Everything fell away as I melted into Zelda. My hands roamed over her body, cataloging her with more than a little entitlement while her tongue wiped out everything I'd ever known of kisses and affection and desire, replacing it with a screeching kettle of instructive lust. She was delicious comfort, one that lulled me into a sense of buoyant peace—before biting my lip and laughing as I blinked down at her in delirious awe.
"Again," I managed, and she complied, taking my jaw in her hands and raking my bottom lip between her teeth.
She smiled up at me with those strange eyes and the smile that understood unspoken things. "Like that?"
"Again. More."
There was a second where Zelda paused, her eyes glittering as she no doubt held in a quip about my domineering ways. If she only knew the half of it.
She pushed up on her toes to meet me as I locked my arm around her lower back, my hand coming to rest on the tender round of her ass. When we crashed together this time, in this backyard jungle with a mountain of disapproval and meddling waiting for us on the other side, I knew there was nowhere else I wanted to be. There was nothing else I needed.
A twig snapped behind us and I groaned into Zelda's mouth because only one person arrived at my parents' house by way of nature walk. "My brother has terrible timing," I whispered.
"Just passing through," Linden said. "Don't mind me."
I kept my lips fused to Zelda's as I cut a glance in his direction. He raised a hand in greeting as he passed, the other wrapped around the neck of a growler of beer. Since Linden minded his own business like a champ, he kept his gaze fixed on the path toward the house.
"On your way, then," I called.
He waved once more and made an effort at eliminating himself from our hideaway but the moment was gone. When he disappeared past the branches and vines, I said to Zelda, "There are fifteen different things we should talk about right now but I'd very much prefer to kiss you again. Would you allow that?"
Zelda locked her arms around my neck. "That depends. Will those fifteen things drive you crazy and distract you while you're kissing me?"
I dropped my hands to her thighs, gripping the thin fabric of her skirt. I had to grit my teeth to keep from ripping it, instead really edging it up as I spoke. "There's nothing in the world that could distract me from you. Not a single thing has distracted me from you since you sat down and started hollering at me, and that's the rock-solid truth. My mother could come out here and whack me with a rolled-up gossip magazine. My father could launch into another lecture about my priorities. Hell, currency as we know it could end and I'd just want you to bite my lip one more time."
"Why now?"
"Because I've figured out you're something I need," I replied helplessly. "And I think I might be something you need too."
She sucked in a breath and I didn't miss the watery shine in her eyes before she buried her face in my shoulder.
"Are those good tears? Like,He finally did something right and didn't fuck it all uptears? Or hurt tears?" I asked.
She shook her head and I assumed—risky as that was—she was saying no to the latter.
"If they aren't hurt tears, tell me I can kiss you again. If that's what you want."
Zelda kept her head in the crook of my shoulder long enough to start me wondering whether I'd gotten it wrong, whether I'd miscalculated everything. She lifted her head and looked up at me with unshed tears pooled in her eyes and it seemed certain I'd fucked it all up.
"Are you going to change your mind later?" she asked.
I dropped her skirt because the only clear, direct instinct I could find among the clutter of lust and stress and hunger was to wrap my arms around her and hold her tight enough to feel her heart pounding against me. And, yes, perhaps rocking my shaft into her belly would relieve the throbbing ache there. "What are you asking, love?"
"I want to know if you're going to want me when it's convenient and push me away when you remember you're the boss and I'm—"
"No, I'm not doing that again. I hate that I've done it more than once, hate that I've done it at all. I've tried pushing you away and in case it wasn't clear, I missed you too much every time I did it. It was a shoddy attempt at trying to keep all the out-of-control pieces of my life in order."
"If you shared some of those pieces maybe they wouldn't feel out of control anymore," she said.
"As you've noticed, I'm not great at that," I admitted. Zelda laughed, sudden and bright, and I walked her backward until she was wedged between me and the first available tree. "And maybe you've also noticed I'm obsessed with you, you adorable evil genius."
"You don't have to say that because we kissed. What I do I need is for you to stop throwing me away when your thoughts get the better of you."
"I said it because I meant it," I replied. "And just so you know, you're never inconvenient. The rest of the damn world is inconvenient and you…you are not that."
She tipped her chin up as her lips curled into a playful grin. "That's a funny way of saying you don't know what to think of me."
I think I could fall in love with you.
