Chapter Eleven #2
My heart jumps against my ribs, a hundred beats per minute.
Maybe faster. Sloane described kissing as something choreographed and unemotional, but if it were, I wouldn’t feel so scared with every second it doesn’t happen.
I wouldn’t want him to lean into me and wrap me up until I could breathe again.
He looks at the ground, eyes obscured by ginger-gold lashes. “When someone walks away, I don’t chase. It’s not something I ”—he gestures at himself like he’s Frankenstein—“can do and still be the person I want to be. So even if it’s not real, this needs to come from you.”
“Right.” I ghosted him then, so if he makes the first move now, the balance sheet will be all off. That’s why he couldn’t propose. That’s why he can’t kiss me. It makes perfect sense.
Except how am I supposed to kiss him if he doesn’t help me? I can’t reach his face way up there. He has the power to equalize us physically; I don’t.
Restlessness rises up my chest and over my back like high water.
Even though it’s the end of a long, physical day, the urge to run grips me like a fist. I have to get this over with immediately .
We’ll probably be terrible together, which will be good, actually.
Then we’ll never have to think of kissing ever again.
We can find something else to convince the clients we’re in love.
I don’t know what, but I can work the problem.
“This way,” I say, stalking toward the log where Willow’s hat still sits. She’s probably forgotten it’s here. No one will see this ridiculous display, and that’s for the best, too.
I scramble up the log’s fourteen-inch girth. “Now we’re equal,” I say, taking him by the shoulders.
I pull him in fast and lay one on him, framing his face with my hands to hide the fact that we have no idea how to act like we’re in love.
His body stiffens, arms held slightly away from his sides. His lips are closed hard, like he’s dry-kissing his grandma.
This is a disaster.
I grab his elbows, bringing his hands around my back in a way I hope looks sexy. His stiff limbs poke me in all the wrong ways.
“This is like kissing a frozen steak,” I mutter. “Relax your mouth, please.”
“I am relaxed,” he grits out, teeth clicking against mine. “What, am I supposed to use tongue in front of the guests?”
“It might help!”
“ Fine .”
He goes soft, and the world tilts.
No, that’s not right. It’s not the world tilting, it’s me, dizzy with this unexpected pleasure all light and fizzy on my lips, rising straight up to my brain.
There’s an art to the way he follows when I move, giving us power and momentum while I steer.
His mouth is firm and sweet, his tongue like a surging forward stroke, clean and unhurried.
He knows how to move in tandem, I realize. He paddles like he’s dancing with the boat, and he kisses like he’s dancing with me.
The breeze shifts, and I’m caught in a riptide of the sharp scent of cedar and sun-warmed skin. I’m swamped, hit broadside by a rogue wave.
I turn my head to take more, sliding my thumbs beneath his ears and my fingers along his neck, seeking the hammer of his pulse under my palm.
He’s so urgently alive against me, his heartbeat vibrating into my mechanical ink.
My stomach swoops like I’m falling, so I press my body to his steadiness and don’t stop, don’t stop.
He’s holding us up, rescuing us, our mouths fused like I wished him into existence.
It’s exactly like it was a year ago in that I’m immediately starving, and nothing like it was a year ago in that nobody’s wrestling for control. He’s not trying to give with no expectations, and I’m not fighting to give back what he gives me, no more and no less.
This time, both of us know he’s going to take, and I’m going to take charge.
The thought brings a tingling heat to my skin.
He makes a sound—half low hum, half sharp exhalation—at the feel of my teeth on his lip.
He’s so warm under his shirt, and hot, and hard, and soft.
His arms turn from pointy Ken-doll appendages to living muscle, hooking up my back and over my shoulders, pulling me in and under like we’ve slipped below the waterline where civilization ceases to exist.
“Oh! Oh, excuse me, I’m so sorry!”
Our eyes fly open. Willow. The hat.
My heart is booming, the big hard slams visible through my shirt. I’m breathing fast. If I saw myself in the ER, I’d put myself on oxygen and order a dozen tests, because I am not well.
“I forgot my—Never mind, I see it. Sorry!” Willow stammers, snatching her hat with a swish and scampering away.
Lyle has the presence of mind to let go slowly. I forget how Sloane said we should break apart— something something lingering look , maybe?
Sloane’s all about how things should end. But this doesn’t feel like an ending at all. The two of us stare at each other as our arms come back to our own bodies. It’s like we broke the seal on something, and now we have to buy it.
“Will that do it?” There’s a waver in Lyle’s voice like this kiss nearly killed him, too. It occurs to me that he has an acting background, if you count improv comedy. He could probably pretend he’s okay when he’s not.
But me? I’m not okay at all, and I’m sure he knows it.