Page 60 of Love JD

We got through two more stores before I noticed Isla swaying on her feet. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out that her episodes were tied to food and water. The longer she went without them, the more likely she was to get a headache or fall over. We’d gathered quite a curious, less-than-subtle audience during our expedition, so I figured it was time.

I slipped my hand into hers again, and the ease of it caused another rotating click in my chest. “Let’s go to the food court,” I suggested.

Isla had little, tired half-moons under her eyes, and she gave me a weary blink. “Must we?”

“This is the part where I save your reputation,” I reminded her, bending low to whisper in her ear. Phone cameras clicked. They hadn’t even bothered to silence them.

“By having me pretend to faint? They’ll see through that.” She walked beside me slowly, leaning against my arm as we made our way toward the savory aromas mingling together in the food court on the floor above us.

“Who said anything about pretending?”

Her hand tightened around mine. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“I’ll catch you,” I replied lightly. We rode the escalator up, and the scent of fried food pulled my hungry stomach forward.

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” she practically shrieked through gritted teeth. “I can’t just make it happen.”

“I’ve got ideas.”

“What, you’re finally going to clock me over the head like you’ve been wanting to—”

I pulled her aside at the top of the escalator, swirling her around so we stood off to the side, and then I dropped our bags to the ground. We might have been out of the way, but we were on full display. With the glass wall on the balcony that overlooked the bustling crowd below, and the packed food court on the other side, we might as well have been on a stage.

I gathered Isla close and then cupped her face so I could tilt it up to mine. She eyed me with barely restrained panic. “What are you doing?”

I inhaled the scent of strawberry shampoo and that earthy purity that emanated from her skin and reminded me of fresh rain. “Making you nervous.”

Her throat bobbed. “Mission accomplished.”

I bent closer, whispering a kiss on the side of her neck and nuzzling it with my nose. I felt her shiver, and I smiled. “Three seems like a perfectly round number for lessons, don’t you think?”

“It’s a prime number,” she squeezed out, “not a round number.”

“Hmm,” I skated my lips up her neck and to her jaw. “Your ability to take my expressions literally is giving me good cause to shut you up, Isla Valehart.”

“It’s possible I do that on purpose,” she admitted in a breathy voice.

I kissed her jaw, and then the corner of her mouth. That gave me shivers. That spot on her mouth, the little juncture between her full lips, it drove me wild. “Then you’ve got this coming,” I murmured.

She exhaled, and her body trembled when she did. I knew my aim here was to make her pass out from nerves, but suddenly, the only thing on my mind was losing myself in the feel of her full lips. I wanted to hear the happy hum she made when our kiss connected, and I wanted her to melt into my body the way she had done the first time.

I captured her lips in a searing kiss, moving my hands so one pressed the small of her back to line her body up with mine, and the other around the back of her neck. She wrapped her arms around me, lifting herself on her tiptoes to lean into the kiss with wild abandon.

Jesus, she felt good. The way her tongue darted out with uncertain tenacity. The way she sighed into the kiss and deepened it hungrily, it drove me crazy.

When I finally pulled away, I gave her a smoldering blink. “You were supposed to pass out.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You do realize you’re the most contrary creature to ever bounce over the Earth’s crust, right?” I drawled.

She cocked a smile. “Yes. But you don’t make me want to faint, Zev,” she whispered, still on her tiptoes and hanging off my shoulders with dainty grace. “You’re like Christmas morning. I get excited and nervous, but it’s the good kind.”

Click, click…

My breath squeezed tight in my lungs. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t playing fair if she said things like that. “Oh,” was all I could manage to say.

She gave me a timid smile. “Yeah.” Then she looked around as if she had just realized there were phones and eyes glued to us. “Um… I can’t make myself faint. Do you want me to fake it?”

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