“I don’t know.”

He sat down next to her, still staring at her, but something about his stare had shifted from flattering to unnerving. There was something too intense in his gaze, and Gemma tucked her hair behind her ear and looked away from him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you today,” she said.

“It’s okay,” he said quickly, then shook his head, as if that were not what he meant to say. “I wasn’t…” He looked away from her, but only for a moment, and then his eyes were locked on her again. “Where were you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She shook her head.

“I’d believe anything you said,” Alex replied, and the sincerity in his voice made Gemma look at him.

“What’s going on with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” She gestured to him. “This. The way you’re looking at me. The way you’re talking to me.”

“Aren’t I talking to you the way I always have?” Alex moved away from her a bit, genuinely taken aback by her observation.

“No. You’re all…” She shrugged, unable to find the right words to explain it. “Not you.”

“I’m sorry.” His face pinched as he tried hard to figure out what she meant. “I guess … I was scared this morning. Harper wouldn’t tell me what was going on, and I was afraid that something had happened to you.”

“I truly am sorry about that,” Gemma said, deciding that must be what was going on. He’d been worried about her, so he was overcompensating with excessive staring, like Harper did sometimes. “I never meant to scare you. Or anybody.”

“But now you’ll be grounded?” Alex asked.

She sighed. “Yeah, definitely.”

“I won’t be able to see you?” he asked, sounding as depressed about it as she felt. “I don’t know if I can handle that.”

“Hopefully it will only be for a few weeks. Maybe less, with good behavior.” She gave him a small smile. “And maybe sometimes you can stop by when Harper and my dad are at work, like now.”

“How long do we have until Harper gets home from work?”

Gemma glanced over at the clock and realized sadly that Harper had already been gone for an hour. “Not long.”

“Then we have to make the most of this time while we have it,” Alex said decisively.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this.” He leaned in to her, pressing his lips to hers.

At first he kissed her in the same sweet way he always did—gentle, restrained, careful. But something changed. An eagerness took over, and he tangled his fingers in her hair, pressing her to him.

When things shifted, when Alex began kissing her with an insistence that was almost forceful, Gemma grew alarmed. She almost pushed him back so she could suggest they slow down, but it was as if he’d awakened something inside of her, a hunger she didn’t even know she had.

She pushed him back on the bed, still kissing him. His hands roamed over her body, at first over her clothes, but then sliding underneath her shirt to where her bruise should be. Everywhere his flesh touched hers, that same sensation she’d felt in the shower rippled over her.