Page 25 of Catching Our Moment

I gawked. “That’s not true.” None of this was making any sense.

Shaw had been the most eligible guy in our senior year.

He’d grown out of his awkward teen years and had filled in that lanky frame I’d always teased him about.

And boy, did he fill in. The popular, gorgeous girls had been nice to me just because I was his friend.

They hadn’t even been jealous, because they knew he was so out of my league.

In fact, it had been one of Chloe’s friends who’d set me up with Brett.

He shook his head and took another sip, staring out the window. Then he pulled out his phone and put down his glass. After a moment, music started to play through the speakers.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m prying my head out of my ass,” he said as he took my hand, walked us to the back porch, and turned on the soft lights I had helped him string up a few weeks before.

Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” started to play through his portable speaker.

“Dance with me,” he said, extending his hand out to me as if it were a scene in my most romantic dream.

I stepped back. “What is this about, Shaw?” Was this because I went on a date?

“Kelce, honey…” He tilted his head down, his eyes glittering with the lights and the shadows softening his features. And while my heart skipped many, many beats, my mind couldn’t read him.

“I don’t understand…” I began, but he wrapped an arm around my waist and gently tugged me into his arms. Shaw and I had hugged often, and my body had been close to his more times than I could remember. But this was different.

He nudged my head to look up at him, and I couldn’t say another word. His gaze danced under lowered brows. I touched his face, unexpectantly, to see if he was real.

“Ask me why I didn’t love her,” he said, his voice deep and soft. I was very aware of his hand splayed over my lower back.

“Who? Chloe?”

He shook his head, and the side of his mouth pulled up, making him even more irresistible. He caught my eye. “Why didn’t I love Riley? Ask me why I didn’t love any of the women I dated over the last…hell…ever.”

How much had he had to drink? “You’ve never been in love?” My voice was a whisper.

“Have you? Have you ever really been in love?” he asked me through tight lips, his eyes narrowed.

I looked away. I didn’t want to answer him. “What is with you this evening?” I asked, making a half-hearted attempt to pull away.

He swung me around and bent to my ear. “Tell me. Have you ever been in love?”

I swallowed hard.

“Because I have.” His breath on my skin, in my ear, was melting me. He nuzzled my neck and mumbled, “Shit, I think I still am.”

I had no words. I was speechless, afraid where this was going but wanting—no needing—for him to explain.

He pulled back, and I couldn’t hide my heart as he ensnared my bewildered gaze.

A flush flew over his face as he whispered, “I can face a line of three-hundred-pound men who want to destroy me each week, but you…here you are, bringing me to my knees.” The scent of bourbon was on his breath as I fought the desire to wrap my arms around his neck and thread my hands through his amazing hair.

He cupped my face and drew his thumb across my lips, sending shivers throughout my body. His gaze darted from my eyes to my mouth, his tongue traced his bottom lip, and our breathing grew heavy and in sync. “Just…” Was his voice shaky? “Let me just do this…just once. I need to know…”

Then Dawson Shaw kissed me.

He was as gentle as a na?ve teen experiencing it for the first time.

He was soft, moving his lips over mine in a slow dance.

His hand threaded through my hair, tilting me to a better angle before his tongue parted my welcoming mouth, and we tasted each other.

Each movement took us deeper, creating a greater hunger and feeding a mounting frenzy.

To stop my eyes from filling with tears at the utter beauty of him and the way he was treating me, as if I was so unbelievably special—and to stop myself from realizing I could still fall further for him—I grabbed both sides of his face, never wanting to let him go.

I felt like I was on some ethereal planet I never wanted to leave. It was the final piece of the puzzle.

With one kiss, the wall separating what we’d believed we were to each other fell. God, the fates, the stars, the journey we’d been on…it had brought us here. We kissed, and a part of me that had always been hiding emerged, feeling beautiful for him.

I felt beautiful for him, to him…because of him.

He pulled back, his eyes closed, his brows lifted, his lips parted and deliciously swollen.

While his eyes were closed, mine were wide open, and I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—take my eyes off him.

I wanted to memorize every moment with him in case it never happened again.

In case the world rushed in, and this was just a fantasy.

In case my life intruded and reminded me that this would never work.

I just wanted to stare at this beautiful boy—my gorgeous man.

Because he would always be both to me. The beautiful boy who’d always picked me up when I fell, and the gorgeous man I never deserved.

He leaned forward, touching our foreheads together, his eyes still closed, and he lifted one of my hands to his mouth, kissing my fingers. “I don’t know if I’ve ever known a bigger challenge than what I did just now.”

“Excuse me?” I pulled back. “Kissing me is a challenge?”

“No, it’s not kissing you—although making that first move did take me almost two decades. It was finding the courage to stop.” He lifted the other hand and kissed it. “Because I knew as soon as I did, that brain of yours was going to hit me with all the reasons it should never have happened.”

