a crazy heat, but before I can backtrack and explain that I was just being funny, ha ha, he shrugs.
“If you mean the team of ready and willing teenage boys, then sure.”
My low laugh has an edge of hysteria to it, because he’s agreeing. Agreeing. It’s insane. Maybe he doesn’t realize how wrong he is. There is not a team of teenage boys lined up to do anything with me. Regardless, this whole idea is wrong on more levels than that. He’s Emory’s best friend, which makes him unilaterally off limits. He’s a senior, and gorgeous, and popular, which makes him completely out of my league. And he’s… well, he’s the boy I shouldn’t even be out in the woods with, or talking to, let alone kissing, because we could both get in huge trouble.
But foremost, he’s Reynolds McAllister, and it strikes me uncomfortably why my mind had leapt there. It has very little to do with him being gorgeous and smelling amazing. It was all that stuff he said about not settling. It just makes a perfect kind of sense. He was the first boy I ever fell for. If I had a choice for my first kiss, it’d be him.
It’d have to be him.
“Okay,” I say, trying to sound more casual than I am, because my insides have just imploded. I feel a little faint. “Ready?”
“What?” His head snaps back. “You mean now?” his voice rises, eyes roving around the forest like my brother or Jerry or someone is about to jump out.
Once the words left my mouth, I couldn’t take them back. I try to sound cool. Aloof. This kind of thing happens to me every day. Talking gorgeous seniors into kissing me is boring stuff. “Why not? I just went to my first party, drank nasty punch, committed a party foul, and escaped from the police. What better night to get my first kiss?”
He reaches back to rub at his neck, and I remember vividly the way it felt against my cheek. “Point taken.”
“Cool.”
He runs his hands down his thighs, and this is all so antithetical to his usual stillness that I unconsciously mirror his fidgeting. I wonder if his palms are sweaty like mine, and if they are, if it’s because he’s nervous, too. Probably just worried about what Emory will say to him if he finds out. No, what Emory will do to him. Shit. Emory can never find out.
While I’m caught in a mental whirlwind, Reyn has stepped forward, closing the gap between us. I look up and see the angle of his jaw, the faint line of stubble dark against his chin. “Are you sure about this?” he asks, head tilted down.
I nod, because my words are not working right now.
He stills for a heartbeat, looking down into my face, and reaches up to his ballcap. He spins it around on his head, and I feel another one of those grand stomach-dips. He’s doing that so it won’t bump my forehead. Because we’re going to be that close. Kissing.
I wet my lips, and since the bill of his cap is no longer in the way, I can see when his eyes dart to the motion. He inches forward, tip of his toes bumping into mine. He seems a little unsure, mostly about what to do with his hands, which is not normal. Reyn never seems unsure, especially with his hands. They’re always touching, stealing, catching or throwing. He finally places one on my hip, holding me in place.
I feel it like a brand.
He meets my gaze. “This is just to make sure you don’t end up kissing a jackoff like George by mistake, okay?”
My voice is thin. “Okay.”
He reaches up to sweep my hair away from my temple, and his hand trails down the side of my face. His lips are dark pink, a little chapped, but soft-looking. I push up on my toes and the hand on my hip moves around to my back. Our bodies are pressed up against one another, and I can’t feel the same raw power as before, when his muscles were shifting against me, but I still know it’s there in the solidness of him.
He continues, “You don’t have to—"
I don’t let him finish. I press my lips against his because I don’t want to hear him keep rationalizing this, like it’s something that needs talked into being nothing. I don’t want nothing, I want this: The way his lips give against my own, reluctantly pressing