18. Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Eighteen
Molly
“I’m never going to get this right.” I groaned, pushing against my desk until I slid back far enough to stretch my legs.
Two hours of staring at my computer screen had gotten me nowhere.
The dates with the guys, our movie nights, making pizza last night—and being so sure we were going to kiss—plus all the little things they were doing just because should have fixed me. They were putting in so much effort to teach me what romance was, but I was fundamentally broken.
My eyes blurred as I pulled myself back to the desk and stared at the kissing scene that was going to be the death of me.
I had successfully rewritten the first part of the manuscript, and I wanted my characters to kiss about halfway through.
They had been leading up to it, sharing glances and giggles and brushing their hands together.
All those silly things people who thought they were in love liked to do.
A kiss was the next logical step in my story.
It didn’t matter if I was incapable of loving someone. It didn’t matter if no one wanted to kiss me. This was about my characters and how the big kiss needed to happen in order to move the story along. But when I tried to type the words, they fell flat.
I dropped my head in my hands and groaned louder.
A soft knock on my partially opened door startled me upright.
“Everything good, Molls?” Preston asked.
“Yeah.” I bit my lower lip and glanced at the vomit-inducing words I had written and rewritten. “Actually, no.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yes.”
“Me too?” Emmett asked.
Both of them in my room?
My stomach tightened, and I spun my computer chair around. “Of course.”
They walked in—all muscles and freshly showered from practice—flooding my room with the clean scent of their shampoo.
Geez. They looked so good. Maybe I wasn’t broken, but they hadn’t kissed me yet, and we had no dates planned on the horizon.
I wasn’t sure what exactly I should do about that.
Did I need to ask them? Let them know that kissing them was all I could think about, and could we please just get it over with?
Was I objectifying them?
I groaned again, and Preston walked to me, Emmett tracking right behind him.
“What’s going on?”
I pointed to my screen and ran my hand through my hair. “This freaking scene is driving me crazy. Lucy and Ethan are about to kiss, but I can’t get it just right and it’s—” I gritted my teeth and looked at Emmett. “Not as good as the kisses in your books.”
He smirked, clearly loving that I acknowledged his books were good. I had blown through a stack of them while I procrastinated writing this scene. They were eye opening, and I would burn with shame forevermore about the original manuscript I’d given Lynn. No wonder she compared it to aliens.
“Can we read it?” Preston asked.
I would literally rather do anything else. “Yes.”
“Let’s see what we’re working with,” Emmett murmured, leaning over my shoulder.
I shivered as his breath heated my neck, and cold air replaced it.
He reached across me, like he didn’t notice—or maybe didn’t mind—the way my body arched toward him.
The smell of his cologne was all around me, taking me back to our movie night on the couch when he was this close, and I had been wholly unable to concentrate on Bridget Jones as she wrestled with the choice between two men.
My stomach twisted. Would I get to a point where I had to choose?
Emmett’s arm brushed mine as he took control of the mouse, and my thoughts went cloudy.
He felt so warm, his skin hopelessly soft for how hard his muscles were.
I could rest my head on his arm, and he wouldn’t mind.
My heart knew that was true, but I was too chicken.
I leaned over, giving him space to read my manuscript, even though I would literally rather he do anything but that.
“He clutched her arm, pulling him to her until their chests touched,” he read in a low, fast voice, but it wasn’t fast enough.
“Her breasts heaved, squishing against his hard muscles. She bit the inside of her cheek—ouch—and he put his lips on hers. She melted into a pool. Groaning into his beard as he pulled away.”
I was going to die.
It wasn’t the kissing scene itself that was going to kill me.
I had been wrong.
This was it.
The final moments of my life would be spent listening to Emmett Krause read my horrible kiss scene while Preston Ledger listened from a few feet away. I wasn’t going to make it. Especially not if Emmett kept reading my cringy words.
They weren’t making fun of me, but maybe that would have been better. A laugh might salvage this. I glanced at Preston and wished I wouldn’t have. He looked like he was trying to figure out a complex calculation written on the ceiling.
Since they weren’t going to laugh, I cackled and slapped the desk.
Emmett’s brows furrowed, and he stepped back. “You okay? Another medical emergency?”
Crap. Why did I have to say that? Would he never forget that one small comment? It was great he was attentive, but there were some things he would be perfectly fine to forget.