My brain still wasn’t connecting the right synapses to produce cohesive sentences, so I squeezed his hands. I thought it would be reassuring.

“Say something,” he said. “You’re never at a loss for words.”

“I have no words,” I said.

He pulled back slightly, one side of his mouth tilting up. “You mean, all I would’ve had to do to win an argument with you was find the courage to kiss you. Man, what a coward I’ve been.”

“Dawson, we should go inside,” I said, glancing over to the back door leading into my side of the house. I feared the moment disappearing as we stepped into the house and back to reality, but I didn’t want to risk Aaron seeing us.

“Dawson?” He reared back and led me back through the door.

I shrugged. “Seems like the moment called for something more than just Shaw. The world calls you Shaw.” What I didn’t say was that I didn’t want to be like everyone else. I stared at those beautiful, reddened lips, wanting to feel them again. “How much have you had to drink tonight, anyway?”

His smile was infectious, and my libido was telling my doubts to shut the hell up. “I’m not drunk, Kelce. I may have needed a little liquid courage to finally kiss you, but trust me, I’m completely sober now.”

My smile was unrestrained as I said, “Then let’s do that some more…” I shrugged awkwardly. “You’re pretty good at it.”

He swept me up in his one good arm, pivoted, and sat on the sofa with me in his lap, mischief and seduction warring in his expression. “Honey, you never have to ask. Just grab me anytime, anywhere, and I promise I will do my best.”

We touched and explored each other as much as we could in that position. He ran his hands over my calf, traveling up my leg to push my dress up just enough to touch the backside of my thigh. All the while, he was kissing behind my ear and down my throat, sending waves of heat through me.

“SHAW!” a deeper male voice shouted as he stomped through the front door.

Being a small duplex, it wasn’t like there was much of a foyer.

So, no matter how fast Shaw was or how quickly I scrambled to get out from under him, there was no way we could stop Dylan from getting an eyeful of the two of us scrambling to break apart from each other.

Instead, we wrestled to stand and knocked each other down in the process.

Shaw pushed up with his hand tangled in my hair.

I pulled my leg up into his stomach and my forehead into his jaw.

We both got our feet on the ground and tried to stand, only to trip over our legs, and grabbing each other for balance, we both fell to the floor.

Shaw wrapped his arm around me, shifting so he was on the bottom.

He let out a groan of pain as I fell on top of him, undoubtedly tweaking his shoulder.

“Oh, my God. Shaw? Are you okay?” I said, pushing up on my hands, which happened to be braced on both of his shoulders.

He let out another groan. “Shoulder, Kelce…”

I straddled his body to remove both offending hands, horrified that I was causing him pain.

He threw his head back and stared up at Dylan, who was hovering over us. “Well, well, what is going on here?”

I shifted to face Dylan. “What the hell are you doing here?” I said, in an echo of years past, to Shaw’s annoying little brother.

Shaw let out another groan and grabbed my thighs. I liked having his hands on me. Dylan needed to leave.

“I could say the same for you, Kelcie. I thought you were on a date.”

I shifted again, and Shaw’s hands tightened.

I stared down at him under me. His eyes were closed, and he was pinching the bridge of his nose. “What? What did I do now?” I asked.

“Get out,” he gritted to Dylan. His voice dropped, then he said to me, “Kelcie, darling, please sit still.”

“Am I hurting you?”

He cleared his throat. “Not exactly…” He glanced down at the area of the body I straddled, and well, I saw what my shifting had accomplished.

Heat flooded through me, and my cheeks burned with embarrassment, desire, impatience…

Dylan let out a low chuckle. “Oh, I don’t think so. I think I want to find out what this”—he darted his finger between the two of us—“is all about.”

Nervously, I shifted again. Shaw’s hands were vise grips on my thighs as he gritted his teeth. “What the hell do you think is happening? You are being a pain in the ass with absolute shit timing. That’s what is happening. Now get the hell out of here.”

Dylan’s smile widened astronomically. “Well, hell. It’s about time.

” He took a step back. “Here I was, coming over to console you over your break-up, but I see Kelcie has that well in hand.” Dylan pulled out his phone and was typing.

“Unfortunately, I owe Wyatt. I really thought you’d dick around at least until after Thanksgiving.

But then Grace told me about Kelcie’s date, and I was afraid you’d grow some balls and finally do something. ”

“Get. The. Hell. Out.”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

Dylan turned to the door and put the phone to his ear, “Hey, yeah, Wyatt, tell Grace to pay up. I caught them red-handed.” Dylan looked back over his shoulder with a knowing smirk.

“Wyatt told me to apologize for rudely crashing in on you, but…” He threw his hands in the air like a referee signaling a field goal, closed the door behind him, and shouted, “FINALLY!”