“I hate her,” I tell him. “So much of me hates her. For what she did, for what she tried to make me do. And I’m not stupid. I know she wouldn’t risk anything for me. But even if I want it to be, my hate isn’t big enough to sit back and let her be killed in the town square. Not without at least trying to stop it.” I take a deep breath, brain flooded with images of Callie. “She’s the first person I ever loved, Bishop. She’s my sister.” I don’t know if he will understand, never having had a sibling, but for me, that’s reason enough.
“What about your father?” Bishop asks.
“I want to try to find him, too,” I say, “if we can. Maybe I can convince him to leave Westfall and start over again out here.” Beyond the fence there is room for my father’s dreams, a place where some of his best ideas could be implemented. Maybe, after everything, there’s still a way to save my family.
“Do you think we can really help them?” Bishop asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. And it’s probably crazy to try. But it feels like I have to make the attempt. And what about your parents? Aren’t you worried about them, if it’s as bad in Westfall as they made it sound?”
“Of course I am. But my parents aren’t helpless. We all have to take care of what’s most important to us.” Bishop squeezes my hands. “And for me, that’s you.”
“I know,” I whisper. “It is for me, too.”
“But?”
I look down at our joined fingers, his still faintly golden from the summer sun. Sun that seems a lifetime ago, and not just because now it is winter. “I wish it didn’t, but this feels like what I’m supposed to do. What I have to do. My family…Westfall…they feel like unfinished business. Before today, something bad happening in Westfall, something bad happening to our families, was only a theory. But now we know for sure.” I pause, searching for a way to explain something I don’t even really understand myself. I raise my eyes to his. “You told me you weren’t like my father or Callie. That you couldn’t just let me go. I’m not like them, either. I can’t stay here and let her die. I can’t move on without at least trying to help my father.”
“If they catch you, Ivy, they’ll kill you.” Bishop’s face pales as he speaks; his throat muscles work. “And I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop them.”
I already know the risks. Bishop can go back to Westfall. I cannot. Not without putting my own head on the chopping block. “Then I guess I better not get caught,” I say, with a pathetic attempt at a smile.
He stares at me. I wonder what he sees? I hope it’s something good. I hope it’s someone he can still love. I’m being so selfish, asking him to be all right with me putting my life on the line for the very people who planned his death. If the situation were reversed, I don’t know if I could let him go. I don’t know if I could forgive him for asking it of me. “Okay,” he says finally. “Then we go back.”
I’m already shaking my head before he’s done speaking. “No, you don’t have—”
“Yes, I do, Ivy,” he says, his voice harder, his gaze sharper. “Where you go, I go. We’re together. And if this is what you need to do, then it’s what I need to do, too. That’s the only way this is happening.” There it is again, that wall of strength in Bishop, that core of steel. The one I know no amount of pushing will crack. His thumb slides over the back of my hand; his fingertips find the rapid pulse of my wrist. “All right?”
“All right,” I say. Sometimes I still forget that we are a team now. We have each other’s backs, no matter what. I’ve never had that before, the security of knowing someone will love me even if he doesn’t always agree with me. Bishop’s love for me isn’t dependent on conditions. He doesn’t love me because of what I can do for him or what I represent. He loves me. Full stop.
I slide off the edge of the bed and pull him to standing, wrap my arms around his neck, and hold on tight. When he kisses me, it lights me up, just like always. But this time there’s something fizzing in my blood, hot and anxious and not eased at all by the feel of his mouth on mine, his hands touching me through layers of clothes. The edge of this hunger is sharp and desperate, and it demands more than I’ve given it so far.
I pull away
from Bishop just enough to yank my sweater and shirt over my head and toss them aside. I unclasp my bra and let it slide down my arms. The chill air plays over my bare skin, and I shiver.
“Ivy…” Bishop says, a question in his voice. I silence him by reaching out and grabbing the bottom of his shirt. He doesn’t say anything more, keeps his eyes on mine as he lifts his arms, lets me pull off his shirt and drop it next to my own on the floor.
“Remember back in Westfall?” I say, breathless. “When I said I wasn’t ready to have sex?”
“Yes,” Bishop says, voice low.
“I’m ready now.” I take a step closer to him and put my hand on his warm chest. His heart pulses against my palm. “Are you?” I ask, because I’m not the only one with a voice in this conversation. This isn’t a decision that’s mine alone.
Bishop’s mouth curls up a little as he looks at me; his eyes flare. “Yes,” he says again. “I’m only human, Ivy, and you’re…you.” He runs both hands up my arms, traces the jutting bones of my collar with his fingers. My head falls back a little, my whole body melting, like my skin is filled with liquid instead of bone and organs. But when I move up against him, he stops me, slides his hands to my waist. I can feel the imprint of each individual finger against my skin. “But why now? Is it because we’re going back?”
“Yes,” I say, thinking about how if the worst happens, I don’t want to die without knowing what it’s like to love Bishop in every way I can. “No,” I say, so aware that my desire for him, my longing, has nothing to do with a fear of the future. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“It matters,” he says. “I don’t want you doing this because you’re scared.”
“I am scared,” I tell him. “I’m going to be scared, probably for a while. But that’s not why I’m doing this. I’m doing it because I love you. I’m doing it because I want to.” I put my other hand next to my first on his chest, run them both up to his neck, push myself forward until our torsos meet, everything between us swirling and sparking like a fresh branch thrown on the fire. Cold seems like a distant memory. “I want to see you naked. I want to touch you. I want you to touch me. I just…want.” And maybe my words should shame or embarrass me, along with the shake in my voice, my breathing high and fast, the sheer need in my tone. But this is Bishop. And he’s already stripped me bare in ways that have nothing to do with taking off my clothes.
He doesn’t second-guess me after that. And I don’t second-guess myself. Neither of us makes the moment, the decision, bigger or smaller than it actually is. Bishop and I together will always be more than what’s happening tonight in this bed. But this is also the most intimate thing we’ve ever done, this act we’ve chosen to do only with each other. No one else knows the secrets we are sharing with our bodies. Only I know the taste of his skin beneath my tongue. Only he knows the way my back arches as he moves above me. Only I know the sheer joy of watching calm, steady Bishop fall apart under my hands.
Chapter Fourteen
I’m alone in our bed when I wake in the morning. From downstairs, I can hear Ash’s voice, the banging of dishes in the kitchen. And Bishop’s deep voice in response, making me remember the things he whispered into my ear last night in this bed. I roll onto my back, trying to fight the ridiculous grin that’s spreading across my face, the hot blush racing up my body into my cheeks. I stretch, feeling the pull and give of my muscles. Not sore, exactly, or at least not a soreness that really hurts. Not one I would ever wish away.
There’s a fire crackling in our fireplace, but I still take a fortifying breath before I tumble out from underneath the warm pocket of blankets, brace myself for the biting cold against my nakedness. I scramble into clothes as fast as I can, tug on a pair of socks, and knot my hair up on top of my head. I’m at the bottom of the steps when I’m hit with an unexpected wave of shyness. I can still hear Bishop and Ash in the kitchen, and I assume Caleb is in there with them. I know it’s silly, but I feel like I have a giant sign on my forehead that Caleb and Ash will be able to read, outlining exactly what Bishop and I were doing last night. It’s not like Caleb would even care. He’s done the same thing on plenty of his walks, I’m sure. And Ash would probably just squeal and pull me aside for details I’d refuse to give her. But last night feels private in a way that I’m anxious to protect. So few things in my life have been solely mine, and what happened last night belongs to Bishop and me alone.