She gestured at the fridge. He crossed to it, retrieving two more bottles.

He cracked them open against the counter’s edge and offered one to her.

Marcella took it, considering him over the rim.

His eyes were dark blue, his hair sun-kissed, that warm shade between blond and brown. Most of the guys at the party hadn’t shed their baby fat, high school still clinging to them like wet clothes, but his black shirt stretched tight over strong shoulders, and his jaw was sharp, a small cleft denting his chin.

“Marcus,” he said by way of introduction. She knew who he was.

She’d seen him on campus, but it was Alice who’d told her—Marcus Riggins was trouble. Not because he was gorgeous. Not because he was rich. Nothing so bland as all that. No, Marcus was trouble for one simple, delicious reason: his family was in the mob. Alice had said it like it was a bad thing, a deal breaker, but if anything, it only piqued her interest.

“Marcella,” she said, uncrossing and recrossing her legs.

He smiled. “Marcus and Marcella,” he said, lifting his drink. “We sound like a matching set.”

Someone turned the music up, and his next words were lost under

the bass.

“What did you say?” she called over the song, and he took the opportunity to close the gap between them. She shifted her legs to the side, and he stepped closer, smelling like apples and linen, clean and crisp, such a welcome change from the sticky, tacky grime of lazy, drunken bodies.

He rested his beer on the counter just beside her arm, the cold glass brushing her elbow and sending a small shiver through her. A slow smile crossed his face.

He leaned in close, as if telling her a secret. “Follow me.”

He stepped back, taking the scent of linen and the blush of heat with him.

He didn’t pull her off the counter, but she felt pulled, drawn in his wake as he turned away, slipped through the crowd. She followed him, through the party, up the stairs, down the hall to a bedroom door.

“Still with me?” he asked, glancing back.

The door swung open onto a room at odds with the rest of the frat house. The laundry was hampered, the desk clean, the bed made, the only clutter a neat stack of books on the comforter.

Marcella hovered in the doorway, waiting to see what he’d do next.

If he would come to her, or make her come to him.

Instead, Marcus went to the window, slid up the glass, and stepped out onto a widow’s walk. A fall breeze whispered through the room as Marcella followed, slipping off her heels.

Marcus offered his hand and helped her up and through. The city spiraled away beneath them, the darkened buildings a sky, the lights like stars. Merit always looked larger at night.

Marcus sipped his beer. “Better?”

Marcella smiled. “Better.”

The music, obnoxiously loud downstairs, was now a muted pulse against her back.