23. In Which Aiden Finally Caves #2
There. There it is. She’s managed to step back onto the bottom step of the stool, bringing her to just the right height for me to explore her mouth.
She tastes absurdly like strawberries—of course she does—and her lips are impossibly soft, impossibly perfect, chasing mine as we tangle and tussle.
There’s a bite of frustration in the way she wraps her arms around my neck, her fingers digging into my skin a touch too hard—she’s still annoyed that I was chewing her out.
Which is fine. I’m still annoyed she came here by herself.
“Trying to leave a mark?” I breathe against her mouth before ducking my head, letting my lips skim her jaw. I move up to the perfect patch of skin at her temple, pressing hard kisses along her cheekbone.
“Maybe,” she mutters, turning her head. I grin when I feel her nip at my ear, a sharp sting of pain. “But you’re being a jerk.”
I roll my eyes even as I swerve my head away from her bite. “ Jerk is a strong word.”
“It feels accurate to me,” she says breathlessly, and a bark of laughter escapes me when she pinches the back of my neck, bringing me back to her.
“I don’t think so,” I say, grinning as I reach up and unwrap her arms from around my neck. “We’re playing nice right now.” Then I tangle my hands in her hair and begin kissing her once more, swallowing the laugh that she puffs against my lips.
I want to do crazy things with her, the kind of crazy that would only come from Juniper and I. I want to whisper poetry with my kisses, passing sonnets and verses back and forth between us. I want to consume the words on her tongue. I want to lick her stories from her lips.
They don’t make sense, these half-formed desires, but I want those things anyway. I want everything she has, greedy in a way I’ve never felt before.
She can direct all of her anger at me, and I’ll take it gladly.
She can give me all of everything , all the bad and the good and the dark and the light, and I’ll take them all and keep them all and cherish them all—all the parts of this woman whose life has been entwined with mine since we were children.
I know that soon we’re going to have to talk about what she’s discovered. And soon I’m going to have to tell her what I’ve been keeping from her.
But for now—just for this little pocket of time, hidden in the back of the library—I give myself and my attention to her and her alone.
Our kisses slowly fade from passionate and full of fire to something slower, deeper, more languid and exploratory.
Lazy and lingering instead of hurried and desperate, although I can’t quite bring myself to loosen my grip.
There’s a corner of my heart that’s still racing not because I’m kissing her but because it scared me, receiving that call from Gus and then not being able to find her.
I give her waist a little tug, and she stumbles down from the step stool.
Then I settle my hands on her shoulders, pressing one last kiss to her lips, forcing myself to breathe deeply and trying to get that last little corner of my heart to process the feel of her—trying to get my remaining fight-or-flight instincts to calm down.
I let my eyes devour every part of her I see, just to make sure she’s okay.
She’s a bit sweaty, and she’s been thoroughly kissed, but she’s whole.
When I’vearrived at this conclusion, I let my head fall onto her shoulder—falteringly at first and then with abandon.
My forehead drops to that intimate junction where her neck meets her shoulder, cradled in the space that seems perfectly designed for me, and for a second I just rest there.
Just to listen to her breathe.
Just to feel her warmth and the soft give of her skin, the tickle of her hair and the gentle rise and fall of her chest—all those things that tell me how alive she is.
How surreal is this? How strange has my life become that one month ago I was griping about teaching literature to my seniors, and now I’m merely feeling grateful that this hurricane of a woman is alive?
Autumn Grove should not be a town where I worry about people dying.
She clears her throat, a nervous sound that’s amplified by the press of my ear against her neck. “Hey,” she says.
“Mmm,” I hum, my hands sliding from her shoulders to her upper arms.
She clears her throat again. “What—what are you doing?”
“Just…making sure.”
She doesn’t ask me what I’m making sure of, and I don’t know that I could answer if she did. There are so many warring thoughts and feelings, so many opposing instincts that are battling for dominance.
I want to kiss her again.
I want to hold her.
I want to push her away and keep myself safe.
I want to pull her close and keep her safe.
“You interrupted me,” she says finally. “I’m not—I wasn’t done being mad at you.”
“I didn’t hear any protests,” I say, and it might be a good thing that she can’t see my smile. “But you bit my ear. You pinched me. Did you need more?”
