My throat goes dry. “Admit it, West. Sometimes I was fun.”
He leans so close I feel the scrape of whiskers against my jaw. “You were more than fun, Mars.” He moves slowly, pauses. His hands tighten on my thighs—a question. I tilt my head, and he presses a kiss under my ear, right where he knows I like it. Fire licks down my spine. “You were the best fucking thing about this town,” he whispers, scattering goose bumps across my skin.
I skim my shaking hands up his arms and take a deep breath. If I turn to the side, even an inch, he’ll kiss me.
He’s in my head again.Your move, Darling.It’s shocking that after all this time, I still know him so well. Like fluency in a dead language.
I bite my bottom lip and consider my options, thinking about what could be waiting for me on the other side of a kiss. But then he exhales a hot breath against my ear, the sound misting through me, and I’m adrift, swept up in his tide; it no longer feels like a choice.
My nose brushes against his whiskered jaw as I turn and press my lips to his. Something deep in my chest shifts and unlocks. We’re both unmoving; it’s hardly even a kiss yet. It feels more like a return.
There you are, I think.
What took us so long?his mouth says in return.
We’re still motionless, but his lips are warm and soft, and his kiss is resolved. Like kissing me is a decision he made once and never looked back from.
Stunned by the implication, I gasp. His tongue presses against mine, his mouth pulling oxygen from between my teeth. His hand leaves my thigh, and once again, the absence of him is physical, but then it threads through my hair and tilts my jaw up to give him a better angle. His hair tickles my forehead, and I want to brush it back, want to grab it between my fingers, want to touch him in so many places, but he is everywhere, crowding me, surrounding me, taking control of this kiss, which I hadn’t planned to want but am desperate to continue. He’s broader and stronger than the last time we were this close. I can’t think. Can hardly breathe as his lips work over mine.
Kissing the man in front of me contains shades of our history but is also completely different and infinitely better than it once was. Heat rushes to my core, pulsing painfully. A tangledfrisson of pleasure and desire weaves under my skin, remaking me into a new version of myself. Building me a different set of bones.
The sensation of his tongue on my lips and my teeth and my neck is the most catastrophic thing I’ve ever felt. If I had the capacity to think, I’d realize that I’m careening toward ruin.
There’s a buzz against metal, sending my thoughts ricocheting in every direction. I wrench away from him, and we both look down, our breaths jagged and desperate. The noise is coming from his phone, in his front pocket, pressed against the edge of the counter.
“Answer it,” I say. I need a minute to catch my breath. Tothink.
West adjusts himself with a wince and reads the text. As he’s reading, his phone buzzes again. He looks at the caller and I catch a glimpse of the ID photo—she’s smiling, she’s gorgeous.
My new bones crumble to dust, carried away with the breeze.
He grimaces. “Sorry, I have to take this. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I barely choke the words out as I scoot back and cross my legs. My dress slides up. I tug it down, mortified.
“Everything okay?” West says into the phone.
I hear a woman’s voice on the other end of the line, but it’s too faint for me to decipher what she’s saying. I tilt my head closer, shameless. I hear a string of swear words, but the voice doesn’t sound upset. If this is West’s girlfriend, she probably doesn’t know that I just felt his erection against my leg. That I could look at it now, if I wanted to. (I don’t want to!)
“Yeah. Mm-hmm. Call if you need anything. Don’t forget to send a pic.” He ends the call and slides his phone in his back pocket. Whateverpicshe’s sending, he’s saving it for later.
“That was my sister,” he says quickly, and I delete the sarcastic remark about nudes from the tip of my tongue.
“Gabbi? Little foul-mouthed Gabbi?” I reach my hand into his back pocket and grab his phone. West watches with amusement. “How old is she? I want to see a picture!” He unlocks it and swipes through recent photos, showing me a stunning young woman with dark skin and curly hair.
I snatch the phone out of his hands to inspect it closely. “Wow. She’s gorgeous!” I place his phone on the counter. “It sounds like you two are close now?”
He nods. “We got closer when we were both on the East Coast; I talked so much about this place that she decided to come.”
I shake my head in awe. He really did it. He became the man he didn’t think he could be. “It’s a good thing you came back, isn’t it?” I ask quietly.
His face is full of feelings, but this time, I’m not sure which ones. He dips his chin in silent confirmation. “I have regrets. That’s not one of them.”
He opens his mouth to speak again, and I panic about the potential destination of this conversation.
“What’s Gabbi up to these days?”
“She’s an undergrad. Engineering major.Sosmart. She gives me shit constantly—”
