These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

Footsteps.

They’re sharp and sure. Authoritative, at least from the sound of them, and they seem to be getting closer.

Much closer.

Fuck.

Is it Robbie? My dad?

Holy fuck.

Have they found me?

Yikes.

I snatch the hem of my dress and pull it over my half-finished sketch, covering it up, hiding it from them, and throw my pen aside. Then I snap my eyes up, my heart in my throat, all ready with a heartfelt apology, but I shouldn’t have bothered.

To practice an apology in my head.

Because I can’t form any words. I’ve forgotten them all.

It’s not my dad. Or Robbie.

It’s him.

My Mystery Man

“Are you okay?”

Wow.

Okay.

His voice. Low and scratchy. Deep.

I wasn’t expecting it to be this deep. So deep that I could take a plunge in it. So deep that it sounds powerful.

As powerful as his tall frame.

And God, he is tall. I was right about that.

He’s so tall, in fact, that craning my neck up to see him isn’t enough. I have to actually lean back slightly to look up at him, at his face.

Which to my utter dismay I still can’t see clearly.

I mean, I can see him some. Like I can see that he’s got a broad forehead. Not so broad as to make it unseemly, but broad enough that it makes me think of stubborn frown lines.

I was right about his cheekbones too. They’re high. So high that I think under certain lights they might cast shadows on his jaw. Which I was right about also: sharp and slanting.

But it’s not enough.

I want to see more and I want him to step into the yellow pool of light instead of standing outside of it. And I want it so much that I open my mouth to tell him that.

But he speaks again, his voice deep and cozy. “Do you need help?”

Again I go to answer him but in the wake of his words, a light summer breeze wafts past us and I get distracted.

By his hair.

His long-ish, fascinating hair that flutters on his forehead and on the side of his stunningly lined face. The curls at the end brush against the collar of his suit jacket, which still seems too small to contain his bulk.

A second later it looks like his suit is really going to come apart at the seams because somehow his shoulders and his chest bulge out and expand and he says, his voice taking on an impatient sort of edge, probably because I haven’t spoken for so long, “Look, are you lost? Do you want me to call someone for you?”

“I’m not lost,” I blurt out thankfully.

I also blink.

Which makes me realize that I hadn’t. Blinked I mean. Ever since he got here.

I’ve been staring up at him without talking, without blinking, like a creep.

“You’re not,” he says in a flat voice, his face dipped toward me, his strong chin almost touching that muscular chest.

“No.” I shake my head.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I reply.

Then he looks up.

He glances around, sighing.

I’m not sure what he’s looking for but I don’t have the time to wonder because his perusal is over in a split second, after which he comes back to me.

“So this is usual for you. Sitting on the side of an empty road, in the middle of the night like this,” he says, shifting on his feet.

“It’s not the middle of the night,” I tell him, looking back up at him, at his darkened features. “It’s probably just eleven.”

“Eleven fifteen,” he corrects me.

Actually, he accompanies his words with actions.

Up until now, his hands have been in his pockets. But now he takes one out, shifts his eyes away from me and dips them toward a gleaming silver watch that’s strapped around his wrist.

It’s the largest watch I’ve ever seen, with the biggest dial and the shiniest metal strap.

I bet you could tell the time on it from a mile away.

He looks at it for a second before lifting his eyes and focusing on me, his eyebrows raised as if making a point. And when that point has been made, he puts his hand back into his pocket, still watching me. “Probably way past your curfew.”

I want to smile.

No, actually I think I want to laugh. Which is such a change after all the crying I’ve done.

Not because of what he said but because how he said it.

How he looks right now: so… responsible. So authoritative and mature. Like this is his job. Telling people that it’s way past their curfew so they should go home now.

And something about my Mystery Man’s authority makes me say, “I don’t have a curfew. And eleven fifteen is still not the middle of the night.”

He frowns at my flippant tone and it makes me want to smile some more.

This urge only grows when his voice takes on a severe tone as he says, “Eleven fifteen is also not the time to be sitting on the side of a deserted, potentially dangerous road all by yourself. So again, is there someone I can call for you?”