As much as I’d been working on myself since getting there, why did I suddenly feel like an unfinished art piece? Like there were parts of me still trapped in the wood, waiting to be freed.
“You know what, we should probably stop talking,” I suggested. “I really don’t want to mess this up, and I need to concentrate.”
Long pause.
“Alright, sugar, if that’s how you want to play it.”
Again, he was technically agreeing with me, but it didn’t feel like he was.
I worked in silence after that, and a few minutes later—with the help of a Barrington comb I found in his messy bathroom, still in its original plastic—I had him looking more like a hulked-out Ernest Hemingway and less like that divorced mom from that one big family reality show.
“Just have to get these few strays in the front,” I told Boone when I spotted a few strands flipping forward because they were too long. “I’m just having a little trouble getting to them.”
Even sitting down, Boone was so big his bent legs put me too far away to cut with the precision I wanted.
“Here.” Boone spread his legs wider. “Get closer.”
I hesitated for just a second, then stepped between his thighs.
His hand settled on my hip, steadying and warm, casual—like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Still, my pulse spiked and my breath caught. It wastouching.
But just for a few seconds, I reminded myself.
I forced myself to focus on the hair. Just the hair. Not the heat of his skin. Not the way his thumb had started moving in the smallest circle against my hip. Not the?—
Boone’s nose suddenly flared in a way that was becoming way too familiar.
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no...
“Sugar?” he said, voice dropping low and rough.
“Almost done,” I said, trying to play it off. “Just one more piece and I’ll be...”
He pulled me closer with one hand. Not rough. Gentle, but …touching...
“…done,” I finished weakly, looking only slightly down into his blue eyes. Now dark. And burning.
“I can smell you, sugar. And I’m not going to lie.” He shook his head without taking his eyes off mine. “It’s been a bunch of shitty days, not getting to see you on the evening walks, and I’m having a hell of a time not kissing you now that you’re back.”
Then, instead of thanking me for my service and letting me go, he dipped his head to ask, “Can I kiss you?”
28/
kiss
BELL
“Can I kiss you?”
“I’m…” I had to swallow a few times. “I’m notback. I’m just helping. And we shouldn’t….”
“I didn’t ask if we should.” Boone’s eyes dropped to my mouth. “I asked if we could.”
Silence. This wasn’t the loft bed. Our genitals weren’t even touching. But somehow the air between us was even more charged with electric desire and, I guess, the smell of my arousal.
“We shouldn’t,” I tried again.
