“It felt foundational,” she explains. “Like several other parts of you are going to hinge off that.”
“I guess.” I stop walking, making her halt too. “I should leave you here. I can see that you’ll get back safe, but they won’t see me.”
Her mood grows heavy, smile fading. “You’re right.”
“Wouldn’t want to risk you getting in trouble with the parentals, would we?” I tease.
She smirks. “Like, no way.”
“Imagine if they saw us.”
She feigns shock, throwing a hand over her mouth.
“Imagine if they saw me do this.” I grab her hips and pull her to me.
Her giggles spur me on.
“Or this.” I cradle her face, tracing the edges of her smile with my thumbs.
“Jinx.”
“Kyra.”
“What are you trying to prove here, huh?”
I exhale sharply, searching her gaze. “That nothing will put me off doing this again.” I press my mouth to hers, savoring the feel of her soft lips caressing mine, and deepen the connection this time. Her hands clutch at my chest, and she presses up on her toes to get closer when I put every ounce of my truth into thekiss: I don’t care if this destroys both our lives as we know them—we can start again together.
How we’re supposed to be.
She breaks away first again, yet this time, there’s no urgency to escape me. Instead, she looks me dead in the eye with the kind of heavy-lidded bliss that I’ve seen between other couples, never directed at me, and then presses up one last time to kiss my throat.
“You’re trouble, you know that?”
“Exactly why you love me.”
She flinches at my choice of words and takes a step back. “When’s our next date?”
“Depends,” I tease. “Are you brave enough to lie about where you are and sneak out again?”
“You going to meet me beneath my bedroom window?”
I tuck a finger under her chin to tilt her head back. “I’d climb in your bedroom window if you’d let me.”
She shivers a little and ducks free of my touch. “Goodnight, Matthew.”
“Night, darlin’.”
Kyra spins to walk backward, a sly smile on her lips.
Yeah, that’s right.We’re intimately familiar now, so you bet your ass I’ll call her darlin’ from here on out.
It wouldn’t be right not to.
TWENTY
KYRA
“Here you go,”Theresa says without an ounce of congeniality as she slides my plate onto the table. “One salmon salad, dressing on the side, and no tomato.”
