Chapter 14 #3
I stared up at him, caught between terror and desperate need.
This was Jaxson—my stepbrother, my protector, the man I’d been in love with for longer than I cared to admit.
This was wrong, so wrong, a sin in so many ways.
And yet nothing had ever felt more right, more inevitable.
A beautiful sin I was desperate to commit, one that would probably earn me a special VIP section in whatever afterlife handles family-related transgressions.
“First, tilt your head… like this.” His thumb guided my chin to the perfect angle, the pad rough against my skin in a way that made me shiver. The slight calluses on his fingers reminded me of all the ways he’d taken care of our family, of me, over the years. “Now part your lips… just a little.”
I obeyed without thinking, my body responding to his instructions before my brain could even process them.
My lips parted, my breath coming in quick, shallow gasps that betrayed exactly how nervous and excited I was.
This was actually happening—I was about to be kissed by Jaxson Sinclair, the star of every fantasy I’d ever had, the man whose smile could light up even my darkest days.
My brain was cycling through error messages faster than Colt’s laptop when he tried to run too many spreadsheets at once.
I watched, mesmerized, as he lowered his head, his eyes never leaving mine until the last moment. My heart was trying to punch its way out of my chest, hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it. Time seemed to slow, stretching into infinity as he closed the distance between us.
Oh my God, this is happening, this is actually happening, he’s going to kiss me, Jaxson is going to kiss me, am I dreaming? I must be dreaming. If this is a dream, please don’t let me wake up, not yet, not until—
The first brush of his lips against mine silenced every thought in my head like someone had hit the master reset button on my brain.
Soft, warm pressure—that’s all it was, and yet it sent lightning racing through my entire body.
His lips were softer than I’d imagined, but firmer too, moving against mine with a gentle insistence that made my toes curl.
Heat bloomed where our mouths connected, radiating outward until my entire body felt feverish with want.
The warmth in my chest that had been building since he first touched me flared suddenly, spreading through me like wildfire, reaching to every extremity until I felt like I might be glowing from within.
It was a sensation entirely new yet somehow familiar, as if my body remembered this connection even if my mind didn’t—a recognition so deep it bypassed conscious thought entirely.
I made a sound—something embarrassing and needy that belonged in Bree’s romance collection rather than real life—and he responded with a growl that vibrated against my lips.
The kiss changed instantly, deepening from gentle exploration to hungry claiming.
His mouth moved more firmly against mine, no longer asking but taking, demanding a response I was eager to give.
Just when I thought I understood what kissing was, he changed the game entirely—like finding out you’ve been drinking room-temperature water your whole life and suddenly someone hands you a glass of ice-cold perfection on a summer day.
His tongue traced the seam of my lips—hot, wet, insistent—and I gasped at the new sensation.
He took immediate advantage, his tongue plunging into my mouth with a confidence that made my head spin.
Oh fuck. The feeling of his tongue sliding against mine was so alien, so intimate that I froze for a heartbeat.
This was someone else’s tongue in my mouth.
Jaxson’s tongue in my mouth. The strangeness of it hit me first—the wetness, the heat, the way it took up space that had never been invaded before.
It should have been weird, maybe even gross, but instead it was the hottest thing I’d ever experienced.
If this was what kissing was really like, no wonder people wrote songs and poems and entire novels about it.
His tongue stroked mine, coaxing, teasing, teaching me a rhythm I didn’t know my body already understood.
I didn’t know what to do, how to respond—what was the protocol when someone else’s tongue was exploring the inside of your mouth?
Did I move mine too? Did I stay still? This was a skill Bree’s romance novels had definitely not prepared me for.
My inexperience must have been obvious because he pulled back just enough to whisper against my lips.
“Follow my lead,” he murmured, his breath hot against my damp lips. “Don’t think, just feel.”
Don’t think, just feel. Easy for him to say when he wasn’t the one having a complete system meltdown. My brain was firing error messages like a poorly coded program: Error 404: Coherent Thought Not Found.
Then his mouth was on mine again, his tongue delving deeper, and this time I let instinct take over.
My tongue met his, tentatively at first, then with growing confidence as I mimicked his movements.
The slide of tongue against tongue created a friction that shouldn’t have been so electrifying, but each stroke sent sparks racing down my spine, pooling low in my belly.