Chapter Thirty #2
I’ve kissed girls before. I’ve kissed Bonnie more times than I can count. I know what this is meant to feel like, and that is exactly why this scares the shit out of me, because this feels nothing like any of it.
This feels like relief.
Like hunger finally getting fed.
As if every part of me that has been wound tight around Ruby for months suddenly being given permission to start breathing.
She pulls back the tiniest amount, her forehead brushing mine while both of us drag air into our lungs but it doesn’t last long, I kiss her again.
My hands move to tangle in her hair and I seem to lose all sense as our steady kisses turn frantic, desperate, Ruby rising onto her toes while I bend into her, both of us trying to get closer than our bodies will physically allow.
There’s something almost violent about how much I want to stay here now. An anger growing towards the clock, towards Ewan, towards the stupid fucking two weeks waiting outside this room, and I kiss her with all of it, every bit of frustration and fear and want I’ve spent months swallowing.
I break the kiss, pulling back to look at her. “Is this okay?” Her lips are swollen, hair has been destroyed by my hands, and she looks wrecked.
“Bit fucking late to ask that, Josh.”
I laugh, breathless, my forehead dropping against hers while my hands stay buried in her hair. “Yeah, fair point.”
“Was that planned?” she asks, hazel eyes burning and fingertips grazing the back of my neck. “Did you know you were going to do that?”
“Not when I left your halls.” I tilt my head, thinking about it while her fingers keep moving lightly through the hair at my neck and make it ridiculously difficult to form a coherent thought.
“I knew I wanted to come back. I knew I wanted to see you. The rest sort of went to shit when I walked in and saw you standing there in my T-shirt.”
Ruby’s eyebrows lift. “So the T-shirt tipped you over the edge?”
“It was the girl in the T-shirt.”
She giggles. “You’re a bit of a smooth talker, aren’t you?”
“For you, Ruby.” I give her a chaste kiss. “Only for you.”
“Well, what does this mean, then?”
I groan. “Can you not just enjoy the kiss?”
“Josh,” She barks. “Do I seem like the type to just enjoy a kiss and not get really neurotic about it?”
“No, Rubes… but I don’t have a answer for you.”
“We are not still doing the friendship thing, surely?”
I pull a face because even I know I can’t get away with that one anymore. “No. I think we’ve probably fucked that up.”
“Probably?”
“Definitely.”
“Good.” She nods once, looking weirdly satisfied by my shit answers. “Because if you tried to call me your friend after that I’d really have to do the pee-through-the-letter-box thing.”
I laugh, but she keeps looking at me like she’s waiting for the rest and I know there is no chance she’s letting me out of this flat without wringing something more useful from me. “I’ve spent the last two months trying not to do exactly what I just did, so I’m a little behind on the planning.”
“I can’t go back to what we were.”
“I know. I can’t either.”
She searches my face, looking for the lie. “You mean that? You’re not going to come back after these two weeks and pretend it didn’t happen?”
“Well, about that…”
“Don’t do this to me.”
“No,” I laugh. “I’m joking, Christ. We’re going to drive my car back instead of leaving it here. I looked up the route from my house to yours and it’s only about thirty minutes.” I watch her expression change as she realises what I’m saying. “If you’re free, we could meet up over the break?”
Ruby blinks at me. “You looked up the route to my house?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Before or after you abandoned me?”
“During the abandonment.”
“You were sat in my bedroom Googling how long it would take to drive to my house?”
I shrug. “I had time to kill.”
“You are so unbelievably full of shit.”
I grin. “Maybe I wanted to know.”
She frowns. “Why?”
I really wonder how she can possibly still need me to spell this stuff out when what I feel for her, how much I want her, is so fucking clear. “Because two weeks without you sounds thoroughly, thoroughly shit.”
“Oh.”
“Rubes,” I lean forward and kiss her cheek. “Do you think there will ever be a point where I don’t need to constantly tell you how I feel? That I can just show you?”
She looks at me, expression softening. “No. Probably not.”
I groan. “Brilliant.”
“I’m being honest.” Her fingers toy with the hair at the back of my neck again. “You’re very confusing. Your version of showing me how you feel is buying me fourteen presents, memorising my timetable, turning up everywhere I am, getting weird about other boys and then insisting we’re friends.”
“When you list it like that, I sound unwell.”
