34. So Sweet
Chapter thirty-four
So Sweet
Aurora Driscoll
Hayes’s mouth is centimeters away. His thumbs brush against my cheekbones and the action sends goose bumps cascading over my arms. For a breathless moment I wonder if he’s going to kiss me at all. Anticipation coils around my stomach and tightens.
Then, his lips brush mine. I draw in a sharp breath.
The touch is silken and light, so light I question if it happened at all.
He erases my questions with another gentle press.
Then another. Each one longer than the last, stealing my breath and my thoughts.
He pauses to move my hands from his arms to around his neck.
Then he slides a hand into my hair and rests the other on the dip of my waist.
I barely have time to be embarrassed about not knowing how to be held by him before his mouth is on mine again, this time with an exhilarating persistence that heats my whole body.
He coaxes my lips to part with his own, blending our mouths together in a warm exchange that makes my knees weak.
I grow in confidence, and my hands start to roam.
Over his strong, broad shoulders and back up his neck into his hair.
When my fingertips comb through the strands at the base of his neck, a low sound reverberates through his chest that I feel all the way in my toes.
His warm and spicy scent surrounds me, and the sweet taste of him overwhelms my senses.
It’s then that I realize Hayes might have been joking about ruining me for anyone that comes after, but I don’t think he’s wrong.
Because I can’t imagine anyone else making me feel this way, making me feel this much.
I decide to savor this moment and make the most of it.
My confidence increases. I pull Hayes closer so our bodies are flush together.
I feel him smile against my mouth before he deepens the kiss again, pulling me under a wave of bliss.
Gone are the thoughts of if I’m doing anything right, or wondering if he really wants me.
There’s no room for them when my mind has fixated on breathing Hayes in like oxygen.
Hayes returns my desire to be closer, his fingers pressing into the back of my neck and the dip of my waist, sending a quiver of delight through me.
We stay transfixed in this spot beneath the lights for what seems like forever and a breath.
Eventually, Hayes breaks the seal of our lips and pulls back just enough to gaze down at me with that soft smile I’ve grown fond of.
His eyes are as dark as evergreen trees bathed in morning fog, but filled with a forest fire of desire.
He runs his fingers through my hair and hums.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.” The low rasp of his voice makes heat swirl deep in my abdomen. I play with the hair at the nape of his neck; it looks like spun copper in the glow of the lights surrounding us.
“I think …” I bite my lip. I didn’t know it was possible for my entire body to blush, but it certainly feels that way as I stare up into his hooded gaze. “I think I have too.”
A slow grin spreads across his face.
“You shouldn’t say things like that, Princess. It might go to my head.”
I roll my eyes, but there’s a smile pulling at my lips, too.
“If I didn’t say it, you would have given some ridiculous line about winning me over.”
He chuckles and runs his thumb along my pulse. It skips in response to his touch.
“Mm, I don’t know. You’ve distracted me tonight. I can’t think of anything other than kissing you again.” He lowers his head. “May I?”
“Are you going to ask me every time?” I whisper, feigning annoyance.
His lips brush mine. “Is that a yes?”
I grip his jacket and pull him closer, forcing our mouths to meet.
Our first kiss was impassioned but measured.
Hayes had been gentle and warm. This kiss is different.
When I tugged him toward me, I pulled us off the edge of a cliff.
And now we’re falling into a feverish sort of affection.
My breaths are shorter and quicker; I feel as though I’ve danced through a performance three times in a row.
This coupled with the trembling spreading through my limbs has me disoriented.
Hayes hums into the kiss, then pulls back ever so slightly.
“So sweet.” The breathless murmur is all he utters before capturing my lips in another dizzying kiss.
I’m wishing this moment could last forever when a sharp beeping noise pierces the air. I pull back, my breathing stilted.
At the end of the tunnel, a campus security cart sits, blue lights spinning.
“Take it inside, lovebirds!” the guard shouts from inside the small golf cart.
My face flames with embarrassment. I hide it against Hayes’s chest, which is shaking with barely controlled laughter.
“Yes, sir! Sorry about that,” Hayes calls back.
“No need. I was young once too. Just can’t have ya scandalizing the university,” he drawls, furthering my humiliation.
The cart rolls away, leaving a laughing Hayes and a mortified me in its wake.
“Stop laughing,” I grumble, and hit his chest. “It’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” he counters. “What a story to tell. Our first kiss and we get caught by security.”
I tip my head back so he can see how unamused I am.
“I’m not telling anyone this.”
He grins. “You don’t have to—I will.”
I go to hit him again, but he catches my arm and smirks.
“Careful, Princess.” He presses a heated kiss to the inside of my wrist. “You know what happens when you try to fight me. We wouldn’t want to get caught in a worse position than this.”
Just when I think I can’t get any warmer, he says that. I think if someone took my temperature right now, they’d say I have a fever.
“You’re an incorrigible flirt,” I mutter.
He gives my wrist another scalding kiss, his eyes sparkling with a potent mixture of desire and mischief.
“You like it.”
“I like you. I tolerate your flirting,” I correct. And maybe I’m lying a little, but it’s okay, because judging by the smile on Hayes’s face, he knows.
“Say that again.”
He uses his hold on my arm to pull me close again, placing my hand on his chest over his rapidly beating heart.
“What?” I play dumb. “That I tolerate your insufferable flirting?”
“Oh, now it’s insufferable?” he teases as he wraps me up in his arms. “You didn’t seem like you were suffering a few minutes ago.”
I can’t contain the playful smile that steals across my lips.
“I didn’t say your kiss was, just your flirting.”
“My flirting is what got you to kiss me.”
I shake my head, even though deep down I know he’s a little right.
“You being a gentleman is what made me want to kiss you.”
He brushes his thumb over my bottom lip.
“Ironic, considering right now I feel like the furthest thing from a gentleman.”
My stomach pulls in and up as if someone is tugging a string within me. Honeyed heat spreads through my limbs.
“We should go,” I whisper, even though it’s the last thing I want. “I’m not getting in trouble because of you, no matter how good of a kisser you are.”
Satisfaction lights his emerald gaze.
“All I heard is Princess Aurora thinks I’m a good kisser.”
I roll my eyes and push him away from me. He allows it, stumbling back a little and laughing.
“Walk me home, Prince Charming.”
“As you wish, Your Highness.”