The touch was too intimate, and he jerked away from it, turning his head to dislodge her hands. His motion sent the chair sliding back several inches.
"Whoa. Hey, it's okay." Her soft tone made him feel like maybe she’d used the same one on the kids. Did they take comfort in it? Because, while part of him found it soothing, another part of him rebelled against her words. He wasnotokay.
Her hands came to rest on his face again and, whether he was expecting it this time or craving the feel her softness, he didn't break away.
He did close his eyes.
"I know you don't like it when I touch you." Her words were a breath against his cheek. Just how close was she?
Her fingertip brushed his temple, and he started howling on the inside.
"It's okay, you know. Scars don't bother me." She laughed a little, almost self-consciously. "Your scars don't bother me," she corrected herself. "Mine do."
She had to be talking about her cancer.
"This doesn't actually look too bad. You promise to ice it?"
He had to clear his throat in order to answer her. "I told you, I'm fine. Bruise'll be gone in a few days."
She started to lift her hands away and must've realized it at the exact moment he did that he was leaning into her touch.
Her voice filled with amazement. "You...don'tdislike my touch." She paused, as if the realization was a slow drip, like misty rain off the edge of a roof. "You like it too much," she whispered.
Something hot roared through him, and he stood up. He intended to set her back, to make some space between them, but she hadn't budged, which meant they were face to face. Or face to chest, if he wanted to be exact. She'd been half a head shorter than he in high school, and now he could feel the breaths she was panting at the base of his neck.
He wanted to touch her. He didn't want to want it.
"It's my turn." His words emerged rough, like the sandpaper she and the boys had been using to scrub the paint layers from his house.
He reached up, half expecting her to pull away, run all the way out of his house.
But she stood frozen as he cupped her face in both hands. Her skin was as soft as the finest silk he'd ever touched. Softer.
Until his thumb brush a rough patch at the edge of her jaw. "What's this?" His voice was thick.
She turned her face slightly so that her nose pressed into the base of his thumb. "Primer, probably. I haven't looked in the mirror."
"How did it get there?"
"Have you ever painted with two preteens?"
His fingers brushed the hair at her nape. "Aiden said your hair was short. It used to be long."
Heat spread across her skin beneath the pads of his fingers.
"Are you blushing?"
"Maybe. Noah—"
Maybe the heat was coming from him. Because he realized that, somehow, he'd inched closer. Her words were a bit of breath on his lips.
And he was burning up, a spark igniting deep inside him.
He closed the scant inches between them and kissed her.
The first touch of her lips was like a shockwave, like getting clocked with a full-body tackle from behind.
He forgotten this. The sweep of a woman's lips.
