A little tremble.
A held breath.
A warmth that settled right in the center of my chest.
When we pulled back, Amanda was smiling in that shy, trying-not-to-smile way that made me feel like I did something unbelievably lucky.
“Okay,” she said softly, eyes dropping before she looked at me again. “That was…nice.”
I couldn’t stop grinning. “Yeah. Really nice.”
“What the hell took you so long?” she stammered, pulling a hand free to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear.
The accusation made me falter. I didn’t want to explain what a sap I was for her. How I would have waited ten years to kiss her if that was what she demanded.
It will always be you.
“Enzo?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe I was waiting for you to join the dark side?”
“Well, if I’d known you were waiting for my initiation into the mob, I would have spoken up sooner!” Amanda laughed hard and sat up, pulling my hand with hers. Our fingers looped together, clasped on the bed between us. “Lord! I felt like such a dork—”
“Mandy,” I groaned softly. “Why? Why would you feel like that?”
She gestured at me with both her hands, including the one I held. “It’s easy for you! Any girl in the school would take off their top or drop to their knees. I didn’t want you to think I was uncool for having a crush.”
I rose to sit on the edge of the bed. Slowly, giving her space to draw back if she wanted to, I reached for her. She didn’t move. I brushed my fingers over her jaw, threading them back into her hair.
“If you’re a dork, I am too.” I rubbed my thumb right under her ear. I didn’t know if it was the right way to touch her, but it felt like it was. “I’m crazy about you, Mandy. Only you.”
“Alright…good,” she sighed.
“And as to the criminal activities you’re contemplating,” I teased, moving the conversation away from heavier topics. “The first rule of the mob is that we don’t talk about the mob.”
“Okay, fight club,” she laughed softly.
The edge of her sleeper tee fell off her shoulder. My gaze snagged on it and on her nipples, straining against the material.
Her words turned breathless. “I can pull it off.”
My palm skated from her hair down the line of her neck. Over her shoulder. Along her arm. I plucked the material, drawing it back to cover the beautiful, already summer-tanned skin.
“We’re not going all the way,” I murmured, though the heat in my veins screamed in protest. “We have the rest of our lives, and I’m just going to enjoy the present with you.”My flower.
“Oh.” There was a note of uncertainty in her voice.
“Don’t get me wrong, I want to,” I said with a smile. “But you’ll always be mine, Mandy, so we can wait until we’re a bit older.”
Amanda was seventeen now. Our Junior Year was almost done, and we would spend the whole summer together. Maybe I would even sneak us away to the beach. A place to be us without anyone watching. I threaded my fingers through her golden hair, letting it fall over her shoulders like a waterfall.
“Well, I think that if you want to be a mobster, we should start with something small,” I murmured, going back to safer topics.
The spark of fire in her eyes was the same blue as the heart of a flame. “Let’s do it!”
Bending down, I nipped her lips. “You sure you want to do this?”
Amanda nodded. “What’s my first job? Theft? Moving contraband? I don’t think I’m cut out for murder, but if we need to rough someone up—”
