My Know-It-All Nemesis - Maggie Dallen Page 0,32

going straight to my head like a drug, addling my senses. Or maybe that was his voice, all low and sexy. Or maybe it was the look in his eyes as he drew so close I could touch him. “You, Kate Andrews, are stronger, smarter, and more ambitious than anyone I’ve ever met. And that is…”

I was getting lightheaded, but I couldn’t breathe. Not until he finished that sentence. That is…nerdy? Crazy? Freakish?

He reached out and brushed back a lock of hair. “That is so sexy.”

10

Miller

I shouldn’t do it. Once was bad enough, and I was still trying to figure out what I’d been thinking when I’d kissed her before. Don’t do it.

Too late I realized that the voice of reason in the back of my brain was fading fast. It was being drowned out by this overwhelming need to touch her. To hold her.

To kiss her.

Logic and reason ground to a halt as I watched her lips part on a gasp as I leaned forward. Her beautiful blue eyes were wide with expectation and…wanting. She wanted this as much as I did.

I groaned with defeat as I tipped my head down and kissed her. Again. But this time was completely different. This wasn’t rushed madness, or a crazy impulse.

This was deliberate. And it. Was. Perfect.

Her lips were warm and soft, her mouth sweet and welcoming as I brushed my lips over hers. Gently, and with excruciating care, I touched her hair, her face, her neck. Letting her get used to the feel of me, too, as her hands reached out hesitantly, fluttering over my chest and my shoulders, like she wasn’t quite sure where they should land. I pulled back slightly, hating the distance but needing to know. “Have you ever been kissed before, Kate?”

She blinked, her eyes sweetly dazed, but a wariness creeping in as my words registered and she shook her head.

She thought I was going to make fun of her. Crazy girl. She could have no idea how much that little shake of her head meant to me. How my chest ached at the knowledge that she was trusting me with her first kiss. That I was able to get this close to a girl who was honestly the most amazing person I knew.

I leaned down until my nose brushed against hers, hoping she could feel my sincerity as I said, “Well then, I’m honored to be your first kiss.”

I heard her inhale, I could practically hear her brain working trying to figure out if I was teasing or not. I held my breath for the heartbeat it took her to deliberate. “I’m not joking, Kate.”

Then her lips quirked up at the corners in the sweetest little smile I’d ever seen.

I let out a sigh as I kissed her again, and this time she was far less hesitant, her arms twining around my neck as mine wrapped around her waist and pulled her close. My heart was thudding against my ribcage as I lost myself in that kiss. Everything else seemed to fade away, and all that was left was her. Kate. In my arms.

Nothing in my life had ever felt so good. So right.

She fit against me like we’d been made for this. The smell of her shampoo, so familiar but so novel, because now it was mine. It would be forever locked away in my memory along with this kiss. It was the same with the sound of her voice—so familiar, and yet so new when she sighed and moaned as my lips moved from her lips to her jaw and down to her neck.

She tasted like honey…she felt like heaven. This side of her was totally new and so perfect. Like after years of fighting, we finally figured out how to be around each other in a way that worked.

And oh, how it worked.

She was on fire in my arms, and I had never felt more alive. For the first time, I felt like I was exactly where I needed to be. I wasn’t trying to be something I wasn’t. I was me. And she was Kate.

And together we were perfect.

Somebody cranked up the volume of the music outside by the pool, and the jarring sound of a booming bass line had Kate jerking away from me with a start. She blinked rapidly, her chest rising and falling quickly as she stumbled a few steps back.

I felt it too. Reality crashing down around us, ruining this kiss which had felt like a moment