A Toast to the Good Times - By Liz Reinhardt Page 0,54

on the side of her face. She grabs my wrist and kisses back.

She pulls away, her lips still slightly puckered, her eyes closed. “Back up for just one second. How did this happen again?”

“What?” I press strands of dark hair back off her face, and she licks her lips, then pinches them together.

“How were we just friends last week? And now? How did we get here? It feels like—”

“Me getting my head out of my ass?” I press my forehead against hers. “I don’t know how I lived with you for so long and didn’t see what was right in front of my face, Mila. I’m a little dense, alright? But once I realized how right you and I are for each other, I didn’t want to waste any more time. I feel like an asshole for wasting this much already. I know you’re not sure about all this, but keep me around for a while. I swear to you, I won’t let you down.”

I say the words, but even I wonder if they’re all just words turned into promises I’m not sure I can keep. I let people down. It’s what I do.

I’ll have to work my ass off to change that.

For her.

I think about Reggie and everyone else who realized how freaking awesome Mila was before I woke up to her general amazingness, and it scares the shit out of me. It’s a whole new sensation. I’ve been afraid to lose things before or to fuck up, but I’ve never been scared about a girl.

Even when things went south with Heather, it was more aggravation followed by a strange, strong dose of relief.

With Mila, my world and the way I look at it has been turned upside down and shaken, and I’m just grabbing on to her like my life depends on it.

Because I have a feeling it does.

“Landry,” she sighs, and when she kisses me this time, it’s all the wild, insistent slide of her tongue, the quick nip of her teeth, the pressure of her mouth, crushed to my face as she tries to keep connected and pull her clothes off at the same time.

I back up and slide her coat off her shoulders. We lock eyes as I grab the hem of her sweater, and she nods, so I drag it up, over her head. Though I’ve done this a thousand times before with complete success, I manage to get her tangled in the shirt. She laughs, her arms locked over her head, her face covered by the soft fabric. I jump up and tug harder, and the sweater pops off her head, leaving her collapsed on the mattress, her wild hair even crazier from the static electricity.

She sits up and reaches for my hand, zapping me.

I hardly notice. She’s so beautiful, and it’s not just the fact that her shirt is off and her bra is only a few tiny, festive scraps of red lace and shiny fabric.

I mean, it’s also that.

I’m having a hard time ripping my eyes off of all that perfection. But her smile actually rivals her seriously perfect curves, and it gets my heart thumping in a way that even her very impressive rack doesn’t.

I realize how completely sappy that is, but it’s the god’s honest truth.

“You’ve got the best smile,” I tell her, looking down at her upturned face, lit up with happiness.

My words are like some kind of switch. Her smile melts and her eyes go wider and darker. She pulls in her bottom lip and bites it, then reaches her hands up to the button of my jeans and undoes it. She tugs the zipper down and I pull a breath in through my teeth. I grab the back of my shirt and pull it over my head, pretty pumped by the appreciative ‘mmm’ she murmurs when she sees me.

My pants are hanging half off my hips. I press her back on the bed, the thin cotton of my boxer briefs letting me feel enough of her that I’m getting painfully hard, but not enough that I’m anywhere near satisfied.

I move a hand down and undo her pants, pressing them off her hips and down her long legs. She kicks them off and my eyes sweep along her body from head to toe.

From sexy, dark-haired head, to Darcy sock-adorned feet.

“I gotta ask you something,” I say as I lie close to her. She rolls on her side, her thick-lashed eyes lined up with mine. “Who the hell