Page 14

We had been joking and laughing a few minutes before, but suddenly, the mood between us had shifted once again. I glanced over at Kyland and his face was tense. What was he thinking when he suddenly started brooding like that?

“So you never told me what that Silas dude found that changed his life,” he finally said.

I squinted over at him. He was staring straight ahead as if he didn’t care what my answer was.

“Why don’t you read the book?” I offered.

“Pfft. Just what I need. To waste my time reading about someone else’s sucky life.”

“Then why are you asking about it?”

“Just making conversation.”

Then why would I waste my breath recounting an entire plot? There were other things to make conversation about. “So,” I said, “what colleges have you applied to?” I knew that, like me, he must have if he was hoping to apply the scholarship to one.

“All schools on the East Coast,” he said, still looking out to the sky. After a second, he turned to me and said, “Mostly schools in or near New York City. All my life, I’ve just felt like…” He paused as if searching for the right wording. “I was meant to do something, you know? Something.” His voice had become animated as he was talking and he suddenly looked embarrassed. “What about you?”

“I applied to a couple around here and a couple in California.”

“California?”

I shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to see the ocean.”

Kyland watched me for a moment before giving a nod. “Yeah,” he said simply. I stared back at him, my eyes darting down to his lips and suddenly, something ignited in the air—something unseen but real all the same. I felt it and I knew Kyland felt it too by the way he moved his head back very slightly. He adjusted himself where he sat. I felt my cheeks flush and was surprised at how hard it was to breathe properly. There was something intense and almost pained in Kyland’s expression. He moved toward me, and up close like this, I could see a light sprinkling of freckles on his nose, under his tan—as if his childhood sat just beneath his skin. And the outer rim of his stormy gray eyes was a soft blue, like sunny days were there too, but off in the distance.

“Kyland—”

“Tenleigh.” He leaned toward me, his breath just a whisper away, his voice strained. I breathed in his scent, a thrill racing down my spine. He smelled like a mixture of clean, pine-scented mountain air and something that must just be him—something that whispered to me in an intimate, secret way. Something I didn’t need to analyze to understand. My eyelashes fluttered. I glanced down at his lips again. God, his lips were nice. And they looked so soft. Would they be soft on mine? My heart beat wildly in my chest as I waited for him to kiss me. He moved a centimeter closer and I held my breath.

“Have you been kissed before, Tenleigh?” he rasped as his hand went to the side of my head, his fingers weaving into my hair.

“No,” I whispered, my body swaying toward him. No, but I wanted to be. Oh God, I wanted to be. I felt practically drunk with expectation. Would he touch me while he kissed me? Would his hands move over my body, under my clothes? A jolt of electricity raced up my thighs and ended between my legs.

I liked him so much. He was a boy who was sweet but would take charge. My blood was buzzing, racing through my veins.

His eyes gazed into mine for several frozen seconds until he squeezed his eyes shut and pulled away from me. I let out a huge breath as I tipped toward him and caught myself, pulling back suddenly too.

Kyland stood up and spun away from me, breathing hard. “You shouldn’t give your first kiss to me.”

What the…?

I blinked, feeling stunned, almost as if he’d just slapped my face. Humiliation engulfed me. I made a chuffing sound in the back of my throat and wrapped my arms around myself.

He turned toward me as suddenly as he’d turned away. “Why haven’t you ever kissed anyone?”

I shrugged, feeling hot, my skin prickly. I lifted my chin. “I’ve never found anyone I wanted to kiss before,” I said, going for nonchalance. But in actuality, it was pretty true.

“And you want to kiss me?”

I snorted.

Conceited asshole.

So not only was Kyland not going to kiss me, he was going to make me feel embarrassed and inexperienced? This was the exact reason I had sworn off men. “Not anymore.” I stood up, grabbing my grocery bags and moving past him. But I was caught up short when he grabbed my hand and tugged. I whirled back around. “Let go of me,” I hissed. “You’re right. I don’t want to kiss you. I’m going to go away to college, and I’m going to let a real man kiss me, not some stupid hillbilly who thinks his lips are God’s gift to Kentucky girls.”