She spun about and waited. For a moment, the stillness behind her stretched long, and the silence grew heavy. Puzzled, Disaris tried to look over her shoulder only to be stopped by Bron’s fingertip on her jaw.
“Always so impatient,” he said. “Look ahead.” He captured her braids, giving a quick tug on her scalp while he coiled the braids, anchoring them into a knot with the hair bodkin. His presence, close and warm, loomed behind her, and for a moment she imagined the rhythm of his breathing matched hers. “Done.”
Flustered by the thought, she pivoted to face him. He’d stepped back, his pale features oddly expressionless now. Disaris reached up to touch the hair bodkin. “I wish I had a mirror. How does it look?”
A subtle change came over his face and his gaze, one she couldn’t parse out but for some reason made her cheeks catch fire. “Beautiful,” he said. The odd look was gone in an instant, replaced by his familiar, teasing smile. “I do good work.”
“Yes you do!” She launched at him, knocking him flat on his back. “I love it!” He lay docile beneath her as she rained kisses on his cheeks, his chin, his nose and forehead, even his closed eyes, thanking him between each kiss.
She froze when her lips brushed the corner of his mouth. Mortified, she tried to roll away only to find herself trapped atop him. His arms lay heavy across her back, pinning her in place. Disaris stilled as she stared into his eyes with their strange blue and violet irises. He lay partially within the lanterns’ circle of illumination, his face cast half in shadow, half in light. Leaves clung to his white hair, and the kisses she’d planted on him had left their mark in pink imprints on his wan skin. He was warm beneath her, solid. No longer the boy she’d always known, but a man she was slowly discovering.
She glided her thumb over his lips, the top one thinner than the lower one, both generous. They softened the angularity of hisface. More than once in the past two years, she’d wondered what it might be like to kiss them. The blood in her veins tumbled fast and heated when he pursed his lips ever so slightly against her thumb.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” she said.
His mouth stretched into a smile beneath her thumb, revealing his teeth. She pulled her hand away. “You just kissed me. Several times.”
“You know what I mean.”
He nodded, and the smile faded. “Neither have I.”
They stared at each other for another silent moment, Disaris growing more and more aware of how Bron felt, stretched out beneath her. He was leaving her again, the gift of his visit far too short, and the months without him far too long. They were best friends, even more than that, bound together by a bond forged in childhood. If she was to experience a first real kiss, she wanted it to be with Bron. “I think we should try with each other. We’ve done all our firsts together. If we don’t like it, we’re still friends. What do you think?”
She half anticipated an argument, at least a puzzled question as to why she’d suggest such a thing. Instead, he nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
Her father had always said that she’d been born knowing her own mind, much to her mother’s chagrin on occasion and never fluttered over decisions to be made. This was no exception. In her view, she was the one to make the suggestion, so she’d be the one to take the initiative.
Bron made an odd noise when Disaris suddenly pressed her lips hard against his. They stared at each other, eyes wide. She could count every one of his thick lashes this close. Her lips were as tightly shut as his, no longer the soft curves of flesh she’d imagined. She pulled back and frowned. “This is silly.”
“Stop,” Bron commanded in a soft voice when she tried to squirm off him. His hands moved up her back to cup either side of her head. His lips were no longer pale, but flushed a deeper hue of pink, and a half smile lingered there. “It doesn’t have to be silly, Disa. Close your eyes.”
She did, enjoying the feel of his hands pressed to her hair, and waited.
The kiss he bestowed on her was as different from hers as ocean was from mountain. Soft yet firm, curious and seeking. She waited for the dreaded wetness other girls had complained of, the clumsy sloppiness that sounded worse to her than being licked by a drooling dog. Bron’s kiss couldn’t be more different. His thumbs slid lightly across her cheekbones as his mouth moved over hers, from one corner to the other, his lips pillowy and smooth.
Disaris trembled from his touch, exhilaration and relief making her arms tighten around him as she followed his lead and explored the shape of his lips in the same leisurely fashion.
“Disa!”
Her father’s voice boomed across the field below the knoll. Disaris and Bron jerked apart as if doused in ice water and leapt to their feet.
“Disa, you there?”
“On my way,” she shouted back, staring at Bron who stood close, his chest rising and falling as fast as hers surely was.
“I have to go,” she said, hearing the breathlessness in her voice.
He sounded the same. “So do I.”
The sorrow at his leaving overwhelmed any embarrassment she might have felt, and she reached for his hand to press it to her cheek. “Remember your promise.” He nodded. “And thank you for the visit, the hair bodkin…” She paused to touch her mouth. “And this.”
He squeezed her hand. “Maybe we should try a second time when I return.”
They both laughed, and she echoed his reply from earlier. “I think that’s a good idea.”
She watched him walk away until the darkness swallowed him, and the slope’s descent hid him from view. The moon fell.
Chapter Four
