He must reach the same conclusion because he wrenches away his mouth, and it’s like pulling away from an electric current.

“Don’t,” he pants as we both sit up. “Don’t kiss me because you’re trying to distract me. Or because it’s part of some master plan I don’t know about. I want you to kiss me for one reason alone, and that’s because you want to.”

I do, I wish I could say. This is what I want more than anything.

But the gun jabs me in the leg, reminding me of why I’m here and what I meant to do, before I read the inscription on the spindle. Before everything that used to make sense all of a sudden didn’t.

“Are you in love with Lalana?” I blurt.

He blinks. “Huh?”

“Lalana. Your old family friend, the one you’ve known since you were kids, peeling layers off your kahnom chun. Are you in love with her? Did you leave letters in her locker, proclaiming your undying devotion?”

He arches an eyebrow. Ah. His signature bored face. My heart actually squeezes when I see it.

“First, that’s still how I eat my kahnom chun,” he says. “And second, how could you think that? Lalana’s like a sister to me. Besides, she’s your best friend. I’d be kind of a jerk for falling for you both.”

Now it’s my turn to blink. “You’re falling for me?”

The corners of his lips twitch. “Well, yeah. I assumed you knew that.”

“I assumed you thought I was an untrustworthy girl who refused to explain anything.”

“That too.” His smile fades before it has a chance to bloom. “You never answered me. What are you doing here?”

I wince. Minutes have passed, and I still haven’t come up with an adequate response.

“Well, it’s not to ravish me, that’s for sure,” he says. “If it were, we wouldn’t be talking right now.” He searches my face. “That means you must be here because of this.” Before I can react, he plucks the gun out of the pocket of my pants.

My jaw drops. “How did you know that was there?”

He blinks at the weapon, whose metal glints ominously in the moonlight. “I knew something was trying to brand itself on my skin. But holy crap. I didn’t realize it was a gun.”

He rolls the weapon on his palm, weighing it. Considering it from every angle.

It would serve me right if he shot me. After all, I tried to kill him. He doesn’t know I had a good reason, but so what? If I succeeded, he’d still be just as dead.

“What, uh, are you going to do with that?” My mouth is as dry as the Kalahari Desert.

He picks up my hand, smiles mock seductively…and then reaches past me to set the gun onto his desk.