Page 33 of Tessa and Nash

It’s meant to be quick. A distraction. A full stop at the end of a sentence I don’t know how to finish.

It’s none of those things.

The second our mouths meet, my chest slams open.

Her breath catches, and for a terrifying half second, I think she’s going to shove me away. Instead, her hand fists in the front of my coat, not pulling me closer, not pushing me back.

The kiss deepens. Her lips are warm despite the cold, unyielding, arguing with me even now. My head spins, the street tilting, the lie, the council, the town, all of it falling away until there’s just this.

Her.

Me.

The way my heart is trying to break free of my ribs.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Tessa

January 3rd

I should tell him to leave.

That’s the sensible thing. The responsible thing. The Tessa Long thing.

Instead, I’m standing on my front walk with my heart in my throat and Nash McCoy’s mouth still a ghost on mine, my skin humming like it’s been struck by lightning.

“You kissed me,” I say, because stating the obvious feels like the only thing anchoring me to reality.

He exhales a laugh that sounds just as unsteady as I feel. “You noticed.”

I should be furious.

I should be offended, indignant, outraged on principle alone.

Instead, my pulse is still racing, my breath shallow, my thoughts scattered like papers knocked off a desk.

I take a step back toward the house.

Not away from him.

Toward the door.

Nash’s eyes flick there instantly, sharp despite the whiskey and the bedlam he’s wrapped himself in tonight. “Tessa…”

I turn the key before I can overthink it.

The lock clicks open far too loudly in the quiet street, and for a split-second panic flares, Mrs. Henley’s porch light across the road, the faint smolder from the Long House windows, my uncle’s room facing the street…

“Inside,” I whisper, grabbing Nash’s sleeve.

He doesn’t hesitate.

We slip through the door and I shut it behind us carefully, moving on instinct rather than thought. The house is dark and still, steeped in that familiar late-night quiet that belongs to old walls and deep histories.

Everyone’s asleep.

Thank goodness.