His face contorted in confusion, concern, and something that might have been hope, all flickering across his features in rapid succession. For a long moment, he didn’t respond, just studied me like he was trying to solve a puzzle he’d been working on for weeks.
Then, slowly, carefully, he said, “Okay.”
One word.
Permission wrapped in a blanket of trepidation.
I took a step forward.
My legs felt like they belonged to someone else, moving without my conscious input. Every step felt monumental, like I was crossing a threshold I could never uncross. The distance between us shrank—eight feet, six feet, four—and with each step, my heart beat faster.
Jacks’s eyes went wide.
He stepped backward, instinctive, and his back bumped against the wall beside the kitchen doorway.The impact stopped his retreat, fixed him in place, and suddenly he was trapped, watching me approach with an expression that was equal parts alarmed and hopeful.
I knew that expression.
I was wearing it, too.
I stopped in front of him, close enough now that I could see the rise and fall of his chest, the slight tremble in his hands, and the way his pupils had dilated until his brown eyes were almost black.
Neither of us spoke.
I raised my hand.
Slowly, like I was moving through water, I reached up and brushed a curl from his forehead. The gesture was deliberate this time, intentional—a callback to the moment under the oak tree when I’d done this same thing without thinking and everything had changed.
Jacks’s breath hitched.
His eyes fluttered half closed.
I leaned in.
The last few inches between us collapsed in slow motion, my heart hammering so loud it drowned out everything else. I could feel the warmth radiating from his skin, could smell the clean scent of his shampoo mixed with something that was uniquely him, could see the slight part of his lips as he realizedwhat was happening.
And then I kissed him.
It was hesitant at first, barely a brush of lips, gentle and questioning, giving him every chance to pull away despite the wall and my bulk pinning him in place. My whole body was trembling, terrified of rejection, terrified of what it meant that I was doing this at all.
But he didn’t pull away.
For one breathless moment, he went still, frozen like a statue.
I started to panic, started to pull back, started to stammer out an apology—
And then he kissed me back.
His hands came up to cradle my face, and he pulled me closer.
Suddenly the kiss wasn’t hesitant anymore.
It was desperate and hungry and everything I hadn’t known I’d been missing for my entire life. He tasted like the water he’d drunk and something sweeter underneath, and the soft groan he made against my mouth sent thrills racing down my spine.
I’d kissed girls before.
Dozens of them, maybe more. Definitely more.
But nothing—nothing—had ever felt like this.
