I turn into him. He reaches for my hips, and when his hands find my skin, I tremble.
“Paisley,” he says, but that’s it. Just my name, delivered on a husky exhale.
My hands slip over his shoulders, roaming his upper back, converging at his neck and gliding up into his hair. My lips part, and my chin tips up. “Please kiss me, Klein.”
His gaze settles on my mouth. “This wouldn’t be making up for our bad kiss.”
“No.”
“Or kissing in front of people for the sake of our charade.”
“No.”
“This would be for us.”
“Yes.”
He cups my head, holding me, and lowers his mouth to mine.
Our first kiss was terrible, our second was hungry and desperate, our third was him staking a claim, but this one? It’s decadent. Slow. A note of reverence, a touch of relief.
I moan into it, vibrating our lips, and Klein quirks a smile against me. He licks over the seam of my lips,urging me open. My tongue mingles with his, tasting the shock of peppermint and the sting of bitter coffee.
His thumb turns a heavy circle behind my ear as the rest of his palm keeps me secured in place. The heat of him in my mouth, of his hands on me, sends want racing through my body, into every crevice. Fingers curling into his hair, I arch up, desperate to be closer to him.
He pauses to look at me, eyes hooded, before coming back in for more, deeper, rougher, still torturously slow.
One hand leaves his hair, curling around to his neck, where his pulse thrums against my heated palm. His mouth drops, his hand fists my hair, angling my face to the shallow ceiling. His lips skim my neck, sucking delicately over my collarbone. Dropping lower, leaving tiny fires in his wake. His journey halted by the fabric of my top, he pulls it between his teeth and lightly tugs.
I arch higher, desperate for his mouth on me.
“More,” I whisper.
Klein listens, gathering the top swell of my breast in his mouth, sucking and licking and kissing. A single finger dips into my top, finding its way into the cup of my bra.
This isoh so good, and almost painful because this is all that is available to us up here at the top of this lighthouse. If only I could transport us to?—
“Just a few more steps and we’ll be there,” a woman’s voice reaches up from below. “You’ll have to hold it. There isn’t a potty up here.”
The word ‘potty’ may as well be a bucket of ice water. Klein lifts his head from my chest. Drops his hand. Hislips are swollen. My fingers rub my lips, finding them swollen, too.
The sounds below us grow louder.
“If we don’t get down now, we’re going to have company up here, and I’m not particularly interested in being in a small space with people right now.”
Klein turns for the rectangle cut out in the floor. “I’m not particularly interested in being in a small space with peopleever. After you.”
I lower myself through the cut out, and Klein follows when I reach the last stair.
A woman and two children stand off to the side, waiting. “One more coming down,” I tell her.
She gives me a thumbs up and bends to tie a child’s shoelace.
It’s steep, and we’re slower going down. A broken leg, or worse, would really put a damper on our time here. More and more, I’m starting to want to squeeze every drop of good times from this trip.
We reach the bottom, and Klein peers out. “The storm has passed. We should go. Your dad will be here soon.”
The unbridled happiness falls off my face. My shoulders droop, squashed by an unseen weight. Dread comes over me as I recall the text message I saw just before I hopped on my bike to ride here. “I forgot to tell you. My dad is refusing to go to the house because my mom is there with Ben. I told him we’d meet him at The Beach Club for dinner instead.”
