“Yes, we do need to,” he insists.
“It’sreallynot necessary—”
“Annie, will you just shut up for one minute and listen to me, please? Jesus.”
His exasperated use ofJesushas rendered me mute. Well, almost mute. I mutter a begrudgingfine.
“Yesterday afternoon, when you kissedme—”
NOPE, sorry, unbearable. Can’t do this.
“It’s OK, Connor, honestly. I get it. Please stop. We don’t have to make this awkward. It didn’t happen.”
“What? That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
A dreadful suspicion crosses my mind. “Are—are you about to fire me for kissing you?”
“Annie.”
He draws a deep breath. I can see his chest rising through the gray marl of his T-shirt.
“You caught me off guard,” he says. “When you kissed me yesterday. I wasn’t expecting you to do that. I handled it badly.”
My stomach sinks.
“You didn’t, Connor, really. It’s me who should be apologizing.”
“Sorry?”
“I get it,” I insist, like this is all no big deal. “You don’t like me like that.”
He looks absolutely dumbstruck by this statement. He makes a strangled noise like he’s about to say something, but nothing comesout.
Instead he steps forward, grabs either side of my face, and kisses me, full on the mouth. Like this is his last desperate act to silence me once and forall.
I am so stunned by this turn of events that I can do nothing. A marble statue has more movement than I do in this moment. I realize vaguely that I now understand what he meant when he said I caught him off guard. Itissurprising when someone kisses you out of nowhere.
He leans back to look at me, his hands still holding me in place. “I think you might be the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”
Then he tilts my chin up, ducks his head, and kisses me for real.
His first kiss was to shut me up. The end of the conversation. This kiss is the start of a new one. And I would like to talk all night.
Connor releases my face, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into his body. I am all too happy to comply. My hands slip under his T-shirt, his muscles rippling as I slide them up his back. Somewhere in the back of my mind there’s amegaphone blaringNot an appropriate thing to do!But it’s distant—I can barely hear it through the sound of the pulse pounding in my ears.
His teeth graze my bottom lip, eliciting an instant hum from somewhere deep in my throat. When my lips part, he slides his tongue into my mouth, and I lock my arms around him to make it clear I expect him to continue moving in this direction. His mouth quirks into a smile—strange how I canfeelhim do that—which falls away just as quickly when I press into him even more.
By the time he pulls away he’s supporting my entire body weight. One arm is wrapped around me, the other is planted on the back of my head. Our noses hover an inch apart. His chest bobs against mine with the shallow rise and fall of his breath.
“OK, fine,” I say, my voice husky. “You handled it badly.”
“Dickhead,” he says warmly, his mouth catching mine again.
I’m hoping this means we’re about to go back to kissing, but it was just a ruse. His arms drop away from me and he steps back. I feel the loss of warmth immediately.
“Is—that what you wanted to talk about?”
Connor chuckles, scrubbing a hand down his face. “No.”