“No medical emergency.” I gulped, knowing I needed to come clean when I saw Preston’s look of confusion. “I said that because I was embarrassed I hit my horn.”
His green eyes lit up, and he fought against a smile trying to quirk the corner of his mouth. “Oh, really?”
“I don’t even have anything wrong with me other than—” I scrunched up my nose, defeat stinging the back of my throat. “I suck at this.”
“You’ve never been kissed, Molly,” Emmett said, his eyes still twinkling with his voice low, and a lump closed my throat.
Why did kissing—or anything intimate with these two—make me want to curl into a ball in the corner and cry until I drowned?
“Well aware,” I muttered.
He spun my chair around, planting his hands on the armrests. His green eyes searched mine, his lips parted, and my heart thudded as I waited for more criticism. He leaned forward, and Preston got to his feet.
I braced myself for his pity, but as Emmett closed the gap between us, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he pressed his lips to mine, and I felt the softness of his kiss, the heat of his mouth, and a tingle down to my toes that made me gasp.
I gasped right into his mouth.
But he didn’t pull away. If anything, my reaction spurred him on. His hands slid up my arms. Up my neck. Up to my face. With so much tenderness, his rough hands held my chin in place as I tasted him and learned why I was born with lips.
My eyes shut and his fingers slid along my jaw, lacing through my hair as he tilted my head back, deepening the kiss. And instead of a small gasp, a short moan escaped.
He smiled against my lips and slowly released his hold on me.
Dazed, I leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling.
When I looked back down, Preston was in front of me. His jaw clenched, his nostrils flared, and his eyes dark as they searched mine, waiting for me to give him a sign I wanted this.
We both knew this was about to change everything between us.
The kiss with Emmett had altered my brain chemistry.
There was no way Preston could kiss me without it ruthlessly transforming our friendship.
Maybe some friends could kiss and carry on, but even with my limited experience, I knew I wasn’t one of those people.
We had already crossed uncrossable lines. What was one more?
I nodded and Preston pounced.
He pulled me to my feet, groaning as he wrapped his arms around me. I thought he’d be impatient and get the kiss over with, but he was taking his time, and my knees wobbled as his fingers raked up my back before dragging down my spine.
“Preston,” I said, clamping my mouth shut when his name came out like a whine.
His serious face shifted into a wicked grin as he scraped his fingertips along my back again, this time stopping at my neck. Gripping the back of my head, he tilted my face, crushing his mouth against mine, and I grabbed his arm to steady my buckling knees.
He was soft and firm all at once. His other hand dug into my waist as he teased my mouth open, his tongue tangling with mine as I struggled to remember my name. Angling his head, the kiss intensified, and I didn’t care what my name was.
When he pulled away, I almost whimpered again. His eyes were darker as he studied my face and licked his lower lip. My eyes dropped to his tongue, and he grinned.
“You taste just as good as I imagined.”
My eyes widened, and I grabbed the computer chair as my knees threatened to give out on me. “Preston. You can’t say things like that.”
“I did, though.”
Emmett reached for me, grabbing my hand, and my heart stretched, trying to accommodate the feelings I had for both of them. I wasn’t used to having feelings at all, and my chest pinched with regret. Maybe my heart couldn’t grow big enough.
“How was that? Good fodder for your scene?” Emmett asked.
My manuscript.
Holy crap.
That was why they kissed me. In the haze of lust, I had completely forgotten the purpose of everything.
They were experienced kissers—and more. The kisses had undoubtedly meant nothing to them. It was just a way to help me write a better scene. And, of course, they’d want to help me if it meant they didn’t have to read another appallingly inaccurate kiss scene.
“Yep. That’ll help a ton. Thanks.” I gripped the back of the chair, using it like a shield between me and them.
“Good. Good,” Preston said, tucking his hands in his pockets and swaying from foot to foot in the doorway.
“We’ll leave you to your writing,” Emmett said mechanically, ducking out of the room and pulling Preston with him.
I stood there, my hand skating across my lips as I heard their footsteps echoing down the hallway and then down the stairs.
Why’d they leave so fast? What if the kisses hadn’t been as good for them as they were for me?
My stomach twisted with apprehension. I knew it would change things, but I didn’t know it would change so fast or feel so horrible.
I scooted my chair back to my desk and stretched my arms. There was only one thing I could do to process everything that had just happened and make sure the kisses hadn’t been for nothing: write.