Page 9 of A Wedding in a Week

We’re only a few inches apart from each other as well, and yet he comes closer, his bare chest warm against my forearm, and my fingers flex without permission, tingling with nerve damage and the itch to touch him like I could have done that summer.

Perhaps he remembers the same moment. His gaze stops at my mouth before rising. “Lukas sent me photos. Of the crash site, I mean. I could see how close you came to—” His Adam’s apple bobs. “I saw the skid marks. The tyre rubber on the tarmac, the gouges across the clifftop, and I knew—” He swallows again, looking away. “I knew I’d kick myself forever if I didn’t come back. That I might not get a second chance to see you. Another chance to—”

I can’t listen to pain that I want to kiss better.

It’s that easy and that complex.

I want to kiss him. Now. Right here where he belongs—where he’s always belonged—not see him get together with some stranger who can’t know that he’s special. Because that’s what he is—so, so special, and not only to me. Could I have had any more reminders, from my brother’s early wake-up call to John’s description?

Marc’s ours.

Or maybe he could be if I can find a way to get those words out. But asking for something for myself doesn’t come easy. Besides, I don’t get a chance to.

It’s Marc who makes the first move. Marc whose hand wraps around the nape of my neck to tug me down to meet him. Him who says, “Just to get you out of my system for good, yeah?” And it’s Marc’s mouth on mine, his lips soft and giving.

His face tilts up, and I’m a fool for ever thinking I knew beauty when I saw it. All those farm reminders were only a prelude, a hint, nothing compared to the reality of what it’s like to kiss him.

Or, if I’m honest, to be kissed by him.

His fingers flex and he shifts closer, bare chest kicking out heat that I feel through my shirt. He’s still damp, which registers on a delay, my brain snagged on the sensation of not only his lips on mine but his tongue too. It presses, testing, sliding in when I open my mouth, and fuck…

Fuck.

This is what I said no to? This rush? This wild coursing of blood and breath that ends with both of my hands in his hair, one elbow screaming at the angle?

He kisses me like it isn’t Cornish pasties or cream teas he’s starved for. It’s me—only me—and it doesn’t feel like any kiss I’ve had in the years between the last time he made this offer and now. An offer he hasn’t put into words this time.

Today he takes instead of asking, his kiss exactly as wild as the moorland my farm borders, something feral unfurling, stretching like Marc does to wind both arms around my neck. He clings, but not like a vine or ivy does around a tree trunk. His grip holds me up, and it needs to—I’d fall to my fucking knees if he let go, only that would mean losing this contact, this electric slide of tongues that deepens. He sets nerves alight in a way that feels like waking up in the hospital all over again with no clue what happened to me.

I’m awake now for what feels like the first time in forever, and it’s the best—

His phone chimes yet a-fucking-gain, and Marc breaks off. He blinks up at me, his lips parted, his pupils shot wide, and the moment’s broken, only this time it’s by an alarm rather than by another dating-app interruption.

“It’s a reminder,” Marc explains, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “To get ready for an interview.” He backs towards the farmworker cottage where he chose to stay with John instead of my brother’s bedroom like he used to. Now I regret that distance. It means his voice fades. “It’s in Penzance. It’s only a first stage interview. No clue if it’ll lead anywhere long term for me.”

“You… you want it to though?”

He stops and nods. “It’s my best shot at staying in Cornwall while putting my degree to good use. The only trainee spot as an enterprise consultant in the county.” He shoves a hand through his hair, plucking straw from it. “Not convinced that turning up like this will make the best first impression. I need to get cleaned up.”

I realise I’m following him and manage to stop myself. I can’t keep in a strangled sounding, “I’ll see you after your interview?”

“Not sure.” Marc taps his pocket, a reminder of the dinner date I just watched him agree to. “I’ll probably be back late.” He touches his lips. “I… Sorry, Stef. About…” He touches his lips again.

“Don’t be.” That’s about all I can get out while something in me soars like seagulls do above us. “I’m not.”

They plummet as soon as he chuffs out a short laugh. “It’s being back here, that’s all.” He shoves his hands in his back pockets. “It’s definitely out of my system now.” His voice is firm like the line he draws between us. “The past is the past.”

“It doesn’t ha—”

Marc nods like we’ve come to a past-is-the-past agreement before I finish. Then he’s gone, and I don’t know how long I stand behind the feed store until my own phone takes a turn at chiming.

Lukas.

He’s sent a selfie showing him at his pixie finest, one eyebrow raised in a way I can never mimic. Questions quickly follow.

Lukas: Still putting on the strong and silent act, you bonehead?

Lukas: Have you at least thanked Marc for dropping everything to help you?

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