Taking the Heat (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 3)

He kissed her lightly, just a brush of his lips, but when he felt her sigh against him, he tried again.

“Oh, God,” she whispered against the kiss. His heart felt thin, fragile. As if the ache inside it might tear open at any moment.

“You smell so good,” she murmured. Her hands rose to press against his cheeks. “That’s weird to say, isn’t it? But I missed your smell.”

Gabe made himself laugh instead of groaning in pain. “It’s not weird. I missed everything about you. Your taste, your scent, your touch. The sound of you sighing.”

She shook her head. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

“I barely know you,” she countered.

“This is real.”

“You live in New York,” she said, and he couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He lived in New York, and she despised the city. Then again, she was here.

“Just come home with me,” he said. “My dad just got out of the hospital, you know. He needs cheering up.”

“God, are you guilt-tripping me?”

“Yes. Plus, you never thanked my mom for those cookies.”

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She shoved him. “You’re awful!”

“Come on. It’s only a few blocks up.”

He wasn’t sure what he was doing, luring her home. He’d spent the past couple of weeks blowing off any mention of her, but his parents had kept needling him, egged on by Naomi. When he’d mentioned Veronica was coming to town, they’d practically swooned. Gabe was already in too deep, halfway in love with this girl he might never see again, and now he was introducing her to his parents.

Idiotic, like every other step he’d taken with Veronica. Idiotic, but somehow inevitable. Come home with me and break my heart. I’ll do my best to break yours, too.

For some reason, she came with him.

They waded through the busy streets that bordered the park, but a few blocks in, the streets grew narrower and almost quiet. “Upper East Side,” she said. “Very nice.”

“Not upper upper,” he said. “Come on.”

“Where are we heading? Seventy-second?”

“Sixty-eighth,” he said. “Barely respectable.”

Laughing, she touched his arm and then left her hand there. Gabe felt like a teenager cataloguing every inch of progress with the girl he liked. She let me kiss her. She put her hand on my arm. He felt dizzy with it.

“Hello, Gabe!”

“Mrs. Tran,” he called out to the woman sweeping the steps of a little shop. “Good afternoon.”

“Pretty girl,” she said with a grin.

“I’m a lucky guy.” Veronica elbowed him, but her hand wrapped more securely around his arm.

They passed a tiny park wedged between two tall buildings. The screams of the kids crawled up the bricks and echoed above the trees. “This is a nice street,” Veronica said.

“You know, New York isn’t so bad. It can be just as nice as any other place if you find the right people.”

“I know that,” she said quietly. “I know that it was me and not the city.”