more intense, lowering, almost studying the shape of my lips as though he were memorizing each minute detail that came together to form the whole.
Closing my eyes, I wobbled, a bit off balance. One hand snaked around my waist, his arm pulling me even closer. My entire being melted into his, and our lines blurred to form a figure eight. I began where he ended.
We are never ending.
I’m not sure if the words came from him or me, or from someplace deeper, the connection that spoke to me through blood. Flesh and bone, heart and soul, seemed to accept this at once, and the truth rushed me.
My body went slack and a small breath escaped my parted lips. He seized this moment, putting his mouth to mine, taking my wasted breath for his own. As though I were the oxygen to his lungs, he breathed me in.
The kiss started slow but was no less powerful for it. His mouth taught mine, and without hesitation, I became his to teach. The rush of it soared through my veins, through my stomach, all the way to the tips of my toes, and back up again. It surged like a high.
Now our mouths moved together in slow motion, tender, almost fleetingly so. That was, until a throaty moan came from somewhere deep inside of me and I sunk my nails into his shoulders.
When did my hands move? Where did I find the strength? The need to touch him was instinctual.
His tongue was chilled from the beer, sweet from the chocolate cake. The kiss became more urgent, more…just more.
Where was I again? Oh, at a loss for words.
My mind refused to believe a world existed outside of ours; existed outside of this. This, whatever this was, held the power to make life cease to exist outside of the two of us.
Free. I was free to touch him, to run my hands along his smooth neck, the wide width of his shoulders, the hardness of his chest, the slope of his waist, and back up again. Discovering. He felt so solid under my hands, so safe, but he was soft too. His lips…
Oh, this is what it’s all about, I thought dimly. It takes two to possess. Without his surrender, without mine, there would be no magician and no spell.
He broke the kiss, and in an instant an intense, chilled void filled the warm space we had created.
I wasn’t alone in this. Stronger, yes, I could feel him even stronger now.
Closer, he needed to be closer too.
He entwined our fingers together, rested his forehead against mine, and kissed my lips. Once, twice, in gentle, short tastes. “The beat of my heart is yours,” he whispered. “You breathe, I breathe.” Then he placed a kiss on my chin, my lips again, each of my cheeks, the edge of my nose, my temples, over my eyes, and then on my forehead.
A loud thud came at the door, then another, and another, an irritating, harassing sound that made me flinch.
At the sound of the real world, the interruption, the spell rushed back to us, and by no means had it been broken.
Chapter Fifteen
Scarlett
Another moment passed, two more knocks, before I found my voice.
“You should get the door?”
The knocks sounded impatient, almost demanding.
“We answer when we want to.”
I blinked at him, attempting to focus. This could get addicting, I thought, the way he could cause time to stop and the world to fade. Setting a piece of hair behind my ear, he leaned down and kissed the pulse on my neck.
Another knock.
“Scarlett!”
Violet. She sounded testy.
“Now,” I breathed. “We should get that now.”
“As long as we say so,” he said, his tone serious, but he answered the door with a grin on his face.
During our kiss we had moved, his back ending up against the counter. I fiddled with the things left there, putting them away in their proper places. My hands seemed to move in their own direction. They needed to find a purpose other than trembling.
Penny, her friend, whose name had escaped me for the tenth or so time, and, of course, Violet stood in the doorway. Penny asked Brando if he knew where the fire pit by the lake was. He began to tell her—I got the impression he had been to the property with Elliott before, or had done more exploring than I thought during our absence—and my mind drifted.
Though the kiss was over, in my memories, it continued. I tasted him on my lips. Smiling,