ‘Kiss me, Dev.’
‘Don’t have to ask me twice.’
I dip my head and close my eyes. I don’t need to see to find her kiss. We’re magnets drawn to each other. It’s all inevitable. It’s how it was meant to be.
It’s fate.
But my eyes fly back open when the bathroom door next to us bangs against the wall. We both jerk at the sound, though I don’t pull away from her, my hands still cupping her jaw.
And then Oakley steps into the hall.
CHAPTER 31
Willow
Oakley knows.
I can tell by the look in his eyes. My lipstick may not be smudged, but there’s still no denying it like we did nearly a year ago. We’ve been caught.
‘What the fuck is this?’
It’s only then that Dev’s hands slip from my face. But, to my absolute surprise, he curls his fingers around mine at my side. We’re doing this, then. It’s not how I envisioned us breaking the news, but we’re caught. No sense in lying when Oakley knows exactly what he was looking at, despite the question.
God, I think I’m going to be sick.
‘Well, Oak,’ Dev says after a long inhale. ‘I was about to kiss your sister.’
I wince. My brother isn’t going to take that answer well at all. The journey of emotions that cross his face, starting with disgust and morphing into surprise, then grim anger, confirms that suspicion.
‘You fuckingasshole,’ he hisses, stalking forward, though he’s forced to stop when I step between the two of them and hold an arm out. ‘I should haveknownsomething was going on.’
