I’m in control, in control; this is not affecting me. I am cool . . . until her tongue meets mine and tangles. A rush of desire rolls in, obliterating any good sense, and we go from gentle to feral in a millisecond. Our lips merge and battle, one of those long searing kisses meant for people who can’t get enough with one taste and don’t want to stop.

“Giselle . . .” Groaning, I pick her up, and her legs wrap around my waist like a vise. Somehow I’ve got her pressed against the barn, our mouths glued together in every possible position I can think of, my tongue dancing with hers, dueling and winning everything I want, taking and taking, then giving and giving. This is the longest kiss in history; it’s like we’re making out in high school, the best goddamn kiss, and everything I’ve wanted since the moment she walked into my penthouse. I can’t think, and what am I doing? Just shut up, brain. She cups my ass and grinds, the feel of her nipples against my chest maddening. Don’t touch, or you’ll be lost. Fuck, she smells like vanilla and flowers—vibrant, heady blooms on a summer day, the ones that make you dizzy and weak for another inhale.

“Giselle,” I gasp out her name as I rotate my hard dick against her core. Her legs tighten as she whimpers, urging me on as she sucks my bottom lip, dragging it out. My hand is up her shirt, and I graze over her breast, tugging on the erect nipple through her lace bra . . .

Something falls from above me, grazing my arm, and I flinch back, looking up and then down at the ground.

“What the—”

“Curse.” She sucks in a deep breath and looks up. “Piece of wood came off the window. Rotted and needs to be replaced.”

I gaze back at her lowered lids, swollen mouth, and heaving chest.

I’m in no better shape, and like a rubber band snapping against my wrist, I come to my senses and let her down, putting space between us.

The silence of the night is deafening, and I’m scrambling around in my head, looking for a way to explain that I didn’t mean to take it that far, that we need to just take a second and breathe and pretend like this never happened. She searches my gaze, and maybe she sees it, maybe she does, because she straightens her spine and gives me a tight-lipped nod.

“Giselle . . .” I still don’t know what’s going to come out of my stupid mouth, but she beats me to it.

“No need to say what is on your face, Devon. That kiss was terrible, and we can never do it again.”

My eyes shut. What a lie.

But . . .

We can’t. There’s Jack, but shit, mostly there’s me. I can’t hang on to girls like Giselle. I don’t want to.

“Yeah.”

She picks up a cup, slams it down on the stump, and smashes it to smithereens.

Chapter 10

GISELLE

“Ever since you were little, you kept a secret journal. Always knew you’d pick up writing again, just didn’t think it would be about sexy aliens,” Aunt Clara says as she ushers me in the door of the Cut ’N’ Curl. Wearing a bright-red maxi dress and strappy sandals, she’s a ball of energy.

I inhale the slight scent of ammonia mixed with fruity shampoo inside the salon. A block from the center of town in Daisy, everyone comes here to gossip and get their hair done. Even me.

I kiss her cheek, waving the bag of lunch I grabbed for her. I can’t drive past a Chick-fil-A without getting her something. “Got their new mac and cheese. Figured you’d be too busy to get your own, with Mama running errands today.”

“Bless your little heart,” she squeals and snatches up the bag, pulls out the mac and cheese, then holds it up like it’s the holy grail.

I grin, then recall her comment and give her a steely look. “First Topher told Mama about Rodeo, and now he’s talking about my book. The man will suffer.”

“Shush. Let me shove this in my mouth before you get huffy.” She’s already sitting in the chair, her feet up on her station as she takes a big bite and swoons.

I blow out a breath, wound up, feeling tense and ready to do something—especially after my morning with Devon. He marched out of his bedroom, not meeting my eyes as he grumbled about a bad night. He ate his oatmeal and drank his protein shake, careful to step around me in the kitchen (as usual), but oh, you can bet he loved all over Pookie, who’d peed in his loafers. He told her, It’s okay, little doggie, you’ve been through a trauma, then grunted out a Later at me over his shoulder and left for the stadium.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, sitting next to him on the ride back from the barn. He never said one word, unless you count May I turn the music up? He blasted it, and I clasped my hands and stared out the window. His face after we kissed had been just . . . granite hard and crawling with regret.

Alone at the penthouse after he left, I forced myself to study until the words blurred on the page, so I pulled up Vureck and Kate and pounded out a chapter. It was a glorious fight scene, where Kate got to say everything I couldn’t last night—how frustrated she is because Vureck refuses to see what is right in front of him, and how dare he stay resolute in delivering her to his king. She’s not meant to be a harem girl; she is his.

Ugh . . . Devon . . . he doesn’t want to get entangled, and it cuts deep, so sharp and visceral, that I don’t understand the heaviness in my body, the pain radiating in the center of my chest.

Yes, he kissed me like a man drowning, but that was just a natural response to someone he admitted to being attracted to, his brain releasing dopamine, his serotonin levels increasing, thus producing oxytocin, the “love hormone.” He probably hasn’t gotten laid in a while. A man like him, well, he gets it on the regular, all those women kissing him on the neck. My hands curl.

Besides all that, last night I saw the anguish on his face when he talked about his college sweetheart. He trusted me with deeply personal things, and if he wants to call me just a friend, then I will be just that. I don’t want to lose him as a person in my life. I don’t get close to a lot of people, and with him, there’s a beautiful connection I’m afraid of destroying. On the drive here, I made a pact with myself to be his ear if he needs one, but no more kissing. It’s not his fault that I’m the one with weird feelings. I will take all my frustrations out in my story.

“You rascal,” I call out to Topher when I spot him leaning against the Sun Drop machine, thumbing through a magazine, pretending like he didn’t see me come in. I bet he walked over on his lunch break. He meets my eyes in the mirror and walks over and swings me around.

“I’m supposed to be mad at you for gossiping about me,” I mutter, but it’s hard to stay annoyed when he plants a big kiss on my head.

He’s in his midtwenties; his long blond hair is in a ponytail, and he’s wearing a shirt with little kittens on it. “Don’t be mad,” he teases. “You know I can’t resist the Daisy Lady Gang when they ask me questions. It’s like the Spanish Inquisition with them, and I didn’t spill about the book to your mama, just Clara. She was reading Mated to the Alien when I came in, and your book just fell out of my mouth.”

“Shameless,” I reply, shaking my head. “I’m never going to let you read it. That’s your punishment.”

He laughs. “Forget that; I love to write myself, so I can be one of those early beta readers.” A serious look grows on his face. “I’ve been so worried about you since the fire. Have you seen this?” He pops open his phone and brings up a grainy video of a girl on a fire escape. “It was on Channel 5 News the morning after the fire. Some bystander took it. ‘Unnamed woman escapes apartment fire.’”