I let her weight push me back a step, and she laughed, like it was a game, like she was pursuing me, never quite catching me, until my back was against the wall, and wasn’t that a metaphor? She nipped a kiss, then backed away, giving me an out.
A need in me flared, and I claimed her wrist to tug her back toward me, bending forward to catch her mouth with mine, but it was a butterfly kiss, here then gone, as she grinned and pulled away, looking at me with the same kind of surprise I felt. How was this happening?
“Do you still hate me?” she asked, smiling in a way that proved she knew I didn’t.
“I think I like you,” I said. A week ago, I’d hated her. A month ago, I thought I could fall in love with her, or at least someone like her. But this was good. I wanted more of this. I wanted to let go of all that fear and relax into something easy.
A pretty flush colored her cheeks, and I suddenly wanted to spend the whole day studying the texture of her skin, the way the light would catch in her hair.
She palmed my chest. “Well, I know I like you.”
Her fingers twisting into my sweatshirt were a pretty solid clue that she did, and it felt amazing, this connection. I lifted my hand and brushed her hair out of her face, just gazing into her eyes, just hoping.
Hoping I wasn’t stepping off a cliff into the abyss.
She lifted onto her toes, and my breath hitched. I wanted to lose myself in her, but I held back, studying her. When she moved close, so close, I had a moment where I could have rebuffed her again, like that first night, but I leaned into the gap, and then her lips were on mine, her hand sliding around my back, and I reached for the hem of her shirt, wanting to feel her again. I turned her around, pressed her back to the wall and skimmed her jaw with my mouth, her throat with my teeth, and she gasped.
Her smell, her taste, and the feel of her skin left me breathless and needy. But we were in a bedroom with no bed, a house with no home. Daylight streamed through windows with no curtains, and there was nowhere to release this urgent desire.
Somewhere in the distance, a phone chimed, and I realized where we were, what we were doing.
“I—” I stepped away. “I’m sorry.”
“What? Why?”
“I just kind of”—a breath popped from my pursed lips—“I never lose control like that.”
She grinned, all vixen. “Seriously?”
As inevitable as the tides, that deep fear broke across the shores of my subconscious, and I blurted, “I’ve been careful about who I date for the past year, since—” I didn’t finish that sentence. I didn’t want to freak her out with my emotional baggage. She might only want something casual, and I was a deep well of need. I ran my fingers through my hair, mussing it up even worse. “It’s just been a while.”
She sighed. “Same.”
“Yeah?” It was good to hear her say that. I gazed into her pretty eyes. “The night we met”—I felt her brace, but I had no intention of chiding her again—“I hadn’t been drawn to anyone like that in a long time. I thought it was because I knew you, and I guess I’ll never know how much that colored my emotions, but even after sorting it all out, hell, even when I was still plenty mad at you, there’s something about you. I can’t get you off my mind.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I’m sorry. I keep doing that. It’s just I want us to know each other better before we, uh—”
“Go hang gliding?” she supplied. “Make origami cranes?”
I snorted. “If those are euphemisms, then yes.”
“You still don’t trust me, do you?”
My head fell back, because I wanted to, but I’d made so many mistakes. “It’s not exactly about you.”
Her expression clouded even more. “Are you about to say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me’?”
Shit. “What I mean is, I don’t think I can trustmyself.”
“Isn’t that saying the same thing? You’re questioning your judgment for trusting me, ergo, I must be untrustworthy?”
I stared out the window. The skies remained a picture perfect blue, just the hint of cirrus clouds. “I’ve been burned so many times, by bad people. Liars, two-timers, mean girls, bullies spreading false rumors.” It sounded so pathetic out loud. “If they weren’t fooling me, they were wrecking my reputation.”
Her brows shot up. “So now I’m a bad person?”
“No.” Why was this so hard? “If you were, I wouldn’t be here. You made it sort of impossible not to like you.”
