30. Faye
30
FAYE
A flurry of butterflies flittered up through Faye’s chest, taking her breath with them.
“Oh?”
Was that all she could say?
The darkening look in Bash’s eyes was a question in itself. Faye didn’t know what she was supposed to do – what he wanted her to say as he made her body boil with the weight of his gaze.
Her lips parted and her eyes flicked down his face, his sharp inhale cooling the air in front of her lips.
Then they were moving.
Bash wrapped his fingers around her wrist that poked out from under the duvet and coaxed her up off of the bed.
“Bash?” Her fingers slipped down to intertwine with his. He didn’t say anything and she didn’t stop the movement of her feet as she followed him out of their room.
Faye sobered up instantly.
The whole house was silent. No floorboards creaked beneath their footsteps – how on earth was Bash so light footed? Why was that the thing she thought about when she had no idea where she was being led ?
She tiptoed all of the way down the stairs with him, guessing where the edges of the steps were, because along with the dead of night silence, the house was totally dark. The fact that they were sneaking around Bash’s family home wearing only pyjamas would do nothing to stomp out the rumours that there was something going on between them if someone saw. What if they woke up his nieces?
Downstairs, Bash’s shadowed head turning this way and that was just about discernible before a tug of his hand guided her to the darkened doorway of the main living room where he let her go.
It sounded terribly cliché to name the feeling in her chest, but butterflies flapped their delicate wings right under the surface and a lightness like dizziness filled up her veins.
Faye stayed in the doorway, feeling colder each second Bash was gone whilst he walked his way along the wall like toddlers did with their hands. He clicked a switch and the Christmas tree lit up in all of its thousands of beautiful, twinkling lights.
Silhouetted by the tree behind him, Bash raised his gaze above her head.
“ Maman didn’t take any of it down yet,” he said, his voice oddly breathy. Faye knew without following his gaze what had drawn his attention – the reason why he’d led her here specifically. She risked a glance up anyway and there, above her, was a bundle of leaves and white berries they themselves had picked yesterday.
It didn’t work, but Faye drew a deep inhale to try and calm the whirlwind that swirled inside of her.
She knew exactly what it meant to stand here, she’d just never …
There’s still time for the one that you missed.
For what one that I missed?
Your first mistletoe kiss.
“Bash … Why are you … Why are we … ?”
“It’s tradition. Something you’ve never done, like you said.” It was only half an answer. A test of the unclear water Bash nudged them towards the e dges of, his face half in shadow. “As a good friend, I should be supporting you with these things.”
One heavy heartbeat away from swaying into the doorframe, Faye swallowed as their gazes latched. She hoped to holy doughnuts she read the veiled meaning of his words and the half-hooded look in his devastating blue eyes correctly.
“As a … friend .” It came out somewhere between a question and a plea.
Faye stared at him dumbly, the lights making the room glow amber just enough to make out the lopsidedness of his resulting smile.
“Kissing you is hardly a sacrifice, Peanut.”
His admission took the air right out of her lungs until her chest squeezed around her heart.
Why was he doing this? Faye didn’t think it was a trick. Bash wasn’t so cruel to mess with her like that. So why?
“I need to rectify this for you,” he told her lowly, hands fidgeting at his sides. “But it’s your choice.”
This. Her non-existent experience of a mistletoe kiss.
Bash needed to kiss her and no part of Faye’s brain was prepared enough to process the fact.
She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to kiss him. But this … This couldn’t be something meaningless, and by the way Bash gazed at her, his chest expanding against his t-shirt, hesitating far from the mistletoe like he waited to be told to join her – she didn’t think he merely offered a fleeting peck.
The thought of anything more was too overwhelming for Faye to think straight.
There was still yards of distance between them. She had every chance to stop this before?—
“Okay.” The word fell from Faye’s lips as easily as breathing, though she had difficulty right then trying to keep up with the racing of her heart .
Bash’s sharp inhale was as if he hadn’t expected for her to agree.
