I felt his other hand sear hot against my cheek. He bent his head, and in a voice that Jack couldn’t hear, said, “When you came down the stairs, and fell into me, that was the moment.” Then his lips pressed against mine.
He kept his eyes on mine, his gaze unblinking, and I stared right back into the blue. He moved almost imperceptibly and in the space between a heartbeat his lips touched mine.
So we have twenty-four hours to keep out of trouble,’ he says to me. I slide a glance in his direction. Judging from the way he’s now grimacing at the sidewalk and the fact that I met him in a police station where he was being booked for stealing a car, I’m guessing that staying out of trouble is not his forte.
In his arms I’ve finally found the place I’ve been looking for, where fear can’t touch me, where memories can’t reach, where the past is forgotten and the present is enough. Where the present is, in fact, all that matters.
Trust me,’ he says with a touch of impatience. ‘Stop asking me to do that,’ I say, equally as impatiently.
I need a favour.’ I raise my eyebrows at him in disbelief. What makes him think I’m about to do him a favour? He’s a stranger. And he’s wearing handcuffs.
