“Kaylee, you have to tell your dad.”

I shook my head. “He’ll kick him out.”

“That’s kind of the point.”

“No, Nash. If my dad kicks Alec out, who’s going to make sure he doesn’t get possessed and kill someone else?”

“Let your dad worry about that.” I started to shake my head again, but Nash cut me off. “If you don’t tell him, I will. This is too dangerous, Kay. Swear you’ll tell him. Tonight.”

And finally I nodded, feeling almost as relieved to be free from the responsibility as I felt guilty over having to break a promise to Alec. “Fine. I swear.”

Nash’s hand relaxed on the back of the couch and he slouched a little, obviously more at ease now that he had my promise.

“So…how are you?” I asked, ready for a subject change. I didn’t want to bring up the issue that had separated us in the first place, but I felt like I should know how he was doing. For real. I wanted to know.

“I’m better now.” Now that I was here. He didn’t say it, but we both heard it. Then the heat in his gaze gave way to a different kind of intensity. “Kaylee, I’m so sorry for everything that happened. I wish I could take it all back. I wish I could do so many things differently….”

I squeezed his hand. “Nash, you can stop apologizing.”

“But you haven’t forgiven me.”

“Not for lack of apologies.” I glanced at our intertwined fingers, enjoying the familiar warmth and the way our palms seemed to fit together. “It’s just a lot to deal with. Doug died because we did too little, and we did it too late. And Scott probably wishes he were dead.”

Surely lifeless oblivion would be better than living with Avari’s voice constantly in your head, telling you things you don’t want to know, demanding you do things no sane person would do….

His hand tightened around mine, and his gaze seemed to burn a hole right through me. “What else can I do?”

“I don’t think there’s anything else you can do,” I whispered. “It’ll just take time. And for now, this is nice.” I tried on a small smile and held up our linked hands, but Nash only frowned.

“Nice is good, but it’s not enough. I want you back for real. I want to talk to you at lunch, instead of staring at you while you eat. I want to see the smile on your face and know I put it there. I want to hear your dad’s voice get all low and pissed off, like it only does when I’ve stayed over too late.”

I grinned. No one could piss off my dad like Nash.

Except for Tod.

“You know why he sounds like that, don’t you?” Nash asked. “It’s because he knows how I feel about you, and it scares him. He knows that he’s missed most of your life, and you’renot a little girl anymore, and I’m proof of that. He knows what I know, and what you’ll let yourself know some day—that you love me. And it scares the shit out of him.”

I couldn’t breathe around the fist-size lump in my throat. That lump was all the words I was dying to say but shouldn’t, all rolled up into one word clog, refusing to move. I couldn’t let them out—couldn’t expose so much of what I really felt while I still wasn’t sure I could completely trust him—but I couldn’t swallow them, either. Not anymore. Because whether I wanted to say them or not, whether they would actually change anything or not, they were true.

“Kaylee?” Nash’s focus shifted between my eyes, searching for something inside me. “You can’t tell me there’s nothing left for me in there. I know there is. I can see it in your eyes.”

“No fair peeking,” I mumbled, and he chuckled.

“Nothing about this is fair.” He hesitated, swallowing thickly, like he needed something to drink all of a sudden. “I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I’m asking for one. Let me prove how serious I am. Just one more chance.”

I stared at him, studying his eyes. And all I found in them was sincerity and heart-bruising need. He meant it.

So instead of answering, instead of thinking, I leaned forward and kissed him. For once in my life, I let my heart lead the way, while the rest of me held on tight, helpless and scared, along for the ride.

Nash kissed me back, and it was like we’d never broken up. And for the first time, it seemed possible that we could just pick up where we’d left off and forget all about that messy little pit stop on the path to forever.

But that wasn’t right, was it? Was forgetting even possible?

In that moment, I just didn’t care about roadblocks thrown up by my brain—my heart and my body were committed to crashing through them. So I set the hard questions aside and focused on Nash. On the way he tasted, and the way he felt. Of the warmth of his fingers wrapped around mine and his free hand sliding up my arm and over my shoulder to cup the back of my head.

My mouth opened against his, and I welcomed him back, while my body welcomed back the heat he awoke in me, which had lain largely dormant over the past three weeks. But Nash was very careful, his eagerness very controlled. He was hyperaware of my boundaries, and reluctant to even approach them after what had happened the last time.

His caution was both blessing and curse. It was like trying to scratch an itch with gloves on—his passive caresses only made me want more. And maybe that was the point. Maybe he was leaving it all up to me, how far we went and when. Which would have been awesome, if I weren’t trying to quench a thirst for him which had been building for the past twenty-one days.