He didn’t hesitate.
One long step.
And then another.
The heat of his gaze didn’t break its latch with hers, branding Faye with promises of what he was about to do, until his warmth invaded all of her space. His face was cast in shadows dark enough that Faye could only make out his eyes and how his tongue traced the seam of his lips. Her hands began to tremble with the reality of what that swipe of his tongue meant – what she’d waited eleven years for.
Worries of regretting this tomorrow didn’t even cross her mind.
Knuckles slowly swept across her jaw, and her lashes fluttered at the soft feather of Bash’s skin, before he opened his palm to cradle her head, tracing his gaze across every line and corner of her face.
Faye didn’t breathe – she couldn’t . Delirious and terrified of how things might change. Tilting herself into Bash’s palm as she swayed.
The waiting wound her longing up in knots that could undo with just one more light touch.
And then he lowered.
Faye’s heart stuttered as Bash’s warm lips met hers, her eyes slamming shut. There was a good chance that the aching muscle beneath her breast might have stopped entirely as she sucked in a breath.
The flash of delight through her body was as if she’d never been kissed.
She grabbed Bash’s waist like he was time itself running away as he pressed his lips firmly to hers. Finally. Yearningly. Years after they’d met. Faye couldn’t help but stumble into him for more and tangle her fingers in the fabric under her hands.
Bash’s lips parted hers, and the lingering scent of whisky on his tongue turned to t aste on Faye’s. Every nerve in her body set aflame as he held her tightly.
Her hand slid up his back, finding dips and grooves, until she clutched at his shoulder for dear life, scrunching his shirt for the sake of holding herself up.
This didn’t feel like pity at all for her na?ve experience of this tradition.
This was a kiss.
Mistletoe forgotten.
A decade of keeping her craving for him in check and Bash released it all with one simple request.
Faye’s stomach dipped with the feeling of completeness – because this was everything good she’d wished for for eleven years. Wrapped in one another, this devouring kiss made up for lost time.
Her body was hot from head to toe, taken out of her thoughts and reacting to every trace of Bash’s purposeful touch. Even the tips of her ears were on fire.
His fingertips dragged through her hair with an almost possessive grip, and she couldn’t be blamed for what happened next.
Disorientated by how quickly the singular first press of Bash’s mouth had turned to another and another, Faye’s hips moved and sought contact with the furnace-like body pressed against her – all hard planes burning through the thinness of his pyjamas.
Their breathless sounds echoed the silent hallway until it was impossible to tell whose was whose.
Bash’s palm that gripped her waist slid to her lower back and— holy doughnuts … Faye’d known his hands were big, but when they held her dizzying head and spread against her spine, fingers sneaking beneath her top as he pulled her flush against him, those hands felt huge.
And they weren’t the only thing that did.
Faye never knew how much her body could ache without pain, but with want. With desire . Her shorts were too thin and she felt … things. One thing in particular that pressed hard, hot, and heavily against her stomach.
All of Faye fizzled with awareness as every inch of their bodies clumsily bumped.
A groan slipped from her lips and Bash responded by fisting the waistband of her shorts. Tight. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt his reaction to her proximity against her, but this wasn’t just an accident. Her imagination couldn’t lie. He was hard because of this and surely that meant he wanted her upstairs and undressed, too?
His mouth thoroughly ruined her for one more moment before Bash groaned. The vibration ricocheted all through her chest to Faye’s unsteady legs, while her head spun as he drew back and slowly ended this … whatever this was, with the parting of their lips.
“ No, don’t stop” screamed right from the core of her heart that he didn’t know belonged to him .
Millimetres apart, Bash rough and raggedly exhaled. Every one of those breaths hit Faye’s bruise-bitten lips as he kept her close, barely an inch between their rising chests. Their hips still stayed joined as though he didn’t want to sever that point of contact between them too. Faye didn’t want that hot and strained point of him to leave her, either.
