I needed her awake for a while.

Leaning in, I whispered in her ear. “Come with me.”

I didn’t wait for her to even look at me before I grabbed her hand and led her out of the kitchen. We squeezed through the crowd of partygoers, all in little clusters, and tried not to get slammed with drinks in the process.

Once we made it to the stairs, I hurriedly led Tate to the second floor. I had no plans to make use of the rooms here with her, but people saw us go up and would draw their own conclusions when we came back down.

I just needed her alone for a few minutes.

To right a wrong.

Opening the door to the first bedroom I found, I peeked in and found it empty. Pulling Tate in, I had barely even closed the door before I backed her into it and dove for her lips.

She stumbled and latched onto my shoulders to steady herself. The surprised little moan she let loose filled my mouth so damn hard that I was ready to ride this storm right here and now.

Yeah, this was not what I’d planned, but I’d been good tonight.

I deserved a reward.

She tasted like peaches, and I pulled her barely-clothed body into me, close to forgetting why I was up here in the first place.

“God, Tate.” I dipped my head to nibble her ear lobe. “Your dress should be burned.”

“Why?” she breathed out, leaning her neck into me for more.

“Every f**king guy has been looking at you tonight. I’m going to get arrested.”

My tone was joking, but my words weren’t. I wasn’t insecure about Tate. I knew she loved me, and I could trust her. I also didn’t mind other guys looking at her, wanting her. It kind of turned me on, actually.

No, my crime would lay in the fact that every time some dipshit pointed at her tonight or some ass**le did a double take when she walked by, I wanted to put my hands all over her to show them who had claim.

They could look.

They could want.

But she was going home with me, and I felt like rubbing it in.

Couldn’t exactly feel her up in public, though.

She pulled away and held my head in her hands, her eyes searching mine. “I’m yours. It’s always been you,” she assured.

I held her gaze, her fire meeting my ice, and I couldn’t deny her one more damn thing that she deserved.

“Come here.” I led her to the center of the room and took out my phone. She watched me, while I clicked on Seether’s Broken and placed the phone on the chest of drawers near the balcony doors.

Tate watched me, silently, with her arms hanging at her side and a mixture of curiosity and excitement in her eyes.

Taking her hand in mine, I kept my eyes on hers as I guided her arms around my neck and pulled her body into mine.

As we started moving to music, I barely heard anything. Not the romp of the party downstairs. Not the chatter around the house and outside.

Her eyes were glued to mine, looking beyond everything else.

And suddenly we were fourteen again, back in her bedroom, and arguing about Silverchair.

I was Jared. She was Tate. And we were inseparable.

“I’m sorry I didn’t dance with you tonight,” I told her, regret lacing my voice. “I don’t like doing things like that in public. It feels too personal, I guess.”

She took a deep breath and leveled me with her hard gaze. “I don’t want you to change who you are,” she said, shaking her head. “But I might like to dance with you some time or hold your hand.”

I wrapped my hands around her waist, locking her in. “I’ll try, Tate. Yesterday is gone. I know that. I want that comfort we used to have back.”

“Your tattoo?” She looked up at me, as if realizing something. “‘Yesterday lasts forever, Tomorrow comes never’. That’s what it says. What does it mean?”

I lightly caressed her hair. “Just that I was living in the past. What happened with my father, what happened with you, I could never get over the anger. Yesterday kept following me. And tomorrow, the new day, never seemed to come.”

“And the lantern on your arm?” she pressed further, and I laughed.

“Oh, you ask too many questions.”

But she just continued to stare at me, mentally tapping her foot.

Alright, dammit.

“The lantern is you, Tate. The light.” Her dancing in her light purple nightgown with white stars on it when she was eleven flashed through my mind. “I got it after I got in trouble last year. I needed to clean up my act, and my mom decided to do the same thing with her drinking. We both picked one thought that would get us through the day. A dream or a desire…” I’d never asked my mom about her dream or desire.

“Me?” She pinched her eyebrows together, looking surprised.

“It’s always been you.” I repeated her same words. “I love you, Tate.”

She smiled, bringing her lips to mine. “I love you, too,” she whispered, and the tickle across my mouth was like a fire over my body.

Jesus Christ.

My fingers dug into her, but it was her hands that owned me. She ran her hands up my arms before threading one hand through my hair.

She pulled away and then came back in to tease me again and again: flicking her tongue under my top lip and catching my bottom lip between her teeth. The tiny nibbles had tingles electrifying my groin, and my stomach damn near growled with hunger.

Fuck. I didn’t know whether I wanted to f**k her or eat her.

“Unzip me,” she forced out between kisses along my jaw.