She grins. “You’re perfect.”
“Cheers.”
“But I’m learning.” Her eyes snare mine. “I think.”
“Do you really not know how I feel about you?”
Ruby’s mouth twists like she knows there’s no good answer to that. “I know you care about me.”
“Rubes,” I warn.
“I know you want me.”
“Getting warmer.”
She gives me a look. “I know you like me.”
I shake my head. “For someone so smart, you can be a little dumb.”
“Don’t call me dumb.”
“Baby,” I murmur, sliding my hand up the side of her neck and cupping her jaw, my thumb brushing the bone there, “you’re a little dumb when it comes to me.
” She gives me a wounded look, but pushes her head into my palm, and I can’t help smiling as I lean down and press a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth.
“I’m basically worryingly obsessed with you. ”
“Huh.” She smiles big and wide. “You think that would freak me out but it’s kind of turned me on.”
I bark out a laugh, shaking my head while my thumb keeps moving over her cheek. “Course it has.”
She shrugs under me. “I’m a little obsessed with you too.”
Hearing that sets me on fire. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she nods, eyelashes fluttering. “You have no idea.”
I lean in, letting my lips brush hers. “Do I not?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Rubes?” I breathe.
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to kiss you again.”
“Please,” she whimpers.
I kiss her slowly, taking the plea apart with my mouth while one hand stays cupped around her jaw and the other slides firmly around her waist, holding her against me as she rises onto her toes and meets me with the same hunger that has been burning through me since I walked through the door.
She kisses like she talks, which should not make any fucking sense and yet it does, completely and utterly.
There’s no hesitation in her once she decides she wants something, no half measure, and every time I think I’ve got the upper hand she catches my bottom lip lightly between hers or drags her nails through the hair at the back of my head and reminds me I am not remotely in control of this.
Fuck.
I am so fucked.
So desperately head over heels for this girl and knowing it can all be torn away from me.
I pull away just far enough to breathe against her mouth, smiling when she immediately follows me. “Obsessed, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she confirms, smashing her lips to mine with full force and taking my breath away, moaning into me when I meet her need for need. I swear I could stand here listening to that sound for the rest of the morning.
I would do exactly that if my phone didn’t start vibrating in my pocket at the exact moment, she deepens the kiss, making her freeze and pull back. “Is that Ewan?”
“Probably.”
“You should answer.”
I chase her lips. “I really, really shouldn’t.”
“He’s going to leave without you.”
“I don’t really give a fuck right now. You can drive me back and I’ll get my car off him later.”
“He’s driving your car?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a BMW 1 Series and Ewan has a fucking Corsa, and Brooke has packed more shit than can physically fit inside Ewies’ tiny little clown car.”
“Oh no,” her eyes widen. “You’re a car snob.”
“I’m not. I just don’t like Ewan’s shoebox with indicators.”
“Don’t be so obnoxious.”
I grin. “Kiss me again.”
She laughs, but she does it, grabbing the front of my jumper and pulling me back down to her.
I kiss her slower this time, one hand sliding around her waist while the other settles at the back of her neck, and I can feel her smiling into it like she’s just discovered she can ask for this now and I’ll give it to her every single time.
My phone vibrates again and I ignore it.
She catches my bottom lip between hers and pulls, “Want to spend the morning with me and I’ll drive you back?”
I zero in on her face. “Why? What have you got planned?”
She slides her hand down into mine, threading our fingers together while her eyes flick very deliberately towards my bedroom. “There’s a double bed not currently in use.”
“Fuck yes.” I growl.
Her smile barely has time to form before I’m on her, catching her around the waist and kissing her hard. Ruby giggles straight into my mouth when I turn us, guiding her backwards towards the bedroom while she clings to my shoulders and tries to keep kissing me through it.
I nearly walk us into the doorframe, she mutters something about me being smooth, and I shut her up with another kiss, both of us half laughing and half completely fucking out of our minds by the time we stumble through the doorway.
The second we’re inside, I drag my jumper over my head with far more haste than dignity, barely getting one arm free before Ruby reaches for me again, and I throw the thing somewhere behind me without looking, catch her around the middle and pull her back into me while she grins up at me.
“Ruby, are you sure?” I ask, not wanting to fuck this up.
“Yes,” she breathes.
I kiss her again and slam the bedroom door shut behind us.