Page 67 of Scarred Crown

I won’t survive whatever this turns out to be when he grows tired of me.

“What was that for?” I ask. My eyes stay closed to savor the moment.

He skims his lips across mine again before he answers me. “Can we make a deal?”

I open my eyes and scooch back, but my hand is still splayed against his chest. To push him away or to haul him back? The mention of a deal has my guard up. Any version of Nick is capable of making a deal with consequences I don’t see coming.

“A deal?” I tip my head.

He closes the space between us again and plants a gentle kiss on my temple. When he inches away, we’re staring into each other’s eyes. “We’ve got twenty-four hours in Vegas before we return to whatever is going on at home. We throw caution to the wind, and we do whatever we want. Live in the moment.”

“What exactly does that mean?” Sounds like an ideal way for me to have my heart crushed into a pulp.

“No talk of the past. No worrying about the future. We just exist, with each other.”

“If this is your way of telling me,” I glance around to make sure other people on the plane aren’t paying attention to us, “this trip is an extended one-night-stand that means nothing, message received.”

“Being with you is the exact opposite of nothing, Jules. I’m insulted you think I’d ever treat you that way.” He slouches back in his seat and glowers at me.

Except he already has, in a way, over a kiss. Agreeing with him is madness. “You really think we can treat each other however we want, do whatever we want, and we’ll be able to go back to the status quo on Bellerive?”

He stares out the window of the airplane and doesn’t say anything for a minute. When he turns back to me, the light in him is gone. “What do you want, Jules?”

The wounded expression in his eyes makes me wish I could get inside his head and figure out what’s caused this shift from euphoric to melancholy. Of course I want more of Nick brimming with joy, but I’m worried that on the other side of that lies a deep despair for me. “I don’t want either of us to get hurt.”

“Hurt is unavoidable.” His grin is wry. “So, if that’s our mantra—we’ll be hurt no matter what—tell me how to make the hurt justified.”

The answer to that is painfully obvious. I want Nick all to myself in any way and every way I can for twenty-four hours. I want to soak in his attention for when we go back to Bellerive, and he forgets I exist. That route is foolish, and I’m not normally a fool, but he’s a temptation I’ve been forcing myself to resist and ignore all my life. He’s handing himself to me on a platter, and I’m not strong enough to turn the experience down, even if it’ll wreck me.

“You and me,” I say barely loud enough for him to hear. “Twenty-four hours, no holds barred.”

He comes to life again and leans toward me. “No holds barred?”

I purse my lips, but I manage a nod.

“All right, then.” He grins and nods toward the bathroom ahead of us. “Mile high club?”

“Nick!” I laugh and shove his chest. “The whole thing starts once we land.”

“Ah, I see.” He invades my space again and twirls a lock of my hair around his index finger. “Is the airplane neutral, then?”

“Why?” Already I’m wondering if agreeing to this madness was a mistake but seeing him so happy causes an answering rush in me.

“Seal our deal with a kiss?” His forehead touches mine.

Instead of letting him come to me, this time I slide my hands around to the back of his neck, and I kiss him. Long and slow and deep, the kind of kiss that promises less clothes later. If we’re throwing caution to the wind, then I’m going to treat Nick as though he’s mine, as though no one can ever take him from me, as though it’s possible he might love me just as desperately in return.

Carpe Diem.

Seize the day. I intend to seize every hour of the twenty-four I get with him.

Nicholas

I can’t stop kissing her. Her lips are addictive. After years of denying myself this pleasure, I keep waiting for someone to step in between, tell me this is all an elaborate joke, or wake me from a dream.

She takes every ounce of my affection and then gives it right back in return.

The waitress goes past our poker table, and I grab another rum and coke off her tray. One of the best things about Vegas is the absence of time. When we got off the plane, Jules and I both set alarms on our phones for when we need to grab a taxi to the airport tomorrow.