“I’m not worried about me.”

“I am.” He reached out with his free hand to tuck my hair behind my ear, and I froze. The tenderness in his touch threw me off. “I want you back in one piece.”

I wondered what kind of emotion Kaleb felt coming from me now. Maybe he could help me identify it.

“Em?” Michael called out, breaking the tension. I let go of Kaleb’s hand, jumped up, and almost tripped down the stairs. I pretended not to hear Kaleb laughing behind me.

“Hey,” I said to Michael as I rounded the corner into the kitchen, sure my face was bright red. “Did you need me?”

“Can you come here a sec? I want to talk to you about something before we go.”

“Sure.” I followed him up the same—now empty—stairs I’d just been sitting on with Kaleb on rubbery legs. So many sources of anxiety were doing a number on my nervous system.

Michael went into his room, leaving the door open and sitting down on the edge of the bed. I leaned against his desk. I had no idea what else we could say to each other. I hoped he wasn’t going to lecture me about Kaleb again. He looked down at his hands almost absentmindedly, clasping and unclasping them in his lap. “Are you scared?”

“A little.”

A lot.

“Keeping you safe is as important to me as saving Liam. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do. But I want us both kept safe. Listen,” I said hesitantly, “I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything stupid when we go back, like trying to find out who killed Liam. If we save him, it won’t matter who did it.”

“It will always matter who did it.”

“I understand that, but we can deal with it when we’re not in a life-or-death situation. Promise me.”

“I won’t try to find out who killed Liam.”

“You didn’t promise me you wouldn’t do anything stupid.”

He answered me with a tight smile. The weight of all the things that were unspoken between us pressed down on me. I couldn’t make another move until I cleared one thing up.

“Michael—”

“Em, I—”

“You go first,” I said. He had on a pale blue shirt, and the first few buttons were undone. A white T-shirt peeked out from underneath, and the collar was stretched just enough for me to see his collarbone. Something about it seemed so vulnerable.

“About last night,” he said. “Grabbing you like that was wrong. What I said to you was wrong.”

“No, it was right.”

He stared at me in surprise.

I stared at his T-shirt collar. “I should probably thank you for not using the way I felt about you to sway my decision.”

“The way you felt? You don’t feel anything now?”

“It doesn’t make a difference.” I wondered if he could hear me over my erratic heartbeat. Did I look as anxious as I felt? “You’ve made your boundaries pretty clear. And then there’s Ava.”

“Ava?”

“I mean, because of your relationship.”

He stood up and took a step toward me. “We don’t have that kind of relationship. She might want one, but I don’t.”

I stared up at him, my heart bouncing off my ribs so hard I expected to go into cardiac arrest any second. “You don’t? But you—she came to your room last night—”

“She’s been playing that game ever since she moved in here. Trying to convince me she was the girl for me.”

“Fun game.” I was caught somewhere between relief and fury, thinking back on everything I’d seen. Realizing how much of my jealousy I’d projected onto the situation. Feeling like a total ass.

“She never won.” He took one more step. “Never even got close. Ever since the day I got a voice mail and met up with a slightly older woman at Riverbend Park, the title of ‘my girl’ has been reserved.”

“So you like older women?”

He lifted his hand and gave his bedroom door a solid push. A soft snick told me it had closed behind me.

“I like you. And I see now that I should have cleared that up a long time ago.”

“This can’t be a good idea,” I whispered, not trusting my voice. Frozen. Afraid to touch him. Afraid not to.

Slowly, so slowly it made me ache, he placed one hand on the side of my neck, tracing the curve of my cheekbone with his thumb. I trembled. “I’m sorry. I want you to feel comfortable with me.”

“I do.”

“Then why are you shaking?”

Gathering all the bravado I had, I reached up to touch the center of his bottom lip. His eyes went dark with need. I moved to the slight cleft in his chin, wondering if the tiny prickles I felt came from his stubble or the ever-present electricity between us.

I got my answer when the lightbulb blew in his desk lamp.

“We do have one problem,” he said, his voice deep, almost sleepy. “I still work for your brother.”

“Just one problem?” I traced the line of his lower lip. I wanted to put my mouth there.

“At least. I’d hate to betray his trust. Wouldn’t you?”

I pressed my palms against his chest, trying to still them, and wondered if my hands felt like charged up defibrillator paddles to him. “No.”

For one second Michael hesitated. One crucial second when everything hung in the balance. Then he bent down, and my hands fisted in his T-shirt. He brushed his lips across mine.

Once.

I inhaled sharply.

Twice.

Nothing from me. Except maybe a whimper.

Three times.

“Michael?” His name came out in a whisper. I could tell by his breathing that his control was slipping. I stood on my tiptoes and reached up to tangle my hands in his hair. “You are so fired.”

All the electrical tension that had been building between us exploded into heat the second his touch became more than whisper light. He took my face into his hands, using them to control the intensity and depth of our kiss, which quickly moved from sweet to reckless. It was the most lovely of assaults.

One second he was kissing me as if I was as essential to him as oxygen, and the next it was over. He stepped away, looking haunted.

“Did I do something wrong?” I touched my mouth, missing the heat of him.

“No.” He shook his head and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans.

I didn’t want his hands in his pockets. I wanted them on me. “Why did you—”

“Not because I wanted to stop kissing you.” He looked at my lips. My pulse sped up, but my blood felt like lava moving through my veins. “Timing. My timing sucks.”

Circumstances. Not because of me. I couldn’t keep myself from grinning. “Would you like to try this again then, another time?”

“I’d very much like to try this again, another time.” He grinned, but it carried a touch of sadness. “I’ll give you a second to … uh … fix your hair.”

“My hair?”

“I’ll give you a second to fix my hair. I mean, I’ll give you a second while I go fix my hair.” He let out a sigh. “I mean, I’ll see you downstairs.”

He turned to walk out of the room, but unfortunately, he forgot to open the door first.