Truth or Dare - Danielle Allen Page 0,48

mine by his beard, I pressed my lips against his.

As if we had all the time in the world, it was a slow, unhurried kiss. It wasn’t like our stolen kisses in the bathroom. There was no sense of urgency or sexual charge to it. Our mouths moved sensually and full of reverence as we embraced the deeper connection.

It was a kiss from the heart.

With each meeting of our tongues, our emotional needs were being expressed and our feelings were being communicated. Every time I leaned in, I told him things I was too afraid to admit, too afraid to say, and too afraid to feel. When he leaned in, he told me his wants, his needs, his desires. Every other kiss we’d shared was amazing. But that kiss on the beach with the waves crashing in the background was perfect.

“Wow,” I breathed when he pulled away. I let my eyelashes flutter open and I was met with a look that made my heart leap from my chest.

A figure a few feet away made my soul leap from my body.

I yelped. Kingston jumped and spun around.

“Sorry,” Chloe said as she continued to approach. Dom was a few yards behind her. “Hey, sorry. Simone can I talk to you—alone?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Dropping a soft kiss against my lips, Kingston got up and went over to where Dom was standing.

Chloe sat down next to me. She was still wearing her wedding dress, so the billowy white fabric made it seem as if she were sitting on a cloud. For the first minute neither of us said anything.

“I’m sorry I scared you. I was trying to wait until you two wrapped it up, but you guys were really going at it,” Chloe started.

I looked at her, but I didn’t say anything.

Her chin quivered. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” she continued. “You’re not a bad friend and you’re not selfish.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when feelings for Kingston started developing,” I apologized in return.

She reached for my hand and I took it.

“Maria and Tisha told me that Corrine and Omar had a thing going on—another hookup I apparently missed that was right under my nose,” she told me with a shake of her head. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t even mad at you. I was just…”

I waited.

She let go of my hand and wiped her eyes and then grabbed my hand again. “With Corrine’s divorce being finalized, she’s been so weird about my wedding. At one point, she insinuated she wasn’t going to come and that it was going to make her too sad. So, I got it in my head that if she had a date, she wouldn’t act like that. When I told her there was someone I wanted to introduce her to, she seemed more comfortable coming. And then when she missed her flight on purpose, something snapped. Mom and Dad have been great, but they’ve been really trying to support and respect Corrine’s feelings during this time. And I get that… I do. But I needed them to be happy for me. I needed Corrine to be okay so my parents wouldn’t feel guilty about being happy for me.”

My eyes were wide as I stared at her. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

She shrugged. “I told my cousin and she said that divorce was the hardest thing anyone has to go through. Especially how her situation went down. So then I felt like the asshole for being upset about it.”

“I’m not saying divorce isn’t difficult. I’ve seen people at work fall apart and take extended leave to deal with it. But it is possible to be sad about something and happy for someone at the same time. And don’t get me wrong, I can see how the wedding would be a trigger for her, but this was a lot.”

“Don’t say anything about what I’m about to tell you,” she insisted, lowering her voice even though the guys were fifteen feet away.

“I won’t,” I promised.

“Corrine got divorced because one of her best friends was sleeping with her husband.”

My mouth dropped. “What?”

“Do you remember Kat? The one who did my braids for your birthday in Vegas?”

“What?” I screeched.

Chloe nodded. “Yeah. And she found out because she heard them through a wall. She’d stopped by Kat’s house on her lunch break to drop off her birthday gift. She had called and knocked and didn’t get an answer, so she was going to leave the gift in the foyer. She said she heard