Authors: Mila Gray
his hand lingering, moving to rest against my cheek.
‘What would?’ I ask, my senses obliterated, all my
focus on his hand and on his lips, so close to mine.
‘This,’ he says, and he kisses me.
I’ve imagined kissing Kit a million times, but never in
all my imaginings was it like this. The instant his lips
touch mine I feel like I’m rocketing through space. His
arms tighten around my waist, pulling me closer, the
heat of his hands and his lips lighting signal fires all the
way through my body. He’s tender, gentle, almost careful
with me, until, utterly consumed by him, I push myself
up on tiptoe and wrap my arms around his neck and
draw him closer.
He groans a little as my breasts press against him, and
his hand falls to my hip, gripping it tightly and pull-
ing me more firmly against him. The kiss deepens, his
tongue pushing into my mouth, meeting mine. I can feel
his desire, taste it, and it’s feeding my own. And now I’m
truly breathless, stars dancing on the backs of my eye-
lids, blood roaring in my head so loud that I don’t at first
hear Kit say my name, his lips still pressed to mine.
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‘Jessa,’ he murmurs.
It takes me a few seconds to come to. Kit has stopped
kissing me. He pulls away, though his hands are still
gripping my hips. I open my eyes, my breath ragged and
my face burning. Kit is staring over my shoulder.
‘Your dad,’ he whispers.
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Kit
Shit. Jessa’s dad is illuminated in the kitchen doorway
like the captain on the bridge of a ship. He’s silent,
unmoving as a statue, but I can feel his eyes burning
through the darkness. He’s staring straight at us – or
rather straight at the bushes as though he has X-ray
vision and can see us hidden behind them, his daughter
in my arms.
Against me, Jessa has gone rigid, frozen with fear. Her
fingers bite into the tops of my shoulders. I hold her
tight, making sure she doesn’t move so much as an eye-
lash. He might be an old dude, but Jessa’s dad is still a
trained sniper, famous back in his day and with a shelf
full of trophies to show for it. I don’t want my head to
join them.
We’re pretty well hidden behind a thicket of leaves and
branches and the moon has thankfully chosen to slip
behind some clouds, so I don’t think he can make us out,
but any movement or noise and we’re done for. His eyes
might not be as razor-sharp as they used to be, but the
guy has ears like an elephant. The joke on the base is that
Colonel Kingsley can hear a marine fart in Afghanistan
without moving from his desk at Pendleton. The roar of
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blood in my ears is so loud I’m betting that’s what got his
attention in the first place.
Slowly I raise my hand and place a finger against Jes-
sa’s lips. They’re warm and so soft that straightaway I get
a tingling in my gut and an overwhelming urge to start
kissing her once more, never mind her father watching . . .
he can have a front-row seat. Then I get a grip. I lock eyes
with Jessa. She’s staring up at me, her expression so fear-
ful that anger instantly wells up in me, taking the place of
desire. Who the hell is this guy to make her – his own
daughter – this scared? I force my anger down and give
Jessa a smile, and then when that doesn’t work, I wink at
her, trying to get her to relax. She does. Her breathing set-
tles and her grip on my arms loosens.
Keeping as still as I can, I swivel my eyes so I can
watch her dad. He’s still there, in the doorway, glaring
out into the blank void of the garden, and it feels as if he’s
staring right at me, drilling through me with his eyes,
spitting hatred across the darkness. If he decides to come
and investigate, we’re fucked. I don’t care so much about
myself, but I do care about what he might do to Jessa. I
don’t think he’d hurt her, but man, it won’t be pretty.
He’ll probably ground her for a century. And there goes
any chance I might have of seeing her again before I head
out on my next deployment.
Just then, Colonel Kingsley
Sir
takes a step onto the
veranda, holding the kitchen door open with one hand.
Shit. There’s only one thing for it. I need to go out there,
bite the bullet and hope it’s just a metaphorical one. I’ll
act like I was hanging around waiting for Riley, not want-
ing to disturb them all by ringing the doorbell. He might
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Mila Gray
buy it. Though how I’m going to explain the fact that I’ve
been sitting in the bushes in their backyard I’m not yet
sure. Telling him I was relieving myself on his prize
begonias isn’t going to go down well. Oh well, it’s not
like it will be the first time I’ve been on the receiving end
of one of Kingsley’s rages. One time Riley and I burned
down the garage playing around with some fireworks
and Kingsley did the best impression I’ve seen of an
angry person since Robert de Niro in
Taxi Driver
.
I prise Jessa’s fingers silently free from my arms. Her
eyes grow even bigger, the whites so visible they gleam.
She shakes her head at me, trying to grab for my hands
to stop me, but I just smile reassuringly at her and then
point to the tree and nod at her to stay out of sight. She
glares at me in response.
But then, just as I’m about to step out of the bushes, my
hands raised as though I’m surrendering to the enemy,
Jessa’s dad turns abruptly around and marches back into
the house. Loud cheering is issuing from a television
somewhere inside. The game! I close my eyes and say a
grateful prayer to the gods of baseball for saving my ass.
I turn around, grinning, and find Jessa staring over my
shoulder, her face pale and stricken. ‘What?’ I whisper,
whipping around smartly. Maybe I was mistaken and he
was actually going for his gun.
I turn in time to see her dad locking and dead-bolting
the back door. Uh-oh.
The sound of the bolt ramming home makes me wince.
