Page 65 of Puck

She didn’t tip her head forward or lay it on my chest, so I improvised—I kissed her forehead. Like before, it was a slow, soft, hesitant thing, entirely outside my realm of experience. But if she liked it, I was willing to go with it.

Colbie’s smile spread and brightened, and she wriggled farther up my body again, and it was harder to stop myself from ripping her robe off and doing some serious ravaging. I was glad I didn’t, though, because what Colbie did next blew my mind. She kissed me on the cheek. Her lips were tender and sweet as sugar and warm and wet, and the slow, delicate kiss to my cheek above my beard made my heart thump and hammer and pitter-patter like the bunny rabbit from that stupid Disney movie about the orphaned deer baby.

My adrenaline gland was, like, broken. Skydiving, firefights, car chases . . . my pulse stayed flat. Physical exertion got it pumping, of course, but that was different. Women, well . . . they never made me sweat, much less made my heart go pitter-fuckin’-patter.

I thought I stopped breathing when Colbie Danvers kissed my cheek.

“Wow,” I breathed. “Never been kissed like that before.”

She frowned. “Never? By anyone? Not even your mom?”

I managed an approximation of a casual shrug. “Nah. Ma was a hooker, and she vanished when I was like three or some shit. I don’t remember her, and she sure as shit wasn’t the type to kiss my face.”

“And Raquel—”

“Wasn’t like that.”

“How about another one, then, to make up for lost time?” She slid closer and ever so gingerly touched her lips to the other cheek, and my eyes fluttered closed and my heart clanged and pounded like I was suffering from cardiac arrhythmia. My other heart—the nonphysical one—did all sorts of weird shit, feeling things I didn’t have words for or the emotional understanding to quantify. My dick was screamingGET SOME, MOTHERFUCKER!and my hands were twitching with the need to grab on and never let go, and my mouth was . . .

Stupid.

My mouth was stupid.

I kissed her cheek. A gentle touch, a brush of my lips against her velvet skin.

And she angled her face just so, nudging her lips against the corner of my mouth. I felt her breath, felt her chest swell and contract against mine, and I felt her heart slam just as hard as mine, felt her fingers on the skin of my chest just above the neckline of my T-shirt tremble.

She didn’t move away but held where she was, trembling, breathing on my lips.

Waiting.

As obvious an invitation as I was going to get, I realized.

So slowly, giving her plenty of time to tell me I was misreading things, I slid my hands into her hair and cupped the delicate curve of the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to mine, sliding my lips against hers, tracing the parted seam of her mouth; her teeth and then her tongue was gliding on mine, searching and scouring and tasting and tangling.

Oh.

Oh.

This wasn’t just a kiss, it was . . . a Kiss. The kind of kiss that required the capital letter because it was something more, a kiss that transcended the mere connection of mouths, but was a door to the soul, hers and mine.

A Kiss.

Colbie pulled away first. “Wow,” she breathed. “Never been kissed like that before.”

I laughed at her use of my words. “Me neither, sweet thing.”

“Maybe we could do it again?”

“At least once more. Maybe twice.”

“At least. I mean, we don’t have to limit ourselves,” she whispered back, a smile on her lips.

“Limits are stupid.”

My heart palpitated and my hands shook on her cheeks, and my cock was hard, curling painfully against my zipper, unable to stretch fully erect, but I didn’t want to let go of her, didn’t want to break the kiss because it waseverything, and I didn’t care if I breathed, didn’t care if I ever came up from this kiss. I could’ve died then and have been content, because her mouth on mine was enough to erase everything that had gone before in my life, good or bad.

She slid downward to her back, bringing me with her. Her thighs parted to accept my weight, and I levered over her, one hand now cupped under her neck, the other braced in the cushion. Her heels hooked around my back, and her hips flexed, ground against me, and her hands groped me wherever she could reach, as hungry for my skin as I was hers. I felt her fingers plucking at my shirt, finding the hem, and then she ripped it over my head, only breaking the kiss long enough to admit the collar past my face, and then her lips were on mine again, hungry, devouring, eager.