“I want to kiss you, Regi,” Gill says, his voice a whisper in the wind.
My gaze snaps up to Gill's, to those eyes that mimic the beautiful blue-white of the moon above our heads.
Suddenly, I find it hard to breathe, find my hands trembling as I pull them into my lap and try to figure out what it is that I'm supposed to do. Down below, I feel a pulsing, a dark heat blossoming that makes all my feeble attempts at masturbation feel like matches paling in the warmth of a bonfire.
“Regina?” For once, Gill's wry humor is gone, leaving him sounding vulnerable and unsure and oh-so seventeen. I open my mouth to speak, to tell him that the whole reason I brought him out here in the first place was so that we could be alone, so that maybe something like this might happen. But my mouth goes dry and my heart starts to thump so fast that I get a little dizzy. The world shifts and tilts around me and before I even know what I'm doing, I'm leaning in and smashing my lips against Gill's.
Our teeth bump together at first, and I think I taste the metallic hint of blood, but as soon as my mouth touches his, something breaks inside me, something special, something different.
His hands come up and encircle my waist as we lean in together and find a position that works, that lets us open to each other, tangle our tongues. Gill tastes like lemon sherbet, sharp and bright, snapping my senses to full attention. His scent invades me, a spicy sweetness that I can't place but suddenly feel like I could never live without.
When he pulls back, his breath sliding across my moist lips, a strange groan slips out of me and I jerk back, clamping my hand over my mouth.
His bemused smile turns my cheeks a brilliant red.
“Are you sure that was your first kiss?” Gill asks, his hands still on my waist. I can feel each and every one of his fingers through my baggy sweatshirt, like little brands searing themselves into my skin. “Because your tongue did things I didn't even know were possible.”
I pull away from his grip and reach down, cupping a handful of water to throw at him.
“You ass,” I say, splashing him and then throwing my legs out of the fountain and standing up. No way I'm letting him get me back. Gill just laughs at me. “You go to hell,” I tell him and shriek when he lunges after me, chasing me across the courtyard and into the shadows of a tree. When I turn, my back hits the bark and then we're suddenly kissing again, grabbing at one another like we can't get enough, might never get enough.
Being in Seattle, coffee is, of course, courtesy of Starbucks. Company, courtesy of the rashest, filthiest mouthed person I've ever met in my life. I decide then and there that whether she's fucking my stepbrother or not, I'm kind of in love with the woman.
“So I told the motherfucker to grow some ovaries and stop being such a whiny, little bitch. Guess he liked me well enough, so he introduced me to this guy who introduced me to another guy who introduced me to Gill.” Aveline shrugs and sips her coffee, pulling into the hotel parking lot and squeezing her Silverado into a compact space near the front door.
As I'm artfully trying to compose some sort of fishing question, some bait that'll bring the truth of her and Gill's relationship swimming to my lure, my stepbrother appears outside the window, face tight and jaw clenched.
I open my door slowly, carefully. I don't think it's me he's mad at me, but it never hurts to be cautious.
“Coffee was not on the agenda,” he tells Aveline, their gazes locking, a line of tension stretching between the two of them. I sit back, trying to figure out if I could climb from the truck and squeeze past Gill without touching him. I decide it's not worth the risk.
“You never said not to get coffee,” she replies coolly, shrugging and climbing out before slamming the door behind her. I look at Gill and find him staring back at me.
“Take a walk with me?” he asks, and I feel my fingers unconsciously curl against the paper cup in my hand. It crunches in my grip and hot coffee oozes out the opening, burning my skin with fingers of liquid magma.
“Merde!” Out of reflex, I drop the cup and Gill catches it in midair, taking a step back and gritting his teeth against the slosh of hot coffee that hits his hand. “Oh God, Gill, je suis désolée.” I'm sorry. I clamp a hand over my mouth and watch as his grimace turns into a half-smile.
“I take it you're not interested in going for a walk with me?”
“In these flip-flops?” I ask, reaching down into Aveline's pile of fast food wrappers for a stack of unused napkins. I dry my hand off as best I can and pass the rest over to Gill. “And you're wondering why I freaked out?” I try to make a joke of it, keep the situation as light as I can. When I got into this, my assumption was that I'd be spending little to no time with my stepbrother. Why he keeps pushing for an audience is beyond me.