Chapter Twenty-Four Making Kiss-Tory
The wind lets loose a giant howl at his pronouncement, one that shakes the leaves and rattles the door of the root cellar.
I barely notice.
I’m too busy staring at Jude and turning his words over and over in my head to pay attention to something as commonplace as a storm—even one as wild as this one.
He shifts uncomfortably under my stare. “Clementine—”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know, but—”
“I. Don’t. Understand.”
“I can’t explain it to you.” He reaches for me. “You have to trust me—”
“Trust you!” I laugh, yanking my arm out of his grasp. No matter how gentle he is, I don’t want him touching me right now. Not when confusion and rage are bubbling up inside of me, just waiting for a chance to explode. “Don’t talk to me in vague puzzles if you want me to trust you. And don’t be completely illogical.”
I force myself to keep my voice low now that I don’t have to shout over a bunch of thunder and lightning. But it’s hard when I’m so confused, so angry, so raw. I don’t know what I thought he would say when he finally gave me an answer, but “I’d be your worst nightmare” isn’t it.
Jude, in the meantime, just looks disappointed. He takes a step back from me and lets his hand fall. I can see it in his eyes—can see him taking a giant mental step back at the same time as he takes the physical.
My heart kicks against my ribs in protest and panic, but I tamp it down. The old Clementine would try to tear down his emotional wall brick by brick. Terrified to lose him to his own darkness.
Not just would. Did. Over and over again until that wall became a permanent fixture.
No way am I doing it again.
No matter how hot he looks with droplets of water running down his firm, sculpted chest, with those wisps of tattoos creeping across the canvas of his warm, brown skin.
And he does look hot. Very, very hot. But I don’t care right now. More, I won’t let myself care. Not when he just admitted that he upended my whole world because he doesn’t think we’ll work, even though he never gave us a chance. And somehow that makes everything so much worse than it already was.
“What makes you so sure we wouldn’t work?” I’m on a roll now, and there’s no stopping me. “Did you read it in a magazine? Did some witch riding on the back of a newt tell you? Or did you just make it up?”
Jude’s full lips thin out. It’s an old, familiar sign that he’s getting annoyed, but I don’t give a shit. I’m glad he’s annoyed. If he ratchets that up about two million percent, maybe he’ll get on my level. Because I left annoyed in the rearview mirror about five questions ago, and I don’t think I’ll be going back to it anytime soon.
“‘I’d be your worst nightmare,’” I parrot. “A little on the nose for an oneiroi, don’t you think? And a magicless one, come to—”
But it’s his turn to interrupt. “I’m not m—”
Too bad, I’m not having it. “You think that’s supposed to scare me away like I’m some wilting flower? Big, bad Jude Abernathy-Lee is my worst nightmare,” I mock. “If you didn’t want to date me, you just had to tell me! That’s all you’ve ever had to—”
“Enough, Clementine!” Jude’s voice fills the air around us. He doesn’t yell, but then, he doesn’t have to. His voice is deep and rich and commanding enough to get even my attention—though not my acquiescence.
“Enough?” I fire back. “I’m just getting started. In fact—”
This time when he takes hold of my arm, he doesn’t give me a chance to pull away. Instead, he tugs me just hard enough to have me tumbling against his chest.
I have one second to recognize that my body is pressed against his, one second for my mind to conjure words like hot, hard, strong, and then his hands are cupping my cheeks and his mouth is slamming down on mine.
It’s been three long years since I’ve felt Jude’s lips touch my own, but I remember it as clearly as if it happened an hour ago.
The tentative brush of his lips against mine.
The soft tickle of his hair brushing against my cheek.
The warmth of his arms around me as he gently pulled me closer.
It was barely more than a peck, but still I used to lay in bed at night, replaying that moment—that kiss—in my head, over and over and over again as I tried to figure out what went wrong. Every tiny detail of it is ingrained in my mind forever.
So when I say this kiss is nothing like its predecessor, I really mean it. More, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Like nothing I ever dreamed was even possible.
There’s heat. So much heat, radiating from his body to mine.
There’s power. So much power in the hands that cradle my face.
And then there’s need. So, so, so much need in the mouth—in the lips and tongue and teeth—that ravage my own.
And I’m here for all of it. Because if I have to live on this kiss for the rest of my life—I’m not going to miss one tiny second of it.
More, I’m going to memorize every single one of them.
I’ll remember the way one of Jude’s hands slides over my shoulder, down my arm, and across my waist to the small of my back as he presses my body closer…closer…closer to his.
I’ll remember the way his fingers smooth over my shoulders and tangle in my wet hair as he holds the back of my head in his palm.
And I’ll remember—oh my God, will I ever remember—the way his warm, lemon-scented breath feels on my cheek just before his lips cover mine.
And this time, it’s no soft brush of lip against lip.
No, this time, there are three years of pain and loneliness and betrayal between us. Three years of denied heat, and need, and an all-encompassing desperation that boils up from a place deep inside me—a place I didn’t even know existed before this moment. This kiss.
And there’s Jude—always Jude—guiding me through the maelstrom and the magic with his sweetness and his strength.
His mouth is soft and warm, his body is wonderful and wicked. And his kiss…his kiss is everything.
Magic and mystery.
Power and persuasion.
Right and oh so wrong in all the best, most important ways.
It’s every escape I’ve ever dreamed of. Every wish I’ve ever made. Every crash of the deep and endless ocean against the shore.
I gasp at the intensity of it, the all-consuming command that pulls me in and drags me down, over and over and over again. It bathes me in its perfection, overwhelms me with its power, threatens to break me into a million tiny pieces all over again. And I. Don’t. Care.
I can’t, not when every beat of my heart is his name and every breath in my body is the call of my soul to his.
The world we live in may be a nightmare, but this moment—this kiss—is a dream come true. One I never ever want to end.
I gasp out his name, and though it’s just a broken whisper on the sweet, wild wind whipping through the air around us, Jude hears me. More, he feels me and takes instant, desperate, glorious advantage.
He nibbles his way across my lower lip, licks his way into my mouth, strokes his tongue against my own until I’m drowning in the wicked, wonderful heat of him sliding through my veins and into every single part of me.
He feels like the ocean and tastes like the sun breaking across the early morning sky—and nothing in my life has ever felt this good.
My hands clutch at his shoulders, my fingers twist in the wet, untamed strands of his hair, and my body opens to him like a flower to that sun, arms tightening, body arching, everything inside of me reaching for more.
More of him.
More of us.
And more—definitely more—of this, of the sensations Jude calls forth so effortlessly from inside of me with every squeeze of his fingers on my hip and every slide of his body against my own.
I pull him closer, relishing the way he wraps himself around me, the way his warm honey-and-cardamom scent envelops me. But before I can take the kiss even deeper, before I can take him even deeper, the lull in the storm ends.
The sky opens up once more, and rain comes crashing down around us.
And Jude slowly lets me go.
I clutch at him with desperate fingers, determined to hold on to him. And for a second—when he buries his face in my hair and whispers, “I’ve always been crazy about you, Tangelo”—I even think it’s going to work.
I pull him back to me, so tight that I can feel the deep, fast beat of his heart against my own. “Then why?” I whisper through the storm. “Why did you just let me go?”