“It’s not what’s going on in my head you should worry about.” I clap my hand over my mouth and turn fifty shades of red.
Rand howls with laughter. “Shit on a sonic screwdriver! I thought I spouted awkward things!”
I cover my eyes. Yes, because that will work. If I cover my eyes, and can’t see him, then surely he won’t be able to see me. Right? It works so well for my cat when he tries to hide under the bed, but his butt never quite makes it.
He pries my hands away from my eyes and holds onto them while looking at my face. “Are you alright?”
“Nothing but a little mortification. No big whoop. Wishing a wormhole would suck me up. Or perhaps I could go back in time and repeat this conversation in a sexier, more grown-up way,” I moan.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Rand stops laughing. “I thought it was pretty sexy just the way it was.”
It’s like Rand got theCarolina Decoder Ringand dialed it to “How to Get Carolina to Kiss Your Face Off.”
I grab the front of his shirt, dragging his face to mine, planting my lips on him before I can second-guess myself. For a split second, I think I have made a significant mistake, but then Rand snakes one hand through my hair, tilting my head to deepen the kiss. If it hadn’t been for his other hand planted firmly on my hip, I might have fallen when my knees buckled.
This was not the awkward first kiss of two people who had just met each other a few weeks ago. This wasn’t the fumbling kiss of a man-child who didn’t know what to do with his hands. Or a manscaped idiot who was too tentative to apply the right amount of lip pressure. Or a gusher who drooled all over you. There was no anaconda tongue trying to snake its way into my mouth.
There was nothing awkward about this.
In all of his talk about advanced degrees, Rand Kestrel left out earning a Ph.D. in Kissing.
He took. He gave. He sucked. He nibbled. He licked.
He kissed me like a man possessed.
And time ceased to exist.
Nothing else that came before that moment mattered.
It was only him and me.
We were made for each other at this moment.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
Rand moans into my mouth, and I nearly come from the combination of vibration and sound.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
He pulls back from my lips, hands on both sides of my face, and presses his forehead to mine. “God, Carolina. I could kiss you for days.”
“Yes, please,” I lick my lips. We didn’t have anything else important to do. We could stay right here and kiss like there was no tomorrow.
I mean, there was something niggling at the back of my mind about that word “tomorrow,” but it didn’t seem as important as “kissing Rand.”
“I have to take that,” Rand kisses my forehead.
“What?”
“It’s Faylor,” Rand slides his hands down my arms, then steps away. “I need to talk to her before we go down to the cocktail hour because I feel like it will be late when we get back.”
“Cocktail hour?”
Rand grins and takes my breath away. “You know, the reunion?”
I touch my lips. Shit. I forgot about the reunion for a second. Which means I also forgot about the monster from my nightmares who also waited downstairs. “We don’t have to go. You know what? Let’s order room service. Yeah! Stay here. Eat food. Watch movies. Good times.”
He sighs. “As much as I would love to stay in, order room service, and continue kissing you, I feel like you’re trying to avoid the reunion. You’ve come all this way, you know - with your Imaginary Fiancé and all. I’d hate for you to miss out on seeing your friends. Now, I’m going to check in with Faylor. Then we’ll go downstairs.”
