“Maybe we should get back to work before Kendra gets back.”
“You said you wanted me to talk to you, James. This is what we need to talk about. I can’t keep working with you if you need me to keep my distance, if we have to walk on eggshells with each other as we have with these other people, if I can’t tell you what I’m feeling.”
As soon as he said those words, I knew we’d gone too far.
And that intensity about him as he looked at me? It alerted me exactly to what he meant.
“Oh, Kyle. I don’t think you should say any more.”
“Fine. I won’t say a damn thing.”
He moved swiftly toward me, too quickly, and before I knew it, his lips were pressed against mine as he pushed me to the shelf behind me.
I was so stunned, it was like my brain stopped as sensation swept through me, fire in my veins, a surge of adrenaline coursing through me. I could hardly feel my limbs, let alone understand what was happening to me as thoughts scrambled. All those fears he’d ignited, about Sheila, about his past, they all shattered, and there was just this moment—the moment I clung to as I kissed him back.
Tasted his mouth.
Felt that closeness with another person.
Relief like I’d never felt before.
Relief I’d wished for in tear-stained moments, crying on the floor and in the bedroom.
The sort of relief I’d denied myself for too long as I kissed him again and again, hooking my arm around him and drawing him closer.
A distant cry in the back of my mind told me all those things that I knew damn well already, all those things I wasn’t listening to as I enjoyed the sensation of his tongue sliding across mine.
Had I stopped breathing? Fuck. I had to pull away to catch my breath.
Kyle put his hand on the back of my neck, his breath hitting my face as I recovered from the moment, and in that instant, we fell from the heaven we’d created, colliding with the earth.
It was a painful fall. Like Milton’s Satan cast from the heavens by God.
Kyle looked at my lips. I wondered if they were as wet as his.
I spit out, “I— I shouldn’t have—”
“But you wanted to.” He released my neck, pulling back to glance me over. His gaze narrowed, as though he’d discovered some great secret about me. And perhaps he had. Hell, I just had.
“Kyle, I—”
“Guys?”
Before either of us had a chance to say anything more, Kyle whirled around, and I saw Kendra over his shoulder. She stepped in, eyeing us peculiarly.
The real horror of what we’d done caught up with me, reminding me why it was so terrible to have caved in a moment of weakness to the desire I hadn’t been able to deny myself.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Everything’s fine,” I assured her.
Kyle turned to me, his eyes settling on my lips, then meeting my gaze. I didn’t have to wonder what that look meant, and I certainly knew better than to think there was anything appropriate about it.
“Well, surprise,” she said. “Apparently the sitter accidentally double-booked, so I asked one of the other baseball moms if she could watch Finn for a bit. I appreciate you guys coming to help out, but you mind if we call it a day so I can get back? I’d say I’d leave the key, but I’d feel like something else if I asked you to come and also to do all the work. And looks like you guys made a lot of progress while I was gone.” She chuckled uneasily, clearly flustered by her predicament.
“I think heading out is a good idea,” I said.
I needed to get out of there, clear my head, but how could I clear it after what just happened?
Even after closing up the library, my body was still fucking vibrating from the experience. I wondered if Kyle would try to confront me, but he went on his way. It was for the best, given what happened.
We needed to think this through. We needed to fucking contemplate the serious ramifications of our actions.
“Was everything okay back there?” Kendra asked me. “It looked like Kyle might have been trying to start a fight with you?”
“What?”
“The look on his face.”
“No. We were…talking about something he’s going through,” I explained. Something we were both going through, apparently.
“Oh, good. That makes more sense. Just…that kid worries me.”