Page 63 of At the Edge with You

As she hits play and “I See the Light” fromTangledstarts, I give her a dry look. “Disney? Really? Are we ten?”

She snorts. “Kitty loves Disney.”

“And again, I don’t care.” I put on Yellowcard’s “Only One,” and her eyes light up.

“No way. But I do love this song.”

We both bob our heads as we sing and laugh along together. When she puts on Chuck Berry’s “You Can Never Tell,” I can’t help myself. I push the coffee table aside, and we both start dancing like the fools we are, doing the whole scene the way they did inPulp Fiction.

Our laughter is unstoppable, and I can’t get enough of her.

When the song ends, we fall to the couch and agree that the song isn’t for this skate.

On a sigh, I say, “I want this to be us.”

She throws her hands up, frustrated. “What is us, Jett Cook?”

A slow smile spreads over my face as I look down at my phone. My thumb is shaking as I hit play on “Fall for You” by Secondhand Serenade. When I first heard this song, it spoke to my soul. It’s a perfect mix of slow and fast beats, and for me, it’s perfect.

It is everything I feel about her.

Fable glances down at her hands, wringing her fingers, and I know she knows the song. She leans back on the couch, and I do the same, stretching my arm along the top. I’m not touching her but giving her the support of my body if she needs it. She doesn’t say anything or even look at me, but she sings along with the lyrics. I’m so ensnared by her, I can’t look away. I can only watch as her lips move, and her eyes fall shut so slowly.

When the song ends, she sighs deeply and nods. “Yeah, it could work.”

I don’t say anything. I can’t. I wonder if the lyrics spoke to her like they do to me. When she lifts those sweet green eyes to mine, I take in a sharp breath at the pure torture in her gaze. She swallows thickly, her lips pressing together as she stares up into my eyes. I want to kiss her so badly, but I need her to makethe move. If I let myself act the way I want, I’ll ruin everything. I’m desperate for her, but I respect her too much to rush her into anything.

“I wish you hadn’t chosen hockey,” she admits, her voice so soft, I’m not even sure she meant for me to hear it.

Emotion suffocates me, but I can’t lie. “It’s one of my biggest regrets.”

Her eyes widen for just a second before she leans her temple against my cheek. I wrap my arms around her, holding her close as I breathe her in. She looks up at me, her eyes ping-ponging between mine as she whispers, “I don’t want any more regrets, Jett.”

My heart is slamming into my ribs. “I don’t either.”

I cup her jaw, loving how her face feels in my hand. She leans into my palm, and my heart rate skyrockets. I rub the spot below her bottom lip. Her eyes darken, her lips parting and leaving me in knots. My voice is raspy as I tell her, “I’ve been dreaming about these lips all week.”

Her eyes sparkle. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Shit,” I say, my face flushing. “If I’m honest, I’ve been dreaming about them for twenty-four years.” Her bottom lip quivers, and then slowly, she presses a kiss to my thumb. My breath hitches, my body now trembling as I gaze down at her. Thinking clearly isn’t easy around her on a normal day, but when she looks at me like she wants to devour me, yeah, I’m only feeling at this point.

Breathless, I whisper, “Can I kiss you?”

She shakes her head, and my heart sinks. I know I’m not reading this wrong. I can feel how badly she wants me, see it in her eyes. What am I doing wrong? Who hurt her, and how can I kill them without going to jail? I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in as I try to grab control of my need for her. Sheslides her nose along my lips, and I kiss her gingerly, needing to feel her with my lips.

Before I can ask why, or even what she is scared of so I can ease those concerns, she lifts her head, her gaze locking with mine. She searches my gaze, and against my lips, she whispers, “Because I want to kiss you first.”

Everything stops.

When she presses her lips to mine, I know with absolute certainty that she is the last woman I’ll ever kiss.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

Fable

I usually ignore my intrusive thoughts, because when I give in to them, I cause myself mental mayhem. Like, maybe I shouldn’t have touched that sticky stuff because I wondered what it would feel like. Or better yet, I shouldn’t have bought that subscription to that planner site because I don’t need more planner stuff when I don’t use what I have—and my life is a complete clusterfuck, no matter how many supplies I have. Or when I convinced myself that every time I went out, someone was following me. The best one was when I was an Olympic athlete and I went out with some of Team USA to a club. The smell of marijuana was so strong that I convinced myself I was going to get high and piss hot.

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