Also by Cassandra Clare

A moment later she was in his arms and kissing him. She couldn’t have said how it happened
exactly, just that it seemed inevitable. And that for all that Julian’s voice had been quiet when he’d
spoken, his mouth on hers was eager and his body was wanting and desperate. He clutched her to him,
his lips tracing the outline of her mouth. Her hands were fierce in his hair—she’d always loved his
hair, and now that she could touch it freely, she buried her hands in the thick waves, winding them
around her fingers.
His hands slid to the backs of her thighs and he lifted her up as if she weighed nothing. She locked
her hands around his neck, clinging on as he held her against him with one arm. She was aware of him
grabbing at the papers covering the counter, knocking them to the floor along with tubes of paint, until
he’d cleared a space where he could set her down.
She pulled him in, keeping her legs wrapped around his waist. There was nothing closed about him
now, nothing diffident or remote or reticent as their kisses grew deeper, wilder, hotter.
“Tell me I didn’t screw this up forever,” Julian gasped between kisses. “I was such an ass on the
beach—and when I saw you with Mark in your room—”
Emma slid her hands down to his shoulders, broad and strong under her grip. She felt drunk on
kissing. This was what people fought wars over, she thought, and killed each other over, and
destroyed their lives for: this nerve-shredding mixture of longing and pleasure. “Nothing was
happening—”
His hands stroked her hair. “I know it’s ridiculous. But when you had a crush on Mark, when you
were twelve, it was the first time I remember ever being jealous. It doesn’t make any sense, I know
that, but the things we’re most frightened of, we can’t make ourselves dismiss them. If you and Mark
ever . . . I don’t think I could come back from that.”
Something about the raw honesty in his voice touched her. “Everyone has things they’re afraid of,”
she whispered, moving closer into his arms. She slid her fingers under the hem of his shirt. “It’s part
of being human.”
His eyes slipped half-closed. His fingers raked down through her hair; his hands caressed her back
lightly, then found her waist, pulling her harder into him. Her head fell back, almost banging into one
of the cabinets; his lips burned on her collarbone. His skin was hot under her touch. She could
understand suddenly why people talked about passion as fire: She felt as if they had caught aflame
and were burning like the dry Malibu hills, about to become ashes that would mix together forever.
“Tell me you love me, Emma,” he said against her throat. “Even if you don’t mean it.”
She gasped; how could he think, how could he not realize—?
There was the sound of footsteps in the studio. “Julian?” Livvy’s voice echoed through the door.
“Hey, Jules, where are you?”
Emma and Julian ripped themselves away from each other in a panic. They were both disheveled,
their hair mussed, their lips kiss-swollen. Nor could Emma imagine how they’d explain why they’d
locked themselves into Julian’s private room.
“Juuules!” Livvy was yelling now, good-naturedly. “We’re in the library and Ty sent me to get you.
. . .” Livvy paused, most likely looking around the room. “Seriously, Julian, where are you?”
The knob of the door turned.
Julian stood frozen. The knob jiggled again, the door rattling against its lock.
Emma tensed.
There was the sound of a sigh. The knob stopped jiggling. Footsteps moved away from them, and
then the studio door banged closed.
Emma looked at Julian. She felt as if her blood had frozen and then unthawed suddenly; it was