“You kissedme!” She jabbed a finger at my chest.
“You kissed me back. Enthusiastically, I might add.” I wiggled my eyebrows. “You evenmoaned.”
She blushed and covered her face with her hands, shaking her head. “You need to stop, Jack. Besides, you still haven’t said why you kissed me.”
Several thoughts flitted through my brain.
I kissed you because I adore you.
I kissed you because I couldn’t bear the thought of never knowing how you would feel in my arms.
Despite the improvement in our relationship, I knew Chiara wasn’t ready for such truthful answers. So I backtracked and went with a safer response.
“It was a test,” I said.
“What? Kissing me was a test?”
“True love’s first kiss. You thought it might be a thing.”
Silence.
Her brows drew down, skeptical of my motives. She was an intelligent woman, after all.
“That was one hell of a kiss just for . . . ‘testing.’” She air-quoted the word.
“Thank you.”
She may have growled.
Of course, she honed in on the unsaid implication of my words. “You do realize that true love’s first kiss requires, ya know, true love and all that?”
Her subtext was clear:If you expect me to buy that as your explanation, then you’re going to have to confess to loving me.
She had successfully backed me into a corner.
I wanted to be angry, but her cleverness was too impressive.
I replied as any other man in my situation would—I laced my fingers behind my head and shot her a cocky smirk, letting her interpret it as she would.
Chiara held my gaze for a moment, shooting visual daggers but saying nothing.
Like I said, smart woman.
Finally, she shook her head. “Well, regardless of your motives, it didn’t work.”
I swept a hand down my front. “Clearly.”
“At least we know that you can become entirely corporeal. Itispossible.”
“Yes, if only in reaction to pushing myself nearly invisible.”
“It’s a start. Who knows, maybe someday you’ll be able to hold your physical form for more than a minute or two.”
Ah. Life goals. I was torn between laughing or crying.
Hell, who was I deceiving? I laughed . . . but only because I physically couldn’t cry.
Surely there was a profound philosophical message in that simple fact.
