In time she’d forgotten. She’d forgotten what it all meant to her.
“Let me jot some things down,” she said. And he nodded, satisfied.
THEY SPENT TWOweeks going through her checklist before she realized. It just came to her as they hung up Christmas decorations together. She was trying to reach high up on the tree she’d woken up to that morning in the corner of the living room. And he just scooped her up and sat her on one of his shoulders.
Unthinking, it seemed to her.
But boy, did it do something to her. She let out a little breathless gasp, her heart suddenly beating hard. Body thrilling at the sensation of being swooped off the ground so easily, of being grabbed by those big hands, of ending up so high but feeling so safe at the same time.
He stabilized her with one grip on her thigh, and one on her waist.
And when she lashed out and grabbed his wrist, it felt sogood. So thick.
God, he’s so sexy, she found herself thinking, and of course as soon as she did, there it was in her head. This was the most he’d touched her in days. In weeks. In fact, she suspected this was the closest they’d come to sexual contact since that night when she’d written on his body.
It just hadn’t seemed it because of all the stuff theyhaddone.
She’d suggested going to the farmers market together, and he’d walked around it with his hand so close to hers she knew hewanted to take it, before he said,I mean, that’s what I see other people doing. Then she had called him a goof, and done just that. And god, the look he’d given her for it.
It had almost felt as good as being fucked.
In fact, if they hadn’t been interrupted by a creature so weird and ancient that the bleeping-out thing happened to his voice every time he tried to say what it was, she thought maybe they would have. And maybe they would have after the movies, too, when some flying thing had descended in the alley on their way back to the truck.
Which made her wonder if that was the explanation.Constant interruption by supernatural threats, she thought. Though even as she did, she knew it couldn’t cover everything. It was as obvious as anything she could imagine.
He was pulling back. He was cooling things down. Getting ready to leave her, most likely. And that idea was so compelling, and so raw, and so real, that she had to swallow around a lump as she tried to hang a felt carrot with a Santa hat on it.
She had to tell him to put her down before she could manage to do it.
Though it didn’t help. He spun her and slid her down facing him. Their bodies practically kissed. And even after she was on the ground, staring up into his big, handsome, half-laughing face, he kept a hand on her waist. “Don’t like heights, huh,” he said, while she answered in her head:
I don’t like this.
I don’t like wanting what I can’t have.
I don’t like making myself weak in front of you.
Because of course that was what she did. She felt that intense eye contact and that gentle touch and saw him almost look like he was leaning, and couldn’t stop herself. She went up on tiptoe. Then even more humiliating—she got hold of his shirt, and tugged just a little.
Most of her sure he was going to turn her down.
But the rest so afraid of missing her last chances that she didn’t care. For once in her life, going for something she wanted mattered more than the fear of being too greedy and grasping. Of being too much. As if she was that cheery high school girl she’d once been, unburned, ready to go up to anyone and be their friend. To be herself, even if it sounded mad.
And apparently herself was enough.
Because he didn’t reject her at all.
He kissed her like he’d been dying to for years. Like all the little cheek pecks goodnight he’d been giving her—as if they were a couple in a fifties sitcom—had been like a starvation diet, and now he wanted real food. He even let out a low groan when he felt her lips part. When she made it immediately messy and hot and good, because messy and hot and good were what she couldn’t wait for, either.
I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, she told herself, then kissed him like her life depended on it. She got her arm around his shoulder, and practically hauled herself into his arms. She climbed him like a tree. And he didn’t sayno. He didn’t saystop. Instead, he murmured breathlessly against her mouth.
“Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything you want.”
And a million things went through her head when he did.
More soft things, that turned him inside out. Like the other night when she rubbed his shoulders, and he about died. Or when his mouth was on her again, between her legs—yeah, god yeah, that had been nice.
But in the end she had to go for broke.
