Page 83 of Before Eve

We clink glasses, and I take another sip.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

“Mm.”

“I’m glad you’re not wearing your ballcap. I love looking at you.”

“I love looking at you, too,” I shyly admit.

“Oh, Eve.” He reaches for me.

I hold up my hand. “Will you do me a favor while we’re here?”

“Anything.”

“Let’s enjoy the here and now and try not to think about other things.”

West ponders that. “Well, a thank you is in order.”

“For?”

“For being honest with that request. That’s all I ever want from you. You know that, right? Honesty and trust.”

Guilt squeezes my guts. Honesty and trust—two things I have yet to completely give him. “I’ll do my best. I promise.”

“Do one better. It’s clear I’m absolutely in like with you.”

His words warm me. “I’m in like with you, too.” Of course, I am.

“Then do one better and always talk to me. Whatever it is, just talk. If I say or do anything that makes you nervous, please tell me. I can’t read your mind, but I can read your body language, and I can tell that I make you uneasy sometimes. I don’t want to ever scare you, okay?”

“You don’t scare me.” But he does. In a good way.

“Just make sure you tell me if I do.”

My anxiousness kicks back in, and I will my nerves to settle. Why am I so edgy?

“Don’t worry,” he says, reading my body language. “I get nervous with you, too.”

A little homework assignment,Anne’s words float across my brain.

West reaches across the couch cushion that separates him from me and toys with my fingers. “What are you thinking about?”

My homework assignment from Anne, but I answer, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” he teases, setting our glasses aside.

I study the flickering shadows across his jaw, more than aware of everything about him.

West turns to me, scooting a little closer, visually tracing every one of my features. “You’re very beautiful.”

Gently, he places a feather kiss on each tip of my fingers, then he runs his hand along the back of my neck and pulls me forward. He gives a lingering kiss to my right cheek before slowly brushing down to my mouth. Lightly, he rubs his lips back and forth across mine, then moves over to my left cheek and presses a kiss there, too.

West slides back down to my lips, and this time I open. Our tongues tentatively touch. He tastes of wine. I open my mouth a little more, and he circles my tongue with his own, sucking it in and pulsing it back out in a seductive rhythm.

He’s never kissed me like that before. With a moan, I pull him closer.

He slips his arm around my back and slides me down to the couch. Stretching out on top of me, he trails his lips across my cheek to my neck, and then nibbles a path to my collarbone.