“You know why I’m here, Farrah,” he answered quietly, turning sideways so he could settle me between his thighs with my back resting against his chest. “I gave you space, baby. I gave you thousands of miles of space, because I knew you needed it.”

Cody tightened his arms around my torso as I scrambled to get up. He was going to get to me; he knew just what buttons to push, which words to use to get a reaction out of me, and he was going to use them. I could feel it.

“You weren’t ready,” he said. “I got that. I knew you needed time to get your shit together, to make a life where you could stand on your own two feet. But I’m done waiting, Farrah.”

“I didn’t ask you to wait!” I shot back, trying for boredom but sounding more panicked than I liked, so I decided to get physical and pushed on his arms. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”

Struggling to climb off his lap, I felt his lips drag softly over my shoulder, and I froze. It had been so long since I’d felt something like that. Drunken fumbling with strangers had happened occasionally when I was in the midst of my partying days, but even if they would have been inclined, I wouldn’t have let them be tender with me. I hadn’t been able to handle own emotions back then, much less someone else’s.

My eyes drifted shut as he nuzzled against my neck. Had that ever felt this good?

“Do you know how beautiful you are to me?” he whispered, loosening his arms so he could run his hands up and down my belly. “Even when I was dragging you out of places, drunk out of your mind and pissed at everyone, you were still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I couldn’t get you out of my head, and then in the last year, there was just . . . so much more. You fucking light up, Farrah.”

He dropped a kiss on my neck and lingered for a moment, inhaling my scent. “Your face was all I could think about when I was in the hospital—how your nose wrinkles when you scowl at me, the way you smile at Callie when she’s being an idiot, that soft look you get when you’re dancing with Will. Fuck, Farrah.”

My throat tightened as I listened to him. His mention of the hospital and the way he was talking to me opened up the floodgates on emotions I usually kept locked tightly away.

Damn it, I knew it. I knew he’d get to me somehow.

“You were thinking about me when you were in the hospital?” I asked quietly, my body tensing.

“Constantly,” he mumbled into my neck.

Before he could grab me, I was off his lap and standing next to the couch, trying to keep my nose from wrinkling as I glared at him.

“You’re such an asshole!” I screeched, not caring that I sounded like a freaking lunatic.

“What the fuck?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, working up a good rant as I yanked up my sweats and paced in front of him, all of my protective filters deserting me. “You were just consumed with thoughts of me. Because I’m just so beautiful. What a load of horseshit!”

“What’s your problem?” he shouted, climbing to his feet.

“You didn’t even fucking call me when you were in the hospital!”

“I sent you a text!”

“Are you kidding me right now? You sent me one word, Cody! One! Do you remember what you said?” I watched him as he tried to remember, and my irritation ratcheted up even higher. “You sent, ‘Alive.’ That’s it! That’s all I got!”

“And?”

“You cannot be that stupid.” I growled as his mouth curved up into a grin. “Do you know what that was like for me?”

“I knew you were with Grams. She was getting all the info you needed,” he answered calmly, pissing me off even more with his logic.

“That’s not the point!”

“Well, what the fuck is the point, then? Because it sounds to me like we’re talking in fucking circles!”

“I was worried!” I screamed back, covering my mouth as soon as the words slipped out. I scrambled backward, my wide eyes meeting his as he stalked me toward the front door.

“You were worried?” he asked softly, his face softening. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“Get the fuck out of my house!” I backpedalled, refusing to acknowledge my last words. Shit, I’d practically laid myself open with three freaking words. What the hell was I thinking?

But I wasn’t thinking, and that was the point. He did this to me.

“Shut up,” he said in a low growl as he advanced on me, reaching me as my back hit the front door. “You were worried about me.”

His mouth was on mine before I could reply.

Oh God.

He bit my bottom lip as I tried to turn my head away, but the gentle way his fingers brushed my cheeks was what stopped any idea of escape. This was Cody, and I had no defenses against him.

Before I could react he kissed me hard, then licked deep into my mouth as I whimpered and wrapped my hands around the back of his head to pull him closer. As much as I tried to deny it, to pretend like he was just an acquaintance, someone I had to deal with because of how entrenched I was with his family—it wasn’t true. Not at all. I had been worried. I’d been scared out of my mind when we found out he’d been shot, unable to function until I’d gotten his text.

For the first time, my nightmares had begun to have a face. I’d woken up shaking and crying for a month afterward, my boyfriend’s death playing over and over through my dreams, but it hadn’t been Echo dying in those dreams. It had been Cody’s face that startled me awake, leaving me covered in a cold sweat.