my lip for a second. “Why haven’t you ever tried to kiss me?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me.
When a five full seconds had passed—which felt like five years—I got nervous. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s a stupid question, and the answer is none of my business. Obviously, you’ve just never felt that impulse or you’d have done it. And that’s fine, it’s totally fine. I don’t know what’s going on with me. I think I’m just feeling bad about myself, and I—”
He moved so fast, I didn’t even see it coming. One second I was sitting there gripping my hair over one shoulder, burning with humiliation and wishing a hole would open up in the sand and swallow me, and the next I felt his lips on mine, his hands on either side of my face.
My pulse went haywire as the shock and thrill of his kiss moved through me like lightning. His mouth was warm and firm, and covered mine completely. His lips moved with slow, strong confidence, and his tongue sought mine with hungry strokes. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t even kiss him back. My hands remained wrapped around my hair as heat pooled at my center and my mind spiraled with happy, dizzy, unimaginable excitement. A small sound issued from the back of my throat—a gasp for air, a plea for more, a cry of blossoming desire.
Suddenly Noah let go of me, breaking the kiss, and I fell back on my elbows in the sand. I hadn’t even realized he’d been holding me up. I blinked at him as the wind whipped my hair around my face again.
“Fuck,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. “No, don’t be—”
“I don’t know what I was thinking.” He jumped to his feet and moved a few feet toward the water, readjusting his cap. Renzo came running over with the stick again, but Noah didn’t throw it.
For a few seconds, I just lay there on my elbows, staring at Noah’s broad back and trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Last I could remember, I’d said something stupid and embarrassing, and he’d gone silent. Then all of a sudden, his lips were—
I closed my eyes as my core muscles clenched. God, he was a good kisser. Even better than in my fantasy. And I loved the way his hands had grabbed me that way. Possessively. Hungrily.
Why had he apologized?
When I opened my eyes again, Noah was walking slowly toward me, his face grim, his jaw set. His dark eyes were shadowed by the bill of his cap, but I didn’t need to see them to know they were full of regret. His body language was clear.
I started to get up, and he offered me a hand. Placing my palm in his, I rose to my feet, but I still didn’t feel all that steady.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
I took my hand back. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. Let me say this.” He exhaled. “Your question threw me off balance. Because it’s not true that I haven’t thought about kissing you. I’ve thought about it a thousand times.”
I stared at him. “You have?”
“Yeah.” He looked down the beach in the direction we’d come from. “But I talked myself out of it every time.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to ruin what we have.”
I nodded slowly. “I get that.”
“You might think you’re not good at letting people know what they mean to you, but you are. I don’t need very many people in my life, and I don’t need them often, but you’ve been there for me.”
“Just like you’ve been there for me.”
“Which is exactly why giving in to whatever physical attraction we feel is a bad idea, Meg. It would change things. Probably ruin them.”
Meg. He never called me Meg. Things were different already.
“But—”
“It wouldn’t be worth it,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve gone over and over this in my mind. Because as much fun as it would be to say fuck it all and take you to bed, I’d be too afraid of losing what we have.”
I don’t care, I thought stubbornly. Say fuck it all and take me to bed.
But he was right to be scared.
“I’d be afraid too,” I admitted. “Although I agree—it probably would be fun.”
“Oh, there is no probably,” he said with the touch of that cockiness I was used to in his voice. “It would be epic.”