Just One Kiss - J. Saman Page 0,27
with you, London. There was no ivy league in my future. You have always been a million miles apart from me and I knew it.”
Her eyebrows knit together, her body leaning closer to mine, deeper into my chest. “Then why—”
A growl sears past my lips, a hand running through my hair. Fuck it.
“Because I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to you. I thought about it. Debated it. I knew nothing could come of anything with you. But when I saw you standing there, sipping on your drink and having a quiet moment, I needed to do more than just say goodbye. I had to kiss you because I had wanted to kiss you for three years and if I was never going to see you again, then I had nothing left to lose.”
Tears leak over the edges of her eyes and I brush them away, bringing my hands back up to her face. Her breath hitches and she looks so sad. I want to kiss it all away. London Canterbury should never know from sadness.
“I didn’t know you were living in foster care.”
“No one did.”
“You could have told me.”
“Tell you what? That my dad died when I was eight. That my mom decided when he died she didn’t want to be my mother anymore and left because she couldn’t handle looking at me and remembering him? That’s not exactly the story you go around telling people. Especially in a high school like the one we went to.”
“Jesus, Miles,” she says on a sob. “You’re wrong about us. We were friends. At least that’s what I considered us. Did you mean what you just said?”
“Which part?”
“That you had wanted to kiss me for three years?”
My thumb skirts over her bottom lip, my eyes staring down, watching the motion, before I find her eyes again. “Since the moment I saw you.”
She lets out a humorless laugh. “Well then, I wish you had done it earlier. Because I sure as hell had wanted you to.”
“You did?” I stare at her incredulously.
She nods slowly, her eyes on me and her swallow heavy. I lean into her, our faces inches apart and our eyes fused as one. My heart thunders in my chest.
A warning to step back.
This woman. This beautiful, incredible woman who makes me laugh and smile when I haven’t in years—maybe not ever—blows back into my life with the force of a wrecking ball, hellbent on total destruction.
I lean in farther, our noses practically touching, and I hear her take a deep breath. I follow the way she licks her lips. I catch the hint of toothpaste and the sweetness of the maple syrup she poured all over her pancakes on her breath.
“Firefly,” I whisper inches from diving into the heaven that is her mouth, just as a loud bark startles us apart like two teenagers caught in the act.
London takes a step away from me, her eyes dropping down to Betsy because she’s safe territory and I’m not. I was seconds away from devouring her, consequences be damned, and she knows it. But then London giggles, shaking her head and biting into her lip, her eyes lavender and playful, all traces of lust washed away, and I chuckle because what else is there to do.
Cock-blocked by my dog. So typical.
Running a frustrated hand through my hair, I try to catch my breath. I meet London’s steadfast gaze and reality hits me square in the chest.
She’s not mine to kiss.
“We should go back to the house,” I tell her, my voice growing an edge I wish wasn’t there, but am powerless to hide. Because the truth is, if we stay here, I’m going to kiss her. And then where will I be when she leaves?
Chapter Ten
LONDON
Miles leads me through the long, enclosed breezeway—can it be called a breezeway if it’s enclosed?— back to the main house. We’re silent and I’m not sure what the hell is going on. I wanted him to kiss me. Just the thought of it made my toes curl and my knees weak and my nipples hard and my stomach dip.
And that was just the thought of his lips on mine.
But I have to wonder at the wisdom of giving into this.
Is it nostalgia? Unfinished business? Are those the reasons that I find I want this guy like I haven’t wanted a man in I don’t even remember how long? I mean, how does that even make sense? I’ve been here only twenty-four hours and to add to that,