Somewhere Over the Freaking Rainbow - By L.L. Muir Page 0,62
without intending to, but now she was back.
Just as long as he didn't kiss her anymore.
And even if he did, if she couldn't stop him, she could at least refrain from kissing him in return. It seemed to work. No one enjoyed kissing a cold fish, of course. She just needed to be the fish.
When she thought he'd had sufficient time to cool down, she climbed back off the boulder and turned right into him. His hands clenched around her arms, to steady her, then he let go.
She had to remind herself it was a good thing, ignore the tingling in his touch.
“I’m sorry. I’ll try not to kiss you.” He grinned, his teeth glowing white in the dying light. “But I can’t promise of course. I have a...a project I’m working on and kissing you might be necessary.”
She couldn’t help but smile at her own words being thrown back at her.
“I can promise, however,” he said, picking up her hands and kissing the backs of them between words, “that if you ask nicely, I’ll still kiss you against my will.”
She looked at her hands, looking for a difference in the places his lips had touched. She tried not to feel that difference in the bite size areas—
No! Cold fish! She needed to be cold, distant. There was nothing to feel!
She pulled out of his grasp and backed away. He smiled and kept coming.
“Jamison, stop. I don’t want you to kiss me anymore. You’ve already done enough damage.”
He stopped, bending a little at the waist. His mouth dropped open.
She shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t his fault, truly. It was no one’s fault that she faced the choices she now faced. Like she’d told him before, it really had been Fate, or Providence that had taken her to Lanny, not Jamison.
“What have I done, Skye? Tell me. Are you in some kind of trouble because of me? Is it because I kept you up in the tree house?” He walked toward her, his arms out, his palms open as if he needed to convince her he wouldn’t harm her. He knelt at her feet. “Tell me. What is it? Who can I talk to? None of it was your fault!”
She wanted to reach into his hair and pull him toward her, hold him close and take his worries away. But would that be best? Wouldn’t they both be better off if he did believe he had crossed some line, that if he didn’t back away, she’d be punished for it?
She swallowed back the denial wanting to jump from her lips.
“There is nothing you can do now, Jamison. What’s done is done. No one’s fault. Only it has to end. Now.”
Tears lined up in his eyes when he looked at her, and she nearly took it all back and told him the truth. But like many times in the lives of mortals, it was best to get the pain over with so the healing could begin.
“I’ve broken some rules. I can’t break them again.” It could be true. Kind of.
“But if it was my fault—”
“Jamison, you are mortal. You were born to make mistakes.” She took a haughty step back from him. “I was not.”
He stood and searched her face for some emotion. There was none to find.
“I’m sorry just the same.” After a minute, he cleared his throat. “You’ll let me know if there is something I could do, to help?”
The chill in his voice matched her own. She should be relieved, not feeling the urge to bend forward and catch a breath she’d never need, maybe wait for tears that would never come.
“Yes, I’ll let you know. But there won’t be.”
He nodded and started back to the car. He opened her door and left it. He wasted no time climbing in and starting the engine, then just stared forward until she was inside.
He drove fast, but not too fast. She left his memories alone, suggested nothing. That last hour to Flat Springs dragged like two. He never looked her way. She kept her hands in her lap. It was dark when they neared the first Flat Springs exit.
“Home or the hospital?”
She jumped. He’d surprised her, finally speaking.
“Hospital.” Cool and aloof. No apologies. It was her duty to see to Kenneth, she didn’t need to explain herself.
Jamison turned north. When he parked the car there was the tiniest of hesitations, as if he wanted so much to say something before their road trip ended. But before he could, she grabbed