Page 61 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

I started walking toward Environmental Science. He fell into step beside me.

We made it about ten steps before he glanced down at me — specifically at my neck.

His eyes narrowed. “Why are you wearing a turtleneck?”

“It’s cold.”

“It’s not cold.”

I kept walking. He matched my pace easily.

“You’re covering it,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Noted.”

A few steps passed in silence before he spoke again, voice lower.

“I was looking forward to seeing my mark on you today.”

“Heartbreaking,” I muttered.

“Harper.”

I sighed and finally glanced sideways at him. “It’s a bruise, Jackson. Not a trophy.”

“It’s my bruise.”

My cat purred. I ignored her.

He pushed open the door to the lecture hall and held it for me. I walked in first. We took our usual seats right before the professor began. The moment I sat, Jackson’s thigh settled against mine, solid and warm. He rested his arm along the back of my chair a second later.

For most of the lecture on watershed dynamics the contact stayed exactly like that— quiet, constant, distracting.

Until the eighty-minute mark.

Jackson stretched, one arm reaching back behind his head. The movement pulled his shirt up just enough to show a strip of toned stomach and the dark line of hair that disappeared into his waistband.

I looked. I didn’t mean to, but I did. I knew exactly what waited at the end of that line.

He caught me staring.

“Like what you see?” he asked, voice low and amused, lips curving.

I jerked my gaze back to the front of the room, jaw tight. “No.”

“Liar,” he said softly.

It would have been easier if last night had been forgettable. It wasn’t. I still remembered every touch, every sound, every place he’d made me come apart.

The memories weren't going anywhere. Neither was he.

Maybe I could keep the two things separate. Fighting the pull every time we were in the same room was starting to cost more than managing it. I had already crossed the line. Pretending otherwise was a waste of energy.

I didn’t look at him again for the rest of the lecture.