The Host(29)

“We’ll stay here until the food is gone, don’t worry. I’ve slept on worse things than this couch.”

“That’s not what I mean,” I say, still looking down.

“You get the bed, Mel. I’m not budging on that.”

“That’s not what I mean, either.” It’s barely a whisper. “I meant the couch is plenty big for Jamie. He won’t outgrow it for a long time. I could share the bed with… you.”

There is a pause. I want to look up, to read the expression on his face, but I’m too mortified. What if he is disgusted? How will I stand it? Will he make me go away?

His warm, callused fingers tug my chin up. My heart throbs when our eyes meet.

“Mel, I…” His face, for once, has no smile.

I try to look away, but he holds my chin so that my gaze can’t escape his. Does he not feel the fire between his body and mine? Is that all me? How can it all be me? It feels like a flat sun trapped between us—pressed like a flower between the pages of a thick book, burning the paper. Does it feel like something else to him? Something bad?

After a moment, his head turns; he’s the one looking away now, still keeping his grip on my chin. His voice is quiet. “You don’t owe me that, Melanie. You don’t owe me anything at all.”

It’s hard for me to swallow. “I’m not saying… I didn’t mean that I felt obligated. And… you shouldn’t, either. Forget I said anything.”

“Not likely, Mel.”

He sighs, and I want to disappear. Give up—lose my mind to the invaders if that’s what it takes to erase this huge blunder. Trade the future to blot out the last two minutes of the past. Anything.

Jared takes a deep breath. He squints at the floor, his eyes and jaw tight. “Mel, it doesn’t have to be like that. Just because we’re together, just because we’re the last man and woman on Earth…” He struggles for words, something I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do before. “That doesn’t mean you have to do anything you don’t want to. I’m not the kind of man who would expect… You don’t have to…”

He looks so upset, still frowning away, that I find myself speaking, though I know it’s a mistake before I start. “That’s not what I mean,” I mutter. “‘Have to’ is not what I’m talking about, and I don’t think you’re ‘that kind of man.’ No. Of course not. It’s just that —”

Just that I love him. I grit my teeth together before I can humiliate myself more. I should bite my tongue off right now before it ruins anything else.

“Just that… ?” he asks.

I try to shake my head, but he’s still holding my chin tight between his fingers.

“Mel?”

I yank free and shake my head fiercely.

He leans closer to me, and his face is different suddenly. There’s a new conflict I don’t recognize in his expression, and even though I don’t understand it completely, it erases the feeling of rejection that’s making my eyes sting.

“Will you talk to me? Please?” he murmurs. I can feel his breath on my cheek, and it’s a few seconds before I can think at all.

His eyes make me forget that I am mortified, that I wanted to never speak again.

“If I got to pick anyone, anyone at all, to be stranded on a deserted planet with, it would be you,” I whisper. The sun between us burns hotter. “I always want to be with you. And not just… not just to talk to. When you touch me…” I dare to let my fingers brush lightly along the warm skin of his arm, and it feels like the flames are flowing from their tips now. His arm tightens around me. Does he feel the fire? “I don’t want you to stop.” I want to be more exact, but I can’t find the words. That’s fine. It’s bad enough having admitted this much. “If you don’t feel the same way, I understand. Maybe it isn’t the same for you. That’s okay.” Lies.

“Oh, Mel,” he sighs in my ear, and pulls my face around to meet his.

More flames in his lips, fiercer than the others, blistering. I don’t know what I’m doing, but it doesn’t seem to matter. His hands are in my hair, and my heart is about to combust. I can’t breathe. I don’t want to breathe.

But his lips move to my ear, and he holds my face when I try to find them again.

“It was a miracle—more than a miracle—when I found you, Melanie. Right now, if I was given the choice between having the world back and having you, I wouldn’t be able to give you up. Not to save five billion lives.”

“That’s wrong.”