Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 124

And I liked it.

"I love you," he said, and kissed me so hard he took my breath away. There was more to it than before--more passion, more urgency, more... everything. It was as if I were caught in a tide, carried away, and I thought that if I never touched the shore again, it would be good to drown like this, just swim forever in all this richness.

Red flag, some part of me screamed, come on, red flag. What are you doing?

I wished it would just shut up.

"I love you, too," I whispered to him. My voice was shaking, and so were my hands where they rested on his chest. Under the soft Tshirt, his muscles were tensed, and I could feel every deep breath he took. "I'd do anything for you."

I meant it to be an invitation, but that was the thing that shocked sense back into him. He blinked. "Anything," he repeated, and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Yeah. I'm getting that. Bad idea, Ana. Very, very bad."

"Today?" I laughed a little wildly. "Everything's crazy today. Why can't we be? Just once?"

"Because I made promises," he said. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, and I felt a groan shake his whole body. "To your parents, to myself, to Michael. To you, Ana. I can't break my word. It's pretty much all I've got these days."

"But... what if--"

"Don't," he whispered in my ear. "Please don't. This is tough enough already."

He kissed me again, long and sweetly, and somehow, it tasted like tears this time. Like some kind of goodbye.

"I really do love you," he said, and smoothed away the damp streaks on my cheeks. "But I can't do this. Not now."

Before I could stop him, he slid out of bed, put on his shoes, and walked quickly to the door. I sat up, holding the covers close as if I were naked underneath, instead of fully clothed, and he hesitated there, one hand gripping the doorknob.

"Please stay," I said. "Justin--"

He shook his head. "If I stay, things are going to happen. You know it, and I know it, and we just can't do this. I know things are falling apart, but--" He hitched in a deep, painful breath. "No."

The sound of the door softly closing behind him went through me like a knife.

I rolled over, wretchedly hugging the pillow that smelled of his hair, sharing the warm place in the bed where his body had been, and thought about crying myself to sleep.

And then I thought of the dawning wonder in his eyes when he'd said, I love you.

No. It was no time to be crying.

When I did finally sleep, I felt safe.

The next day, there was no sign of the vampires, none at all. I checked the portal networks, but as far as I could tell, they were down. With nothing concrete to do, I helped around the house--cleaning, straightening, running errands. Richard Morrell came around to check on us. He looked a little better for having slept, which didn't mean he looked good, exactly.

When Eve wandered down, she looked almost as bad. She hadn't bothered with her Goth makeup, and her black hair was down in a lank, uncombed mess. She poured Richard some coffee from the everbrewing pot, handed it over, and said, "How's Michael?"

Richard blew on the hot surface in the cup without looking at her. "He's at City Hall. We moved all the vampires we still had into the jail, for safekeeping."

Eve's face crumpled in anguish. Justin put a hand on her shoulder, and she pulled in a damp breath and got control of herself.

"Right," she said. "That's probably for the best, you're right." She sipped from her own battered coffee mug. "What's it like out there?" Out there meant beyond Lot Street, which remained eerily quiet.