But not Nova.
Never Nova.
Because I was his dead best friend’s little sister, the girl he’d promised to protect and cherish in his stead.
I knew he would never love me just the same way I knew I would never stop wanting him. Some things were written in code, hardwired in the body. The movement of breath through the lungs, the beat of the heart in the chest. The feel of Nova in my blood was just as intrinsic. I would no sooner be rid of him, even if I could, than I would cut off my own arm.
Loving someone shouldn’t be contingent on them returning that affection.
Loving someone existed apart from reciprocation.
But I knew, even as I washed my hands and slashed water on my overheated face as I tried to remind myself once again that I was good looking even if Nova didn’t think it was so, that living my life loving someone like this wasn’t healthy.
It wasn’t what Dane would have wanted for me.
And I owed it to Dane, just like Nova had once told me, to live my life for both of us.
My love for him was more hope than substance, and it was barely enough to sustain my hungry heart.
I deserved more.
Just as Dane would have deserved more.
And Nova’s reaction, his callous disregard of my obvious interest, was enough to make me want to cry because it felt like the needle that finally punctured the balloon.
I was coming to terms with it, drunkenly, slowly, when I opened the door to the bathroom and someone slammed up against me, pushing me with a hand to my chest straight back inside.
Nova.
His gorgeous mouth, pinkish purple like it was permanently berry-stained, was screwed up into a snarl, his eyes flashing.
“What the actual fuck, Li?” he growled, so deep and low I felt the words more than heard them.
His hand was stamped between my breasts, fingers splaying over the flesh. Unwittingly, my nipples hardened even as I fought the arousal and started to get angry.
“You ever heard of closing the door if you want privacy?” I retorted archly.
I wasn’t a girl anymore.
I hadn’t been in a long time.
He couldn’t bully me.
“Thought the fact I was fuckin’ someone was enough cause to give me some fuckin’ space,” he bit out
The pulse in his neck was jumping beneath his tanned, tattooed skin. The hand on my sternum flexed angrily, and he pushed me harder against the wall.
I’d never seen him so angry.
“I never would have taken you for a prude, Nova,” I snapped back, getting in his face, feeling defensive because I knew I was in the wrong, but I was embarrassed he couldn’t just let it go like a fucking gentleman. “What’s the matter? Your dick hang a little to the left?”
His snort shot hot air over my lips. “You got a good eyeful, you tell me.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded, shoving at his immovable shoulders. “So what? Yes, I watched you, okay? For like one second. Get over yourself.”
“I’m thinkin’ it’s you that needs to get over me,” he said coldly. “The guys’ve been buggin’ me about you lately. Sayin’ you gotta thing for me, but I thought, no fuckin’ way my Flower Child would think’a me like that when we’re fuckin’ family. Then there you are the other day under my gun, squirmin’ like you can’t get comfortable when you’re always still as shit for me while I ink you. Then I realized, my hands were on your fuckin’ tit. Was that it?”
He leaned closer to snarl almost up against my mouth. “Did that fuckin’ turn you on, Lila?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I barked, trying to shove him away, my heart kicking at my ribs like a mustang desperate to flee the barn it was trapped in. “And get out of my face and back to your slut!”
But he wouldn’t get out of my face.
Instead, he stepped closer so that I wasn’t just pinned to the wall by his hand on my chest, I was pressed there by the weight of his entire body plastered to mine. I could feel the absolute solidity of his chest flattening my breast, the hard muscles in his thighs pressed to mine, and his hand moving up, up, until it was wrapped around my throat, calloused thumb to my pulse.
My lungs were heaving, struggling to drag in air as if I had just run a race, and in a way, I kind of had. I felt like I was running for my life, from this situation, from Nova’s realization that I loved him more than anyone every had or ever would, even if he couldn’t love me back.
“You listen to me, Li,” Nova snarled, lips curled, eyes narrowed so I could only glimpse thin slits of molten amber. “I won’t have you fillin’ your head with some fairy-tale nonsense. I’m no knight in shinin’ anythin’, you get me? I’m a man with a bike, with blood on his hands, and some serious as fuck demons in my heart. I don’t got any flowers or romance for you, and bein’ honest, I never fuckin’ will. Get that through your head, yeah? I don’t need another pathetic girl trailin’ after me lookin’ for scraps.”