Page 55 of The Fate Factor

I help him roll his T-shirt up, running my fingers over each inch of skin as it’s revealed to me. I’ve seen him shirtless, of course, in the vision and sitting in the hospital bed, but not where I could touch him, press my hand to flat muscles and soft hair.

We come together again, pulling in twin breaths as bare skin meets bare skin. A swell hits my butt cheeks and I gasp.

Jamie only laughs.

“The urge to splash you is very strong right now,” I say through my chattering teeth.

He grins at me. “You won’t do it. You’re too sweet.”

“Maybe I’m not as sweet as you think I am,” I say, then immediately suck my lip between my teeth.

“If you’re offering me a taste, Noel. I’m going to take it.”

Woah.

I don’t want to misread this because I think I know the future. But I’m also pretty sure I know the future. Even so, my heart goes berserk in my chest, and I remind myself what he said on the fire escape. That’s how you know it’s worth doing.

“I’m offering it,” I say.

Jamie’s eyes flare with something new. Some hunger I think may have been on a very short leash until now. He steps closer, and the moment seems to trip over itself like a die being thrown. Where will it land?

He slides his hand into my hair, then his thumb beneath my chin, tipping it toward him. My head falls back in enthusiastic agreement, but he doesn’t take my mouth. No, the first time Jamie Bishop’s lips touch my body is at my neck. The heat of his breath spills through me, straight down between my legs, and I whimper. He sucks once, dangerously, teeth right at my pulse point, then moves to my collarbone. Then, and this is the one that makes my knees go weak, the softest brush over my cheek.

He pulls back, leaving my mouth empty and my eyes clenched shut. When I finally pry them open, a violent shiver shakes my whole body like some embarrassing dance move I pulled out at the wrong moment, and Jamie tips his head back and laughs at the sky.

“Are we swimming?” he asks.

“Bastard.”

“Come on. It’ll be warmer once we go further.” He lobs our shirts to the sand left-handed, and I follow on tiptoes, legs shaking. “Stay with me.” It’s a warning, another quick glimpse into a more serious side he keeps tucked away, and I appease it with a quick cross over my heart.

“I promise.”

Satisfied, he turns toward the water, catching my hand on the way. Ice splashes up my thighs but my heart is glowing warm. I let myself be pulled along, let myself look at him in themoonlight. The freckles on his back, the muscles in his shoulders that I felt on his couch the other night.

But then something else catches my attention, like a hook snaring a fish, and my smile slides.

Another tattoo, curling around his shoulder blade. It’s beautiful. Blue ink, barely more than a pencil sketch in form but it has amazing detail. The artist in me wants a closer look, but the rest of me slows to a stop, confusion pressing behind my breastbone.

It didn’t register at first. I was too caught up in his bare skin, buzzing too brightly at the adventure. Now, my stomach that was just doing little flips and leaps, starts to twist and turn sour.

It’s different. The tattoo I saw in the vision of us. It’s not there.

Jamie’s arm pulls taut when I dig my feet in. He spins toward me. “You gotta stay with me, gorgeous. It’s dark.”

I stare back in response, words lost to the spinning in my brain.How could this be? Am I remembering it wrong?

But I know I’m not. I recognized the wreath on his bicep, the birds on his forearm. Those were the same.

Of course, I’d seen those in person, on the roof that night. But the freckles on his chest and stomach—I only knew of those from the vision, and there they are.

The tattoo is in the same spot—on his right shoulder blade—but it was words before. A quote maybe, or lyrics?

This artwork takes up a lot of real estate. There’s no way I could have misremembered it. No matter what I told Jamie, I’ve thought about that night far too many times to get this huge thing wrong. Which means the vision was wrong.

“Noel. Are you coming?”

God, if he’d just leaned forward in that hospital bed, I would have seen this too.

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