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hypocrite.”
    “Don’t,” he whispered.
    “What?”
    “Don’t be like that. Not with me.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’re so all-or-nothing. Hot or cold. Love or hate. It’s like there are no settings in between. You take things too far sometimes.”
    “I commit. I’m not wishy-washy,” I defended myself.
    He smiled at me. “There you go again. It’s not being wishy-washy to just take it easy sometimes.”
    “They can’t be breaking beds.”
    “They weren’t. They were bouncing on them.”
    “Ugh.”
    “Something’s eating you up inside,” he said, pulling me tight to him. “Tell me what it is.”
    “I can’t.” I thought about Jessica Gillmansen. Duct-taped and hidden away. About Pietr and the way his image ghosted around in my head.
    Gareth’s hand slipped from around my waist to hang beside him, his fingertips brushing mine. They stroked the inside of my palm, and the world blurred and tilted as I struggled to keep breathing. “Come with me,” he said, fingers encircling my wrist.
    I nodded, feeling fire brush my face as my ears fought to decode his tone. “Yes,” I replied, not caring what he was trying to do because at least he was trying to do it with me .
    He slid his magnetic key out of his pocket and tugged me toward a door. Room 206.
    Gareth’s room.
    My vision swam.
    “I need you—”
    I didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying because the sound of the ocean—of my pulse fuzzing out—filled my ears. Gareth needed me.…
    The door opened, and we slipped inside, his body snug to mine. Even in the dim room I could see the strong angles of his face: the sharp jawline and crisp cheekbones, the broad and supple lips that rested a thumb’s width from the base of his aquiline nose. And the powerful eyebrows, so much like the bend and sweep of a blackbird’s wing.… Beneath which his lavender eyes lit with just a hint of the wolf’s red.
    Moving backward, my calves bumped up against the edge of the bed and my breath caught. He bent down, flowing like deep, dark water, and untied my shoelaces, slipping off my sneakers. Then his eyes met mine again and he grinned, his lips twisting at one end. A sliver of white showed from between them as they parted to reveal his perfect teeth.
    “Ready?” he whispered, stepping on the heel of one of his sneakers with the toe of the other to shirk them both off.
    I nodded, mute. With Gareth, I felt ready for anything.
    His hands closed around my waist and he lifted me onto the bed. The grin, all devil now, widened, the beads at the ends of his dreadlocks bouncing.
    He jumped onto the bed and looked down, stooping over me, the entire mattress rocking. He took my hands. “Up, Princess,” he said, rolling his weight back and forth so the bed moved like the waves on an unsettled ocean.
    “You’re kidding,” I whispered, glad the bad lighting hid the blush rising in my cheeks. “You brought me here to…”
    “Bounce,” he finished with a laugh. And, holding my hands, he started bouncing in small but growing increments and forced me to join in as his jumps got bigger and crazier.…
    I laughed, my head rolling back as the sound poured out. I was bouncing, my feet quick to leave the fluff of the comforter and reach for the ceiling instead.
    Gareth laughed, watching me, his eyes crinkling as his mouth opened to let out bigger and bigger laughs—laughs that bordered on shouts of joy.
    And then, suddenly, his face became serious—intense—and he stopped his jumping, his legs spread wide to keep his balance as my own jumping died down, my face getting as serious as his.
    “What?” I asked, reaching for him. “Is something wrong?”
    “No,” he replied, his tone flat, eyes shining. “You were laughing.”
    I nodded.
    “Everything’s right.” He grabbed me by my shoulders and kissed me. Hard.

 
    CHAPTER THREE
    Jessie
    Noise outside the shed made me peel my eyes open again. I was still nauseated from my last vision of Derek. Being