“Because I care about you! I told you that at the party. Breaking up doesn’t mean you stop caring about someone.”

“Yes, but it means you have to let them go.” I was so upset that I was on the verge of tears. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t get rid of me and then try to pull me back . . .”

“I never wanted to get rid of you.”

I stared at him for several heavy moments and felt those traitorous tears brimming heavier and heavier in my eyes. “Then why did you do it?”

After all that yelling, his voice sounded barely like a whisper.

“Because . . . I wanted to save you.”

“You can’t,” I murmured, swallowing the tears back with great effort. “You can’t keep saving me, can’t keep trying to. It’s too late.”

“No,” he said. His heart was in his eyes, and it was ripping mine apart. “Not for you. Never.”

I don’t know how it happened exactly, but suddenly we were kissing. His lips were just as I remembered, soft and powerful and wonderful. It wasn’t a chaste kiss, nor was it a ripping-off-each-other’s-clothes kiss. It was hungry and desperate, like we’d been struggling through a desert and only just now found the water we needed to survive. Best of all, it was just kissing. Just me and Seth. There was no life energy or succubus schemes involved. There was no need to back off for fear of what might happen. We could drink from each other without pulling back.

Except, well, we did.

We jerked apart, and I knew the shock on his face mirrored my own. What had we just done? Had we . . . had we really done it? It was a kiss. A real kiss. The kind of kiss we’d always wanted. The kiss we weren’t supposed to be having.

I turned abruptly away, staring at the road ahead. I was frozen and numb . . . and yet, alive and filled with warmth. The world had been in that kiss. But I didn’t know how to react to it, didn’t know what I was supposed to do now. So, I did the most inane thing possible. I started the car.

“We should get back,” I said.

“Yeah,” he agreed, sounding as stunned as I felt.

I dared a look out of my peripheral vision. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, his wonderful lips tightened in a line that somehow made them look strong and vulnerable at the same time. I wanted to lean over and kiss them again, to melt as I had moments ago and forget all about reason. I wanted that perfect feeling to last forever.