“I didn’t mean to just take off like that.” She thought of him stumbling, telling her not to say his name. “And I didn’t mean to not come back either.”
“It’s okay. Really.”
He put a hand in his hair, restlessly, but he kept his steady gaze on her.
“It’s not okay. It was rude.”
“Hey—I understand. I was kind of like a maniac.”
“What—”
“And then I said your name all…weird and—”
He held up one big hand, stopped her mid-flow.
“Evie, no, no. That’s…not the situation. Have you spent the last three weeks thinking that was the situation?”
She tried to think of a way to say no. No, I am not a fool who considered things in entirely the wrong way. But of course in order to do that, she would have to know what the right way was.
“Sort of.”
His mouth made that mean line.
“That’s awesome.”
She had the distinct impression that it wasn’t awesome at all, but had no idea what to do about it. Apologizing seemed somehow redundant, in light of his apology. And telling him it didn’t matter wouldn’t work either, because she didn’t know what the mattering thing was.
So she went with something sort of neutral.
“Do you want to come in and talk?”
In the movies, people always came in and talked. However, once she’d said it his eyes got big and some weird naked thing happened to his face and then he blurted out some absolutely insane words.
Words she never thought she’d hear from the likes of him.
“See—this is the problem. You don’t even get where this is going. You can’t just ask me to come in, or kiss me, or tell me you want to know what smoking pot feels like. When I’m close to you I feel crazy, okay? When you say my name I feel crazy. It’s not…the right thing for you. I don’t think I can just…be your friend.”
He said the last little bit in one big burst, as if he had to force it out of himself. And though it stung, in one way, in another she actually knew what he meant. She didn’t even have to struggle for it, or blindly guess.
He meant the thing she’d been feeling too.
“I don’t want you to be just my friend.”
It came out before she could stop it, and once it was done he seemed speechless. Caught, between one thing and another. She wasn’t disappointed, however, when he settled on a course of action.
He simply stepped forward and took her face in his hands, then kissed her. He kissed her and kissed her until suddenly she found herself sprawled on something, doing another thing she hardly had a name for.
She supposed the term for it was making out. They were making out on the couch, like the teenager she’d never actually been. But the thing was—it didn’t feel like something so small and simple.
It felt like something big, and all-consuming.
His mouth felt wet, so wet. And this time he didn’t hold back with the tongue. She felt it slide over hers, slippery and lewd and thrilling all at the same time, and had to fight to not do something crazy like freeze or squirm.
Either might suggest to him that he should stop. And if he stopped, she would just die, she would. It was without doubt the best thing that had ever happened to her, and not only because of the tongue and the softness of his mouth and his sudden greediness.
There was also his hand on something perfectly innocent, like her shoulder. Yeah—perfectly innocent, apart from the fact that he very obviously wanted it to be somewhere else. His thumb kept rubbing and rubbing at her there through the material of her jersey, as if he just needed to have a focus point. Something to distract him from going to the places he’d usually go to.
And there was something both frustrating and maddeningly arousing about that. His restraint made something burn low and deep in her belly, and then his mouth, oh God his mouth.
He tasted like cinnamon, again, and every now and then he’d pull away, just a little—just enough to make her want to drag him back. Before giving her a teasing lick with that perfect, curling tongue of his.
It set all the nerve endings in her upper lip on fire. She had to stop herself from reaching up and rubbing something like normal feeling back into the area, before the urge to writhe against him grew too strong.
Because it was getting pretty out of control. She hadn’t meant it, and suspected that he definitely hadn’t. He’d seemed averse to moving their suddenly passionate kiss to the couch, and had absolutely opposed anything like lying down.
But after a while they’d ended up like this anyway—the back of her head almost on the arm of the seat. His body over hers, solid and glorious. If she shifted just a little he’d be between her legs, and then what?