I couldn’t take it any longer. Especially not when his tongue darted out between his lips, leaving behind a shine that drew every ounce of my attention to them.
I started moving towards him. I think he started moving at the same time, because when our lips met for the first time since we were teenagers, it was directly over the center console.
The kiss was soft and gentle. His lips were light against mine, bare brushes and shared breaths that made my heart race. I’d kissed people since Noah, but none of those kisses had felt like this. None of them made butterflies swarm in my stomach the way this one did. The kiss only lasted a moment, but it was like one of those moments that shifted the earth’s rotation or something. I felt like my center of gravity had changed, or maybe it had just changed back to where it was always meant to be.
Which was a dangerous kind of thought. I shouldn’t be thinking like that after one afternoon with him. My stupid heart was running in overdrive, moving too fast, because of one single kiss.
And then he kissed me again. This kiss lacked the tentative nature of the first one. There was a confidence in the way his lips moved against mine, and when his tongue pressed against the seam of my lips, I opened my mouth to him immediately. Kissing him was instinctive. It was second nature, muscle memory, something I’d done a thousand times and didn’t think I’d ever forget.
But it wasn’t like the kisses we shared when we were younger. Those kisses were between two boys who were learning the ways of the world, and then later, two boys who knew one another inside out. We weren’t those boys anymore. I’d had other loves, other relationships, and I doubted he’d been a monk while we were apart. Not with the confidence he had kissing me, not with the way his tongue explored my mouth or the way his hand cupped the back of my head.
He was kissing me like someone who had taken the time to perfect the art of kissing, and I was along for the ride.
The kiss grew hotter the longer it lasted. His tongue stoked a fire inside me that rarely stirred. It was dangerous. Everything about kissing Noah Guthrie was dangerous, and I had never been one to flirt with danger. I didn’t know how long we kissed, how long our tongues explored each other’s mouths, any of it. When his hands began to explore, moving down my torso to the hem of my shirt, I knew that I had to stop.
If I didn’t, I was going to be swept away in the moment. I was going to let this go further than I should. It would turn into a one-night stand, and then it would turn into something I regretted. I didn’t want to regret anything with Noah. I neededto get control of myself and the moment, before I crossed a line I shouldn’t.
The fear of regretting this was like a bucket of ice water being splashed over me.
I pulled away, licking my lips like I could get another taste of him without the risk. It was so hard to stop kissing him, but it had to be done.
“Wow,” he exhaled.
His eyes were trained on me in a way that made me shift uncomfortably in the passenger seat. The way he looked at me felt just as physical as his hand on the back of my head. I swallowed hard and nodded. “Wow, yourself.”
He readjusted himself and finally took his eyes off me. I watched as they darted toward my building and back to me. “Do you… uh… would you… Should we go inside?”
Yes.
No.
Fuck.
I wanted to take him up on the offer. I wanted to go upstairs with him and lose myself in the heat and passion of his kiss. I wanted to strip him bare and relearn every inch of his body. I wanted to see if his hands were as skilled as his tongue, and I wanted to find out if his tongue was just as skilled in other areas as it had been when he’d kissed me. But I also knew who I was. I knew that I’d regret it. Ialwaysregretted one-night stands.
But then, I rarely wanted anyone the way I wanted him.
Yes.
No.
Fuck.
“No,” I finally answered quietly. “I think I should go upstairs, and I think you should go home.”
I hated myself for the wounded look in his emerald eyes, so easy to see even under the streetlights. It was almost enough tomake me change my mind, to invite him upstairs with me and give into the temptation his kiss presented.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to stop looking at Noah. Telling him no was a lot easier when I wasn’t looking at him. “I’ll—I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” I stuttered out.
“Okay.”
His voice made me feel like he meant the opposite. I climbed out of the car and went back to my apartment. If my mind had been a mess after the hug, it was nothing compared to how it was now—replaying the kiss and the moment I turned him down.
4
Matt’swordshadbeena bucket of ice water.
We’d been making out, and I thought it was leading somewhere. When he pulled away from the kiss, I saw the familiar lust drunk look in his eyes. I’d seen it when we were younger, when we’d get lost in the way we felt for one another. I thought he wanted to go upstairs, but when I suggested it, he sent me home. I didn’t understand it. How had I read the signs so wrong?
