I follow it around the corner and, as I expected, Kai appears under the yellow glow of pendant light. He focuses  somewhere above him as his deft fingers pluck the strings.

He's rather content for someone who has recently ditched a planned meeting time with me at the Sink. He flashes his pearly whites as if I am right on time and pauses the song.

"Where were you?" I accuse.

"What do you mean?" His comfortable grin slides into a devious smirk framed by tousled hair. "Were you looking for me?"

I don't want to be the jealous girl. I'm not the kind of person who throws her emotions around on other people, but I'm still hurt.

"Whatever," I spit at him before retreating to the crowded Rotunda. I want an exit from this moronic situation as soon as possible. I'm done with the idiocy of men for the night. Or fish.

Before I leave, I catch his stupid face flip into a frown as if it were triggered by a light-switch. "Hey, Janika, wait!"

I keep walking.

"Come back and talk to me!"

My buzzing anger eminantes off me as I head toward the Rotunda ramp.

He shouts louder. "I took a rod for you."

That. That makes me pause as if I'd accidentally trod on an unexploded ordnance. I feel him behind me.

"Why can't you keep it casual? We can't be together, and you know it." His anger builds. "Like I owe you anything? I took a rod for you. What? Now you expect me to follow you around or something? We're not contracted, and I'm tired of getting those death-glares from your giant shadow. What we had was fun before I got it beaten outta me."

I run over and shush him as the people from the chapel file out.

"We could have talked about this at, you know, the Sink, where I told you to meet me." We slink into a darkened corner.

"Listen," he says. "You're a great girl. I can't deny that. But every time I try something, you stop. You make me think you want me, but then you hit the brakes. It's confusing. All I really want is for us to be together the way I want—the way you tell me you want." His hand reaches out to stroke my fingers. His ukulele lies abandoned on the ground.

I don't say a word. This is some kind of rehearsed speech that gets the girl of lower intelligence to simper in his palm. This is the kind of performance Simon always warned me about. I scoff at him and shove off to leave again.

Kai shoots his arm out in front of my shoulders to stop me. "You don't believe me?" he asks with the same deep, flirty voice I heard him use right before I flung my shirt over my head.

I smell trouble instantly. With me trapped between his arm and the concrete wall behind the Chapel of Our Lady of the Impenetrable Heap, Kai takes my chin with his free hand and holds it still while he leans forward. My hesitant thoughts flee on contact.

His body presses against mine as his kiss deepens. His hand on my face lowers to my neck, to my shoulder, and to my chest where he squeezes through the rough material of my civvies. His hand slides under the stone-gray linen shirt and feels for my skin.

I'm getting lost again. His tongue darts and swivels, roving and exploring in a practiced dance I have yet to learn. His hand cups, teases, and rubs across my softest parts. My legs become unstable as if the entirety of the URE is shaking below me.

"Kai," I moan into his lips.

He hums into my mouth.

"We can't."

He hums again, nipping my chin.

"We can't."

He pauses and releases my neck from where he lavishes it with attention.

"We can't risk it."

He exhales heavily. His hand slips out from under my shirt, slowly. Tentatively, hesitating, fighting some invisible battle with himself. He takes one step back while his breathing regulates.

"If I could . . ." I protest in lame defense, putting a hand on his heaving chest.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But do you see what I'm saying now?"

We pause there, uncomfortable and coiled tight, letting the intensity of the previous seconds ebb away and fall through the slats in the grated floor.

A lurch in the bottom of my stomach makes me squirm. It's not the same flutter as before but something heavy and different. It makes my whole body feel the same gut-rot hangover after too much Junk Juice.

"I need to get going," I say.

"Yeah, we've got another early start. Gotta be in tip-top shape to save the world."

I snort, not amused by his comment but not sure what else to say.

"You get what I mean." He kisses me as he brushes past. He grabs the instrument on his way out. "G'night, Lorn."

I'm left alone to catch my breath that abandoned ship somewhere between his lips on my neck and his hands under my shirt. Dean has never stolen my breath. Not like that.

My stomach lurches again.

Freaking Dean.