I step back and meet Heath’s gaze. “All the way this time?”
He nods and I move.
I feel a zing when his hands touch me, another when my feet leave the ground and a third when I surge up over his head. I feel myself wanting to rush it, to hit the pose as quickly as possible so that Heath can lower me back down again. But I focus on his hands and the sound of his voice urging me on and when I feel steady, I release his wrists and extend my arms.
And down I go.
Heath is as good as his word. Somehow he surges backward as I’m tipping, and he keeps me from face-planting on the ground. Possibly even more impressive—not a single part of my body comes into contact with his nose.
Settling me back on my feet, Heath says, “Okay, that was not bad for a first go.”
I have to agree. I was expecting it to go so much worse.
“How’d you do with the height?”
“Fine,” I say, surprised that I actually mean it. “I think it was okay, it was just a balance issue.” But even as I say that, my cheeks heat, because the truth is it was more a him-and-me issue.
“Okay like you’re ready to go again?”
I start to nod then stop myself. “Your shoulders have to be getting tired.” We’ve been working on this for close to an hour, which means he’s probably lifted me a hundred times already.
He rolls each shoulder. “I’m good.”
Still I hesitate.
Heath sighs, but he half smiles as he does it. “Come here.”
I feel warmer all over as I step closer to him, a normal step not the kind that precedes a lift.
He reaches for me, his hands sliding up either side of my rib cage and then slowly, oh so slowly, he bends his elbows, lifting me until we are eye level. “My shoulders are fine.”
My heart is not. As steady as his arms are, my heart is beating wildly. And he just keeps holding me in the air like that, like I weigh nothing and he can go on holding me forever.
The fading smile he started with is the only sign that he’s exerting any effort. It slips while I remain steady. And when his eyes dip to my mouth, I know. I know what he’s going to do even before he lowers my feet to the ground without releasing me. And I know as I lift my face, that he’s as afraid as I am.
The second his lips touch mine I feel like I’m off the ground again, only this time it feels like when I leap off the ice; it’s that same exhilarating freedom and sense of rightness, that same fear-enhanced euphoria that tells me even if I fall, it’s worth it. For a second, I don’t think about anything except leaning into this kiss, into Heath, my hands rising up his biceps when he squeezes my ribs, sending goose bumps on top of goose bumps over my skin. His lips fit mine like they were made for me, and I feel myself getting lost in the mix of softness and strength I find in his kiss, in him. In something so perfect it aches.
But a second is all I get before reality tears my mouth from his with a soft cry I don’t have to explain. Already that perfect moment is twisting in my memory, guilt tugging on my limbs and leaching away all the warmth I felt in his arms.
“We can’t do this,” I say, looking up at his moonlit eyes and hoping mine don’t look half as tortured. I know what’s going through his mind, because the same thoughts are accusing me inside mine.
My brother killed his brother.
He can’t be with me without betraying Cal.
Even if he doesn’t yet, he’ll come to hate himself for kissing me.
And he’ll hate me too for making him forget, however briefly, that he’s not allowed to care about me.
But he’s not letting me go. His hands flex on my ribs like he’s seconds away from pulling me to him again, and I know with sickening certainty that I can’t ever let him kiss me again.
“I have to go.” I feel like I have to pry myself free from his hands. “Heath, you know I have to go.” My voice cracks.
“I know, but...” He’s frowning, not at me but in my direction like he can’t fully understand what we just did or why he’s not hurling himself away from me. But I do, and it’s oozing around inside me like I’m balancing on the edge of a cliff.
“I don’t think we can do this anymore,” I say, staring at the ground in front of us.
“See each other, or touch each other?”
