AUTHOR NOTE: If you like music while you read, try “Broken” by Seether (feat. Amy Lee from Evanescence!) while you read the next couple of chapters. It’s what I was listening to while I wrote them!

*****

RIKA

Holy crap, she loved kissing Gar. She always had, since the very first time. His full lips were soft, and his tongue insistent, without being overwhelming. He had a delicious habit of curling his tongue under her lip, just to tease, and it always gave her goosebumps.

When he dropped his head to kiss his way under her jaw to her neck, Rika let her head fall back and pulled him closer, her heart slamming against her chest so hard, her pulse sounded in her ears.

She had her fingers clawed into his hair, to pull him close or keep control of his head, she wasn’t sure. But she knew for certain that the bubbling desire aching between her legs hadn’t ever hit quite that hard. That even though she’d wanted a guy before, it had always been a tantalizing kind of heat, outlined in cold fear.

She wasn’t afraid of Gar, she realized. She was afraid of what he represented. Afraid of herself misjudging him.

Afraid of giving herself to something uncertain.

Gar took her mouth again, his breath thundering across her cheek, and Rika sighed into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck. He was still so careful, his hands sliding gently down her sides, and around her back. Never between her legs. Never to her chest.

She wanted him to touch her, she realized with jangling bolt of adrenalin that hit her system so hard, she sucked in audibly.

Gar broke the kiss immediately, sitting up, his hair—longer at the front than the back—fell over his eyes in black tines that left her breathless all on their own as he searched her gaze through them.

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” he rushed to ask, keeping his hands still.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. You don’t have to be so… nervous, Gar,” she said, with her own nervous laugh. “I’m sorry I scared you. I just… it feels amazing to kiss you and I got a shot of adrenalin and it just took me by surprise. That’s all.”

His shoulders relaxed then, and his eyes twinkled as he pulled his lips up on one side in a lopsided grin that pressed lines into his cheek and was about the sexiest, most playful thing she’d ever seen. Shoving his hair back with one hand, he lifted an eyebrow in a silent question.

Rika sat up on his lap so they were nearly nose to nose again, and made herself smile back. “You’re a very good kisser,” she said, a lot more boldly than she felt.

“It takes one to know one,” Gar said, his voice husky now with the desire she could feel pressing against her thigh rather urgently.

Rika felt her cheeks heat. Lord, she was a sucker for a smile like that.

But then Gar’s face went serious and he looked down, taking her hand in his again. “How do you feel if I tell my family that we’re… working on the bond? That you want to accept it?” he said cautiously. “They might have ideas about ways we can help you, without having to walk the Flames and Smoke.”

Rika smiled. “I’d like that, I think.”

“I have to warn you, they’ll be excited. Especially my mom.”

Rika gave him a skeptical look. “Even your sister?”

“Even her, once she has half a brain cell to give to anything other than the humans…” he trailed off and their eyes met again, both of them recognizing the unspoken threat. “I won’t let her hurt you, Rika. I don’t think she’ll want to anymore. I think she believes you. But don’t worry. Even if she’s still not convinced, I won’t let her touch you.”

Rika sighed. “I don’t want to be the reason you guys are fighting.”

Gar snorted. “I promise, we don’t need you around to fight.”

Rika smiled and leaned in to lay a soft kiss on his beautiful mouth. Gar groaned into the kiss, but didn’t fight when she leaned back again to look at him. Rika was struck then by how handsome he was—that strong jaw, beginning to shadow now in the afternoon. His bright eyes peering at her out from under his hair. The thick cords of his neck and the muscles that pulled his shirt sleeves tight… She loved the thick strength of his fingers and the tendons on the backs of his hands, the smattering of hair on his forearms, and the way his shoulders were so broad and flat, but his waist was so trim.

Everything about him screamed strength—which was what had always made her so nervous about him, when she dwelled on it. He could lift her in one arm and she wouldn’t be able to get loose.

That tendril of fear curled into her heart again and she tried to shove it away, but Gar’s eyes began to cloud.

“What do I do?” he whispered.

“When?” she asked, playing dumb.

“When the fear comes back for you. What can I do, Rika? I want to help. But I also don’t want… I don’t want to be apart from you.”

Lord, he had beautiful eyes—especially when they were pinched like that, so focused on her. “Just be patient,” she said, tearing her eyes away from his, feeling the shame of being the broken one. “Just don’t get angry with me.”

“I won’t.”

“Oh, you will, trust me,” she said dryly, trying to joke, but knowing the truth of it, too. She might not have had feelings for another guy the way she did for Gar. But she’d had men before. And men who cared.

They all got tired of her moods, as they called them. The way she’d flash between hot and cold.

And it was easy to tell when they were getting sick of it, because they got that growly kind of pout to their lips and suddenly, kisses weren’t enough, or she should be doing something she’d done before. And why the fuck did she not want to have sex, they’d just had sex a few days ago?

Rika sighed and dropped her head back with a groan as Gar looked at her with concern. She didn’t ever want to get to that place with him. But she was so afraid she wouldn’t be able to control it.

She’d never been able to before. Why should she think this was any different?

Her stomach dropped to her toes as Gar shifted in his seat.