The twinkling lights and scent of spruce inched their ways back into her light-headed awareness.
No kiss had ever left her like this before. She couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes, not just yet. Not whilst she still had the pure, innate taste of Bash on her lips and heard her own heart drum warnings like crazy in her ears.
“Was that traditional enough for you?” Bash rasped.
His voice was entirely devastating. It slithered over Faye like silk wrapping her up with a bow, ready to send her off to his bed for more.
She gulped, still trying to catch her breath. If that was a traditional ki ss then Faye was here for it. Always. Every mistletoe kiss from now, for every Christmas after, belonged to him.
“Yes.” A one syllable, breathless answer was all she was capable of, though she wasn’t even sure if yes was the right one.
If she’d have said “no” would he have kissed her again? Was it too late to change her mind?
Faye opened her eyes and Bash looked ruined. Flushed. Slightly wild like he had been when he’d caged her to keep her safe. His fervid heart beat against his shirt. Her hands upon his back covered muscles pulled taut with restraint. Although she thought it was far too late to exercise self-control when he’d just devoured her like that and sent her mind in a dizzy spin to oblivion.
In the darkness, she didn’t feel like they were themselves. These were two different people who weren’t afraid to take what they really, desperately, wanted.
In the corner of her eye, the various sofas loomed and glowed enticingly under the Christmas tree’s twinkling lights. If Bash wanted to maybe lower her down and continue where they’d left off, then she wouldn’t turn him away. But somehow in his eyes which began to focus, she started to believe that that wouldn’t be the case. Another dream to be kept just for herself.
Faye laxed her fisted grip upon his shirt whilst Bash’s fingers gently untangled from her hair and swept along her jaw, a thumb swiping over her lips and down her throat.
He moved back away from under the symbolic weight of the mistletoe and the illusion cracked.
“It’s late,” Bash said as he took another step, his thick voice obviously still affected by what they’d just done. “We need to be up early.”
He curled his fists and picked at his cuticles, and Faye only knew because she couldn’t look him in the eye anymore. A chill crossed over her because without him, his warmth was gone, and she was just a wom an standing in a doorway of a cold house in the dead of winter.
“Right. Yeah, of course.” Her voice was stripped back, hoarse, and she wished she was more covered than she was.
If that really was just a kiss for Bash then it was okay. It would have to be okay. He’d kissed lots of women and she would just be another one.
That didn’t stop every step back she took from hurting, like walking on broken eggshells. Faye headed for the stairs with a million different questions swirling through her mind. Somewhere behind her, a switch clicked. What light there had been from the Christmas tree vanished and it was as if they’d never been here at all.
She tiptoed up the stairs on wobbly legs. Her own words about being aroused and being in love being two non-synonymous things rattled around in the back of her lust-addled brain.
In what universe would a kiss so powerful as that mean nothing?
Bash didn’t follow her right away, which was okay. Separate beds would be great right around now. Faye wondered for a minute if he’d consider sleeping in the empty annexe, or on one of those sofas that’d ominously witnessed what was, hands down, the best make out of her life – whilst simultaneously not wanting him to.
She tried reasoning with herself as she crawled back into bed; they were both consenting adults who had wanted that kiss. They could sleep in the same bed without tempting fate towards anything else tonight.
Turning her bedside lamp off, she closed her eyes, unable to face Bash just yet if he returned. If he did come back and thought she was asleep, then he wouldn’t disturb her.
Two minutes later, Bash’s half of the bed dipped behind her.
He’d stayed .
This whole trip had made whatever feelings there were between them so much more complicated, assuming Bash had feelings for her a t all. His hands did one thing, his mouth another, and his words something else entirely.
He was more hot and cold than a British autumn. Kissing her like that, glancing her over like he did when he thought she wasn’t looking, and then forever saying they were only friends.
What the hell were they doing? But more importantly, how was Faye supposed to fall asleep next to him now and not dream of his body tangling with hers?