Free Hardcore: Volume 1 by Staci Hart Page B

stood on a wide ledge ahead of me with his hands on his hips, his shoulders heaving as he caught his breath. His body was a silhouette against the lights of the buildings that stretched up around us. He was a god or a superhero, something out of a myth or legend, too good to be true. Too good to be mine.
    Van turned and extended his hand, and I smiled when I took it. He pulled me up to stand next to him. The wind whipped my hair around as I looked down what I guessed to be twenty stories to the street below, shifting a bit to steady myself at the disorienting vertigo that always hit.
    We stood there silently, just existing as part of the city for a long while.  
    A war of emotions tore through me. During our run, I’d chased down my thoughts. The most important thing I’d decided was that I wouldn’t steal from him. I’d never really wanted to in the first place and admitted to myself that I’d been looking for a reason to bail. But there was so much at stake. I didn’t know how I’d get out of it.
    I could tell Jill, but that wasn’t really an option.
    I could bullshit Jade and hope to Christ she let it go.
    I could tell Van the truth. But then he’d know. I wasn’t ready for him to judge me. I never expected to care whether he did or not.
    But I did.
    The warmth of his hand around mine was comforting, the size of it wrapped around my own like he wanted to protect it. Protect me. Was that what I wanted? I wondered if I could find a way to let go and let him him in, and I realized with a shock that it would be a relief. It was a burden I didn’t know I’d been carrying.
    If he learned the truth about me, that I was a thief, a liar, that I had plans to steal from him … how could he ever forgive that? Why would he want me? Something told me he wouldn’t be forgiving. His life was as black and white as the photographs he took. The shades of gray were just noise. He had hard lines of expectations on the world, even though he was pliant on his expectations of me. But that was because he didn’t know me. If he did, he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me.
    And so I decided that I would give us both the night. One night to be together, unbound by my baggage and past. Just a night to be. Because I wouldn’t lie to him, and I wouldn’t steal from him. I had to tell him the truth or disappear. There was no answer, and there wouldn’t be until I faced Jade. Nothing could be decided until I’d dealt with her.  
    I looked over at him, his face illuminated by the city. He glanced down and turned to me, gripping me tight. The wind spun around us, lifting my hair as he leaned down and kissed me, his body as solid as the buildings that reached up into the night, and I held on to him like I’d fall if he let go.  

WE WERE WIPED WHEN we trotted to the roof access door of The Kyle Building. He punched in a code at the door and pulled it open for me, laying a hand in the small of my back as I passed. I hopped on the rail and slid down to the landing, and we laughed with our arms out as we descended each flight until we reached his floor.  
    I twisted my hair up again as we walked the hall and into his apartment, closing the door behind us. Van made his way through the living room, throwing his beanie, reaching back between his shoulder blades to grab a handful of his tank to pull it over his head. I stood there like an idiot, watching the shadows of the muscles on his back expand and contract when he moved. He turned back, reaching back for my hand with a crooked smile.  
    “I’m gonna shower, you coming?” He looked at me like he already knew the answer.
    “Whether or not I come sort of depends on you,” I said and I slipped my hand into his.
    Van laughed and started walking. “Then the answer is definitely yes.”
    He kicked off his shoes when we reached his room, and I let go of his hand to pull off my boots. When I unbuttoned my jeans and pushed them down my thighs, Van sucked in a breath from behind