“She called your kiss her good luck charm,” Mara said.
That was where the whole kiss curse thing started. When Selena declared it to be the truth, that declaration gave Jay and everyone else the power to believe it to be true. It didn’t bother him at first. He leaned into it sometimes, just because it was better than making Selena the villain. It was neither of their faults that they hadn’t worked out.
“Oh, Jay.”
So wasn’t it even worse that he’d made a meme out of Mara? He was certainly paying karma through the nose now.
These were old hurts, ones that Jay didn’t carry around anymore. There were more important things to care about.
“Oh god, don’t feel bad for me,” Jay told her, shaking his head. “I wasn’t the same guy anymore anyway. Between taking care of Luna and my Ate, suddenly having a household that needed me, I changed. I was happy to change. But I wasn’t the guy she loved anymore. I was more scared that I realized that it was totally possible to fall out of love with someone so quietly.”
They had touched the top of Willy’s Rock now. Keeping a tight, but ephemeral grasp on the day. Jay sighed, willing it to stay just a little longer.
“My point being,” he continued, “I kissed you that night because I selfishly wanted to. And if Selena could make me believe that I could kiss someone into true love, then I wanted to kiss you and make you believe that you could, too.”
The sun faded away, and the island was plunged into darkness, the low bass of an unidentified song already playing from a restaurant in the distance. Suddenly it was too cold to swim, too dark to enjoy the beach. But neither Jay nor Mara moved from the spot. Jay could have watched years and thousands of suns set like this, their eyes to the wide, vast, endless sea, and Mara contemplating it all at his side.
“I’m not asking you to fall in love with me, Jay,” she said, finally.
“But—”
“No buts.” Mara’s lips formed a smile, but she kept her eyes on the horizon. “All I asked for was a learning experience. Hands-on experience.”
Yeah, he was at a loss for words. He kept trying to find them, but they would just kind of close up. Like makahiya leaves when you ran a finger across them, tucking themselves away until they were ready to open again. No, wait. He had a word.
“What?”
“Look.” Mara finally turned to him, her arm bumping into his as she hadn’t realized how close they were standing together. She didn’t move away, though, and touched his arm. “Thank you, for telling me about Selena. It makes sense, why you believe in this kiss thing.”
“Thank you.”
“But you not thinking that you’re capable of love, or think that you can’t decide to choose someone, or that you can change without another person knowing… I personally think that’s bullshit.” Mara squeezed his arm, as if trying to soften the blow of her words. It helped. “But that’s your journey.”
“It is?” he asked, his voice sounding too small in his own ears.
“Of course. It’s how you feel. To be honest, I don’t know how this will make me feel. I always thought I wasn’t the kind of person who could separate love and sex, but I could be wrong.” The hand that was on his arm moved to his chest, to touch the hem of his sleeveless shirt. “This doesn’t need to change us. It can just be about experiencing this. Each other.”
“I’ll be your first,” he warned her. She was still fascinated by his shirt, and his body shivered when her fingertips made contact with his collarbone. She nodded, but she was smiling, as if she knew he was going to say that. “You’ll be emotional.”
“You’ll be crazy for me.” She snorted, like just the thought of it was completely ridiculous to her. “But you’ll be good for me.”
“You’ll fall in love with me,” he said. Warning her again. Her last chance to tell him to stop, to back off, to walk away from this.
“I think you’ll fall first,” she told him, looking up to meet his gaze, her eyes sparkling with mischief and desire. Jay’s heart stuttered in his chest, very confused, but very, very turned on. He felt a little lost as to where this was going to go.
But Mara was never one to be lost. Her hand splayed over the front of his shirt, and she gently tugged at the material to get him to bend down and kiss her.
The kiss felt like relief. Like a breath taken after holding it for much too long. Jay wrapped his arms around her, keeping the hand gripping her sandals low as his other slung around her neck. He was trying to keep the kiss gentle, like a first kiss you would give a date.
Although. This wasn’t their first kiss anymore, was it?
He kissed her harder, deeper, and Mara opened up to him. She gripped him tightly, trying to keep them steady even as she tried different angles, copied the way he slipped his tongue inside her mouth. He wanted her to leave her mark on him, on his skin, with her lips.
Mara pulled away suddenly, quickly, her eyes wide like his very thought had projected into her brain to scandalize her. But just as Jay was about to ask if she was okay…she hiccuped.
TEN
Mara never told anyone this, and never actually entertained these thoughts—except when she was alone in bed, absolutely sure that nobody could intrude on said thoughts—but she had always wondered what it would truly feel like to be this adored. To have someone who wanted to keep you next to them because they couldn’t get enough of you, because they found places on your body they wanted to kiss.
