“Thank you for bringing me,” She whispers, “It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” I reply, but I’m not talking about the stars, and the pink tinge that brightens her cheeks tells me she knows it too.
Her eyes drop to my mouth before her tongue slips out to wet her bottom lip.
Fuck.
She told me revisiting our moment back in the kitchen was a bad idea, and she was right. I don’t give a fuck though. I can’t have forever with this woman, but I can have right now. I can have the hours and the minutes before she leaves me to go get the life she deserves.
“Look!” Rosie hollers. “The stars are falling!”
We both turn our attention back to the sky, catching the tail of the first meteorite. A gasp sounds beside me as another shoots across the dark, and then another, until they’re coming quicker, lighting up the sky in bright bursts of white.
Rosie, Caleb and Juni all watch the stars, but I’m not looking at the sky. I’m looking at her.
Chapter Twenty-one
I don’t know how much time passes, hours probably, but I can’t look away. There’s only a few falling stars now, passing by every so often, but it’s mesmerizing, watching them trail through the dark, leaving only awe behind.
Something brushes my hand and I snap my head toward Silas, or rather his hand that touches mine and when I look at him, he gestures beside him to his children who have completely passed out, bundled in a bed made up of blankets and pillows. It’s the cutest thing I have ever seen.
“Should we head back?” I whisper.
“A few more minutes,” he replies, holding my eyes. “Not ready to stop watching yet.”
It’s a bad idea.
It’s. A. Bad. Idea.
I keep repeating it, but it’s not working. I want to kiss him. Dropping my eyes to his mouth, I shuffle closer, curling my fingers around his hand, the rough skin scratching against mine.
“Juni,” he rasps, and I pause, waiting, watching him as he wars with himself. We both know we shouldn’t.
He rolls onto his side to face me, hand reaching up to slide across my jaw before his fingers thread into my hair, pulling it slightly loose from the bun I put it in. My skin erupts with goosebumps; the touch of his hand washing warmth through me. He’s so close, his breath brushes my lips, and I can see all the gold flecks in his eyes.
I’ve never wanted to be kissed so badly.
“Tell me not to kiss you, Juni,” he whispers. “Tell me to let you go.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that. To tell him we shouldn’t do this, but that isn’t what comes out of my mouth. “I can’t.”
“You’re too fucking good for me,” he growls, and I don’t have time to respond, not when his lips land on mine and every thought empties out of my head. There’s no restraint, no hesitancy; it justis.Hetastes as good as he smells, no better, warm and right as his tongue sweeps between my lips. His fingers flex against my scalp as he moves over me so half of him covers my body, pressing me down into the bed of the truck. I widen my lips and match his tongue, stroke for stroke, fingers curling into his shirt, afraid that if I let go, he’ll disappear.
His kiss is deep and claiming; the scratch of his facial hair, the press of his fingers all working together to work me into a knot I don’t want to loosen, but then he’s pulling away and I’m chasing after him.
His lips press to the corner of my mouth and then the other, and then they’re at my jawline, my throat, my heart steadily increasing with every pass of his mouth.
He moves back to my lips, this kiss softer, gentler before he pulls away and his face is hovering above mine. He looks at me as if I am the falling stars we both just witnessed. With awe and wonder, with a yearning that if he just reaches out a hand, he may be able to touch one. Catch a falling star in the palm of his hand to cherish. The look has something in my chest opening up and squeezing all at the same time.
Leaning down, he presses one more chaste kiss to my lips and then pulls away entirely. “We should head back.”
Slowly, I sit up, my shoulder bumping into his.
He turns to face me; his mouthstill wet from our kiss.
“One more,” he breathes.
“Please,” I whisper back, watching the corner of his mouth lift into a slight grin before he leans back in, hand cradling the side of my face as he kisses me again. Softly, he drags his tongue across my lips until I part for him, and he kisses me like I am the most precious thing in the world. Kisses me like I mean something more to him and he wants every second to last.
