I take in the navy-blue irises, the pale skin, the lean muscles. All of it so familiar, and at the same time, not. It must be Kit’s effect, embodying this stranger with so much of himself. He’s wearing green corduroy pants and a yellow and black-striped, long-sleeve Charlie Brown-esque shirt. “He doesn’t know how to dress himself?”
Kit cocks his head to the side. “Don’t you recognize me?”
I cock my head back at him. “Of course. I always recognize you.” I gesture to him, asking the same question I always do. “Is he awake?”
His eyebrows scrunch together. “It’s just me in here.”
“What do you mean?” A terrible thought occurs to me. “Oh, fuck, Kit, you didn’t take a recently dead body did you? That’s a major ick, man.”
“No.” He steps closer, so that we’re no more than a foot apart. “Lacy, baby,lookat me.Really look.”
So, I do. Dark circles under his eyes. Hair messy like it hasn’t been washed in a few days. Short, unkept beard that looks like it hasn’t been touched in a couple of weeks. And…oh my god. There’s a small white scar hiding beneath the beard. Right above his lip. I know that scar. I know this entire face, not just the eyes. My hand finds his cheek, thumb tracing over the scar. “Kit?”
His head bobs vigorously. “Yes, Lace. It’s me. I’m alive. I’m human. This body is mi—oof.”
He’s cut off by my lips slamming into his. I grasp at his face and pull him as close as I can manage. My mouth covers his. I’m so hungry for him. Starving, in fact. He groans happily as one hand slides around my waist and the other buries itself in my hair, fingers digging in. His tongue slips through my parted lips, dipping in and taking its time making an introduction.
I don’t know how many times I’ve pictured kissing Kit, but this is so much better than imagined, electricity sparking between us so intensely my lips are tingling. God, he smells…well, he smells like cheap soap and sweat, but he also smells likehim. Finally, he smells like himself. I want to bury my face in his neck to breathe him in, but am far too distracted and engulfed by his lips on mine to do so.
I back us up so he is pressing me into a wall as I pull him closer to me by the hips, my fingers moving just below the hem of his shirt, brushing the warm skin of his back. I have so many questions. Was it my spell? Which one? How long has he been back? Where has he been? But all of that is taken over by one demand: that he never stop kissing me. I don’t care that we’re in public, surrounded by so many people. Honestly, there are enoughpeople around that I doubt any of them notice us.
As his hand trails down to my ass, cupping it, I bite down on his lower lip, pulling another groan from the base of his throat.
“Lacy,” he murmurs, lips moving away from mine so he can swoop kisses down my jaw and to my throat. Against my pulse, he sucks hard enough to leave a mark, causing me to gasp and dig my fingers into his back.
My eyes fly open as I suddenly remember where I am.
“Kit,” I say, my voice ragged as I am so desperate to drag him to whatever dark and private corner I can get him into. “Kit,” I say again, more firmly.
“Hmm?” he asks, pulling back from my neck but with his head still dipped down so he is mere inches from my face. His gaze is dark and filled with a desire so tempting I almost pull his lips back to mine.
I refrain myself. “I have a meeting,” I whisper.
“Meeting?” he asks, eyebrow scrunching together. I like his eyebrows, dark and thick. And his.
My hand rests on his cheek as I am still so confused and overjoyed by the fact that he is before me, that I can touch him. Touch a body that is solely his.He’s really here.
“With the contest people.” My teeth drag over my lip. “They liked my submission.”
Kit throws his head back in an alarmingly loud cackle. “What?!” he shouts, his face painted with an ear-to-ear grin as he bounces away from me. He rockets back, throwing his arms around me and lifting me into the air with a spin. I let out a surprised shriek, feeling a slight but ignorable pinch of painwhere my cut arms press into him. He settles me back on the ground, keeping his hands on my waist, saying, “Are you serious? That’s amazing. Oh, I am so proud of you.”
I can’t help but grin back as my arms tighten around his neck. “It’s nothing official yet, but it’s something, right?”
“It’s definitely something. When’s the meeting?”
I retrieve my phone to glance at the time. “Shit. In about fifteen minutes.” I pull myself free from his grasp, sliding my hand down to catch one of his, because there is no way I will ever stop touching him, and start to pull him along. Luckily, it’s a pretty straight shot. As I drag Kit out the Vanderbilt exit, I know generally where I am headed and charge full steam ahead.
As soon as we’re stopped by a don’t walk signal, I release Kit’s hand so I can instead hook my arm through his and pull my phone out to open the front-facing camera. My fingers graze over my kiss-swollen lips, an inescapable grin growing in the screen. Hopefully the cool air will calm them down enough that it won’t be obvious what they’re swollen from. We start to walk again, Kit now leading me blindly as I attempt to fix myself in my phone camera. There’s a red spot on my neck that will definitely develop into a hickey. I pull my hair over it, taking advantage of the helpful bulk.
“Which way?” he asks.
“Just keep going forward.” I slip my phone back into my purse once I decide there is literally nothing else I can do to myself and take his hand again. I find the correct office building and march up to the front desk.
I give the security staff my name and ID and let them checkme in. The man behind the desk asks Kit for his identification as well. Kit pulls out a passport that I have no idea how he obtained and hands it over.
“You’re not on the list,” he says.
“He’s with me,” I say.
