Chapter 2

He kissed her the way she had suspected he would — like he meant it, like he had been thinking about it, with none of the tentative quality of something new but all the certainty of something that had been waiting.

His hands found her face and then her waist and he pulled her against him and she grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him back properly — not the careful restrained version of wanting someone you weren't supposed to want, just wanting him, directly and completely, which felt like putting something heavy down after carrying it for too long.

He walked her backward out of...