28
“Kieran Alexander Seals Relationship with a French Kiss in Paris”
—Oui
MY THOUGHTS LIQUIFIED and my muscles were taut as her delicate hands held my face and the smell of vanilla wrapped around me.
A wave of relief great enough to cover a hundred coastal homes drowned me as she pressed her lips against mine.
It was as if I had been waiting for this since our last kiss.
Counting down the days, hours, and minutes like an addict.
Trying to remember what I thought about her before.
Trying to convince myself that it was just a blip on the radar of our complex relationship.
That every dream I had woken up from was an exaggerated idea of what had actually happened.
But they weren’t. My mind was spinning because this was so much better in the cruelest way.
She was bending me to her will. Pure teasing torture to tire out her enemies and leave them mystified for weeks. And, oh, God, was it working.
Her lips moved slowly against mine, softening and melting away my self-control as I tried to let her lead.
Her movements were hesitant. I did my best not to lean into her and wrap my hands around her waist or run them down her skin.
I was intensely aware of how each of her fingers was gripping my jaw and the way her breathing hitched when her lips enveloped mine.
But I kept my distance. My hands only grazed her hips.
This would be over in seconds. We only needed one picture. There was no point in providing myself with any more details of her lips or body or breathy noises to have more material to dream about.
It was just a shadow of a kiss compared to last time anyway.
Until she tilted her head and parted her lips just enough.
Then, my self-control snapped, and I melted into her.
My lips collided with hers, softening like seashells in the sea.
I immediately reminded myself of what it was like to hold on to her hips and run my thumbs over the muscles in her sides, closing the rest of the gap between us.
The material of her dress was soft and thin.
It made my head ache to think about how little was realistically between us.
What the hell was I thinking?
Her hands crawled up my neck and buried themselves in my hair.
Oh, God.
I was utterly falling apart.
She curled her fingers in my hair, and an unexpected groan fell from my lips. “Luna.” It was as if I had provoked her. She took a harsh step forward, sending my back into the brick wall behind us.
I ran my hand down her braid until I caught the elastic, pulling it off and letting it fall. I made quick work of undoing the strands, finally having the satisfaction of running my fingers through the long hair I was constantly fixated on watching hang down her back.
I kept one hand in her hair while my other mapped out every inch of her hips, waist, and neck, trying to satisfy this archaic need so I could stop. But I couldn’t get enough of her. Air and logic were escaping me. The feeling of her, all of her, was rattling my mind.
She was tearing me apart from the inside, cutting and pulling at the millions of fraying threads holding me together. Her tongue ran against mine, and hundreds of threads came loose. A low, rough noise rose from her lips, and more of me fell apart, unstitching.
“Kieran,” she whispered, and it finished the job.
I never wanted to hear my name any other way. I only wanted it to come from her lips as she breathed underneath me and—
Her hand rested on my belt buckle, and realization flared, rattling the hazy fog in my mind.
This is fake. This is fake. This is too overwhelming to be fake.
I pulled away. Surprise riddled her wide eyes. One look from her said more than a decade of shoebox-hidden poems. But all I could focus on were her dark, swollen lips that had just been on mine.
“Luna…”
Her eyebrows rose. Her lips parted to say, “Kieran.”
I could have melted right there. But she wiped away the look quickly and cleared her throat. “I… I think we got the picture.” Her words were directed at me, but she wouldn’t look in my direction. Her blush was so distinct under the moon that I wondered if I had been clutching her face.
“You think so?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes, but her shoulders relaxed. “If you hear from your grandmother in the morning, then definitely.” She laughed lightly.
I called us a taxi and spent the drive pretending not to see the reflection of her unbraided hair in my window.