Free Bite Me (Woodland Creek) by Woodland Creek, Mandy Rosko Page B

proper explanation. Alice had to fight to take in proper breaths.
    “I’m scared, because…because I’ve honestly thought about that, and almost nothing else, since the day the ambulance took you away when the police finally came for us, when they arrested Bobby and you told me to run. Then I thought you’d died, and I realized I probably didn’t even know your real name, didn’t know where you were buried…”
    She had to stop going down that little rabbit hole. She’d blab forever about how much she missed him if he let her do it.
    “I’m scared that you’re only kissing me because you’re testing yourself. That you don’t really mean it, or that you just want to see if it feels the same.”
    She still couldn’t look at him, but she heard the tiny gasp he released when she said that.
    And she was still gripping his jacket, like a teenaged girl holding onto the boy she liked while he was trying to break up with her. It was all kinds of pathetic, but she couldn’t exactly stop herself now, could she?
    Jake sighed, and Alice held perfectly still when his hands came up to rest on her shoulders.
    She expected him to push her back, but he didn’t do that. He just let his hands sit there. He wasn’t gripping her the way she was, but she still felt that burn. Everywhere he touched burned and tingled. Even her lips still felt warm and tingly, like she’d just had a spicy drink.
    “I was testing myself,” Jake admitted.
    Alice swallowed.
    “But not in the way you think I was,” he said. She heard the smile in his voice, and Alice had to look up at him.
    “I was seeing how long I could kiss you, or touch you, before I’d be able to stop myself. I don’t even care that the cop is watching us from his cruiser. I just had to do it.”
    Alice bit down on her bottom lip. “It’s been ten years.”
    “I know,” Jake said. “And we’re both different people. I wasn’t even myself when you were with me back then. I was as much myself as I could be, but I loved you. I wasn’t faking that, and I knew you were the one I’d love for the rest of my life when Bobby tried to shoot you. I couldn’t let him do it.”
    “You nearly died for that.” She remembered the way he’d jumped in front of her, and then quickly shifted into his snake form after the gun went off.
    He’d been so quick, and Bobby had panicked. The man had tried to stomp his feet down on Jake’s long body as Jake slithered forward so damned fast it almost hadn’t seemed real.
    Which was when Alice had tackled the man to the ground, giving Jake the chance he’d needed to bite Bobby’s face.
    It was enough to make the man retreat, and Jake had shifted back into his human shape.
    For the first three seconds, Alice had thought they’d gotten lucky, that the bullet from Bobby’s gun had missed both of them.
    Then she watched, horrified, as a bloom of red expanded across the white tank top Jake had been wearing. He’d fallen to the ground, and Alice had cradled him, trying to stop the blood flow before finding a cell phone and calling 911.
    She’d thought he was dying then. He’d looked like he was dying, and he’d probably thought so too, which was why he’d reached up with a shaking, bloody hand and touched her cheek.
    “A-Alice. I’m a cop,” he’d said.
    And Alice had wanted to cry. She did a little, and kissed his cheek. “I know.”
    She hadn’t known. Not really, but she’d suspected. A lot. Enough that it didn’t surprise her to hear him say it.
    His eyes widened. “Are you a cop, too?” he’d asked, his voice raspy.
    She’d really started to cry then, shaking her head. “No. I’m just what I’ve always been.”
    “H-how did you know?” he’d asked. It had probably amazed the hell out of him, finding out that Alice had known. She could’ve had him killed so many times if she’d ever uttered her suspicion, but she never said anything.
    Alice hadn’t wanted him to speak at all. It had seemed like a waste of