“Yes,” she says. “I wanted to use my words instead of resorting to violence.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “You can keep going.” The bridge of my nose presses into her collarbone as I speak, a sharp ridge I want to trace with my tongue. I tighten my grip on her upper arms, trying to ignore the shiver that courses through her at my touch.
Intoxicating. She’s intoxicating.
“I—you can’t—” She swallows, something I feel and hear rather than see. “It’s hard to tell you off when you’re being like this.”? *
My sigh is heavy, but it’s also accompanied at last by a sense of relief. It finally seems to be sinking into my system that Juniper is okay. “All right,” I say, lifting my head. “Go ahead, then.”
She looks pointedly at my hands on her upper arms. “Are you moving those, or are they staying?”
Ha. Let’s not get crazy.
“They’re staying unless you want them to move,” I say.
Juniper tilts her head as she looks up at me in a way that makes my pulse spike all over again; this is a curious look she’s giving me, intrigued, searching for…something.
“You know,” she says slowly, a faint smile curling her lips—lips still red from being kissed. “I have this theory about you. And I think you might end up proving me right.”
“Of course I won’t,” I say, fully aware that I’m spewing nonsense. “Now are you going to be mad at me?”
“Yes,” she says immediately. “Just don’t be obnoxious, Aiden. Don’t shout at me, and don’t make assumptions.”
“Is it an assumption if it’s true?” I say, my eyes narrowing on her. “Because I have it on very good authority that Gus told you about Sandy and you immediately booked it out of there to come here.”
“Gus is a little snitch, I see,” she mutters under her breath.
I clamp down on the laugh that wants to escape. “I will try not to make assumptions,” I say instead, “if you will promise not to run recklessly into situations that could be dangerous.”
“I didn’t go recklessly into a dangerous situation,” she says, rolling her eyes. “That’s my point. I hid in the library.”
“You did,” I say with a nod. “ After you went to the dangerous situation.”
“Well, it’s not like I could just go sit at home, either,” she says, fisting her hands on her hips as some of that spark returns to her eyes.
“And it’s not like I was going to go around asking people stupid questions.
I’m not dumb. I have a well-developed sense of self-preservation.
Thus”—she gestures at our surroundings—“the library. So don’t be a jerk. ”
I swallow, my eyes dropping to her lips. “I want to kiss you again.”
She blinks in surprise.
“Except…” I say slowly, and now my heart is starting to pound for a different reason. “There are things we need to talk about first.”
Juniper sighs. “Just one more, then, before you overthink everything.” And before I can respond, she goes up on her tiptoes and presses her lips firmly to mine.
And it’s so tempting. It’s so tempting to forget about all the things she needs to know, to just be with her and forget the rest. But?—
“Goodness gracious!” a voice gasps from our left.
I start, and pressed against me, Juniper does the same.
We break our kiss as our heads swivel to look at our intruder.
It’s the librarian, her glasses perched at the end of her long nose, her hands disapproving on her hips as she marches toward us from the end of the row.
“Students kissing in the library after school?—”
“Not students,” I say quickly. Juniper moves to pull away from me, but I hold onto her with tight hands until gradually she relaxes against me once more. “A teacher and his legal, non-student —” Crap. His…girlfriend? Friend? Roommate?
A deafening silence falls between Juniper and me as I search for the right term. I look at her quickly, only to find that she’s turned her gaze back to me too.
“Gonna finish that sentence?” she says, arching her brow at me.
I shrug helplessly. “I am not capable of kissing you like this one time and never doing it again.” I hesitate. “I also am not capable of casual relationships. So friend and roommate both feel wrong. But…” I can’t date her. Not yet, anyway.
I sigh internally as our little bubble of bliss pops, thanks to the librarian and also thanks to the reminder that Juniper and I have things to talk about if we want any sort of romantic relationship.
“Let’s go,” I say, finally releasing her and stepping away.
I hold out my hand for her to take. I don’t want to forfeit contact completely.
“I guess we’ve got things to figure out. ”
* ? For this chapter, listen to You Are The One by Shiny Toy Guns!
* ? I love them I love them I love them!