Page 9

Poet cocks his head again. “What are you smiling about?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him truthfully, and he doesn’t answer for the longest moment I’ve ever lived through.

Then he nods towards the way we came. “Come on.”

I feel like a teenager walking home from a school party with a girl on my arm. But Poet Whitlock isn’t a girl. He’s a six-foot-something man, and he walks beside me with the quiet poise of a lynx.

Watchful. Contained strength.

Though it’s me doing the watching, and I still haven’t figured out how to stop.

Or even tried that hard.

The farm is quiet. Air shifting across open land. My breath feels loud with the weight of my body and the warmth of the gin resting low in my chest. And Poet. Walking beside me. A man I’ve just met, but somehow this ritual is familiar.

Ancient, maybe.

Have we met before? In another life?

Sol would say yes. So would my mother. Matis would tell me to eat a sandwich and go to bed. Science with my brother. Always science and logic. Which should tell me something else. Something obvious. But I’m distracted as we reach my car and Poet eases to a slow stop.

Skylar isn’t here yet.

No one is.

Like it has been for most of the evening, it is just us. We are alone and I am drawn to him once more. In sync with him as the space between us evaporates and his hands slide along my bare forearms.

My pulse kicks.

I let it and words spill out of me, rough and unbidden. “I’m straight. I think.”

Poet’s mouth curves in a slow smile. As if he predicted my bemused confession. “You think?”

I huff something that might be a laugh, except it rumbles from somewhere deeper, somewhere that brings a part of me long forgotten surging to life. “Would you believe I have never thought about it much until this moment?”

“Yeah, I would.” Poet rubs my exposed arms with his thumbs, tracing the ink he finds there. “You have an honest face.”

I like that he sees that in me. I like the trail of fire he leaves on my skin too and my body reacts to it, pulsing warmth flooding my veins, breath catching in my throat—and I know what this is. Because it’s been happening since the barn. Since Ivy gave Aras a cake to spread across the backseat of my car and I caught myself too puzzled by how arresting I found Poet Whitlock to give much thought to clearing it up.

I will regret that later. But it’s the furthest thing from my mind as Poet settles with his hands on me, steady, like he’s giving me a choice I’ve never contemplated before.

A choice that seems so easy, and yet…

I waver in taking something I’m not sure belongs to me. Because I have never studied a man’s mouth the way I study Poet’s as my mind spins at warp speed. Not once have I wondered how it would feel pressed against mine. Not once have I ever felt I might like to find out.

Calm yourself.

I close my eyes and take a slow breath, focussing on the blooming sensation where Poet already holds me. Track it as it courses through my blood and body and infiltrates every nerve.

Desire.

I know it is. And…I want it.

I want him, I realise, and I am okay with that.

My eyes open of their own accord.

Poet hasn’t moved. He’s just there, no judgement or expectation in his eyes. No push. It’s me who moves first. Me who kisses him with a solid determination that knocks the wind clean out of me.