Instead, he shook himself. ‘What did you say?’
The smile faded, the bright spots in her eyes along with it. ‘Forget it. Shit, I don’t know why I even?—’
‘No,’ he stopped her with a hand on her arm and she froze, staring at his fingers on her skin. How many times had he touched her now? Too many and nowhere near enough.
‘What do you mean, “no”?’
‘I mean, I thought I’d misheard. I wasn’t?—’
She licked her lips. ‘You said you’re always honest and I was thinking about kissing you, so…’
He needed her to stop talking before the prickles over his skin grew unbearable. ‘Is this about the moustache? I was just joking.’
‘Not… exactly. It would just be trying it out. Probably, it’ll be awkward and terrible and then we can move forward being friends – without thiswondering.’
Words refused to form in his brain. Only a spluttered protest tried to emerge from his mouth. He was enjoying the wondering.
‘I mean, we’ve just been talking about how hard it is to date people, even though you don’t have the practical challenges I have on top of the… psychological ones.’ The glance that flickered over him made him want to laugh. ‘We’re well and truly adults.’
He didn’t feel much like an adult when his gaze was drawn down her throat, taking in the sprinkle of freckles on her skin – more like an eager teenager.
‘What do you mean?’ he managed to ask.
‘We don’t have to bat our eyelashes shyly and drop hints. We could just try it out.’
‘Try it out,’ he repeated, dragging his sluggish mind into gear. ‘I think it would be nice if you made sweet eyes at me first.’
She gave him a bump with her elbow, which only reminded him of how closely they were sitting, both of them facing out to the golden sea. ‘If your ego needs sweet eyes, you’re going to have to do it yourself. But I don’t want to make you try… kissing me if you don’t want to. Urgh, that sounds pathetic.’
She rubbed a hand over her face and flinched when she found a patch of luminous sunburn. He should take her home and put something on it – and then maybe kiss her to prove it wouldn’t be awkward or terrible and could severely complicate the ‘just friends’ situation.
‘It’s not pathetic,’ he said gently. ‘You’re absolutely right. We should talk about these things. I’ve just never… talked this much about kissing without actually doing it.’
‘We’re both a bit beyond the butterflies of infatuation.’ She said the words with amused disdain, but her voice lilted as she said it. So much grace – and strength. And pain. The three combined together in her, a beautiful, tightly tied knot.
As though unconsciously approving of his unspoken metaphor, she clutched her arms around herself defensively.
‘Did they kiss you, any of those dates you didn’t really want?’
‘I even slept with two of them.’ She appeared to choke on her admission, as though reconsidering how much she’d given away.
‘But it was awkward and terrible?’ he prompted gently.
‘The kisses? Or the sex?’ The breathy quality in her voice as she stared at the sky caught him in the chest.
‘Either.’
She flashed him a wry glance. ‘Both.’ Biting her lip, she smothered a smile.
‘When we get home, I’ll kiss you,’ he said carefully – a promise, one that sent anticipation down his spine.
‘Really, you don’t have?—’
‘I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to. I’m… concerned your experiment will fail, that’s all.’
‘Fail how? You’ll catch my nose instead of my mouth?’
He couldn’t miss her mouth. Even when she was windsurfing today, her smile had carried to him from several metres away.
