Chapter 8 #3
I cleared my throat and let my hand slide from Dean’s neck down to his shoulder. “Just trying to look authentic,” I told him.
His lashes swept down in a slow blink. “Right. Makes sense.”
It really, really didn’t.
“Yeah,” I said.
He rubbed a thumb over his bottom lip as if to check it was still there. “I’m gonna get a drink,” he mumbled after a second, not quite looking at me, voice a little too casual. “Want anything?”
“Surprise me,” I said, easy as you please, nothing to see here.
He wandered off.
Theo shot me a lazy thumbs-up, smirking like the devil, and I suddenly understood how he and Charley fit. After I grinned back with all my teeth, I let myself drop into the sand like a puppet with its strings cut, heart beating too fast, belly hot.
Okay, yeah. So that might have been… a shade much.
But I could explain it away. I could. Just playing the role, properly dedicated, especially with Tom moving in like I wasn’t even there.
Dick.
The rest of the day unfolded like a faded postcard—colors slightly bleached, all warmth gone.
Dean wasn’t cold, not really. He didn’t pull away when I leaned in, nor did he suddenly insist on an arm’s length of distance between us, nothing of the sort.
He even smiled at me a handful of times and passed me a Negroni, fingers brushing like nothing had happened.
But somehow, he was holding back.
It felt like we’d slipped back in time—before our conversation out on the deck this morning, before this afternoon when he’d kissed me back like he meant it.
Now his glances lagged half a second too late, every laugh slightly too polished, a competent actor playing his part.
By the time dinner rolled around, a casual tapas affair under string lights, it was clear that whatever might have bloomed between us had faded already.
Maybe I’d overstepped. Been too much. Maybe he’d seen right through me, realized that I’d kissed him not because of our audience, but in spite of it.
We declined the buggy ride again and made our way along the dark shoreline, the ocean a gentle glimmer under the stars. Tiny hermit crabs scuttled away as waves came and went. I tasted salt on my lips.
“Hey.” I shifted close enough to nudge his shoulder. “You’ve been quiet. Since, you know. Earlier.”
He looked over, features shaded by the night. “Sorry. I get a little lost in my head sometimes.”
“Yeah, no worries.” Should I leave it at that? “I just… I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, if I did. With, uh… kissing you like that in front of everyone. I just thought—”
“You didn’t,” he cut in sharply. Softer, he added, “Really. You didn’t.”
My toes dug into the cool sand. We’d stopped walking somehow, the curved pier leading to the villas gleaming up ahead, while here the night was fuller, with only the occasional lantern glinting on the path that led around the island.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Just… things felt a little different, that’s all. Like I’d pushed too far and you wanted space. Which would be fine—if you did, I mean.”
He turned to face me, quiet for a second, as though searching for something. Then he shook his head, words slow like the drip of molten gold. “You know you’re attractive, right?”
I… Uh. Well.
It took me a moment to speak past the sudden lurch of my stomach. “Um. Thank you?”
“I wasn’t joking, you know?” He huffed out a small breath, stepping in a little closer, eyes on me. “When I said you were the hottest junior who’s come through the department.”
My throat went a little dry. “The hottest who’s come through in a while, you said.”
“More like the whole time I’ve been there.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because sometimes…” Close enough now that our toes were touching, his breath like an imagined caress—the tentative outline of one. “Sometimes, you seem to need a reminder.”
I didn’t dare move. Waves washed up in an unchanged pattern of advance and retreat as my heart beat triple time.
“Tay.” One of his hands framed my cheek, voice the shade of secrets. “Anyone would be lucky to kiss you.”
And then he did.
Achingly gentle, as if this was something precious and fragile to be cherished. My pulse was the loudest sound around, the brush of our closed mouths like the flutter of butterfly wings as his free hand curled into my shirt, knuckles digging in just enough to anchor me. Sweet. Real.
I kissed him back, my palm against his chest, and matched his smooth, languid pace. Slow heat licked at the base of my spine, but it was an afterthought to the ebb and swell of the waves, to the lazy slide of our mouths, to minutes that slipped away like time was on our side.
It was… It was. Certain and slow and so damn careful it crackled in my chest because I’d never kissed like that, never been kissed like that. Like it mattered.
When we pulled apart, my chest felt too small to contain the mess of my ribs and lungs and heart. He stared at me as though he’d just stepped off a cliff.
“Uh, hi?” I tried.
He exhaled, rough, and sent me something that wasn’t quite a smile but close. “There’s your reminder.”
My…? Right, yes—a reminder that I was attractive. Okay then. Except, no. It might’ve started like that, sure, but he hadn’t kissed me like someone just trying to make a point.
I shook my head. “It was more than that, and you know it.”
He opened his mouth as if to argue, glanced around, and then jerked his chin towards the pier. “Come on.”
When he turned and started walking, I followed, heart beating in the very tips of my fingers.