Jessa’s mouth falls open. ‘What am I going to do?’ she
whispers, panic lacing her voice. ‘I can’t get back in!’
I look back at the door, checking the windows on either
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side in case any have been left open. Nope. There’s a
drainpipe that runs down the side of the house right by
Jessa’s bedroom window, and if it was me I’d probably
try it, but I’m not sure Jessa’s going to be open to that par-
ticular idea. Though I would quite like to see her try it in
those shorts.
She’s staring up at me half expectantly, half fearfully,
and it looks like she could be on the verge of tears.
Damn. This is my fault. I pause to run through the
options in my head, which only takes about two seconds
because there aren’t any, besides knocking on the front
door and making up some lame excuse about sleepwalk-
ing, that is.
Jessa hugs herself around the waist and starts shivering
lightly. I pull her instinctively towards me, wrapping my
arms around her as though it’s the most natural thing in
the world to hold her like this, which is exactly how it
does feel. My chin rests on top of her head and I get a hit
of her shampoo – rosemary and mint – and have to stop
myself from burying my face in it and inhaling another
lungful. An idea crystallizes in my head at that point, one
that makes me grin in the darkness and say another
prayer of thanks to the gods of baseball. It’s reckless and
probably crazy as ideas go, and I’m not sure Jessa is going
to buy it, but here’s hoping.
‘Does your dad ever check on you when he goes to
bed?’ I ask her.
Jessa shakes her head at me, looking confused.
‘Your mom?’
‘She’s already asleep,’ Jessa whispers, still looking
confused.
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Mila Gray
The grin widens on my face. ‘OK,’ I say, trying to rein it
in. ‘I got a plan.’
Jessa waits.
‘Come with me. Let’s spend the night together.’
Jessa’s mouth instantly falls open. She takes a step
backwards, slipping out of my arms.
‘No, I don’t mean like that,’ I whisper, suddenly flus-
tered. Crap. She took that entirely the wrong way. ‘I
mean, let’s go for a drive,
hang out,
talk
.’ Man. I blew it.
She’s looking at me now with both eyebrows raised, arms
crossed defensively against her chest.
‘Look,’ I add, hoping my charming smile will win her
around as it has other girls in the past, and then simulta-
neously hating myself for even trying to win her around,
because Jessa isn’t like other girls and this isn’t a game.
For the first time in my life this feels real. Not something
I’m playing at. I’m nervous, something I don’t usually
feel when it comes to girls. I don’t want to screw it up.
Again, not something I usually worry about.
‘You can’t get back inside,’ I say, reaching for Jessa’s
hand. A frown passes across her face as swift as lightning,
but lingering. ‘Come on,’ I say, hoping I don’t sound too
desperate but finding my throat dry as sand, praying
silently that she’ll say yes because suddenly a whole lot
more than just a night seems to rest on her answer. ‘It’ll
be fun. I promise.’
She doesn’t pull her hand from mine, which I take as a
good sign. She just stands there, studying me, biting her
lip. She looks at the house. When she turns back to me the
frown has vanished, replaced by a small, shy smile which
plays at the edge of her mouth. Those lips, man . . . I tug
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her towards me, take her face in my hands, and because I
can’t stop myself, I kiss her, just gently, savouring every
single second. She kisses me back, her body swaying
against mine, pressing closer. God, this girl . . .
‘OK,’ she whispers against my lips just before I lose my
train of thought completely.
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Jessa
Kit pulls back, his arms still around my waist.
‘Really?’ he asks.
I swallow, my heart slamming fast against my ribs,
then nod.
Even though it’s dark I can see his smile lighting up his
face. Then he takes my hand and links his fingers tightly
through mine, and just this simple action makes my heart
expand in my chest like a balloon about to burst because
it feels so natural, so normal and so right. It feels like Kit
could lead me anywhere right now, and I’d simply follow,
which, given I’m not one for spontaneity or risk-taking,
freaks me out.
Kit tugs me through the bushes towards the gate at
the side of the house. He’s stealthy and silent, while even
barefoot I seem to be making enough noise to alert the
whole of Oceanside, including the people buried in the
cemetery. My ears are pricked and I keep my eyes locked
on the back door, anxious that my dad might come back
to investigate, this time with his gun, but I’m even more
nervous about what’s about to come next with Kit.
Where’s he going to take me? What are we going to do?
The butterflies in my stomach swarm in a giant eddy,
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rising up my throat and almost making me burst into
hysterical laughter.
Kit draws back the bolt on the gate, easing it as quietly
as he can but it still squeaks loudly enough that we both
pause, cringing. Next door’s dog starts barking and Kit
grabs my hand and starts jogging towards the sidewalk
and a white van parked up about twenty metres away.
When I see what’s behind the van I come to a sudden
halt, digging my heels in.
Kit looks back at me over his shoulder. ‘What’s up?’ he
asks.
I stare at the bike parked behind the van, mentally
slapping myself. Of course he came on his bike. He goes
everywhere on that thing. But he can’t actually be expect-
ing me to ride on it too, can he?
‘You don’t want to ride the bike?’ he asks, reading my
mind. ‘Is that it?’
I shrug at him. ‘Um, it’s just . . . ’ All I can think of is
my dad lecturing me about never riding a motorbike and
warning me that if he caught me doing so he would
ground me for the rest of eternity and use my college
fund to buy me road safety classes.
‘I promise I’ll go slowly.’ Kit takes both my hands and
pulls me towards him, and my heels, despite being glued