Page 92 of Goodbye Note

“You’re going to set yourself on fire one day, smoking like this.”

“It’s the perfect hot box. It’s worth the risk.” I inhaled deeply before passing it.

He took a quick hit and passed it back. We smoked it until it burned our fingertips, then I shoved it into the ashtray, feeling a little lighter and more willing to face him.

“What did you want me to explain?” I knew, and I don’t know why I didn’t just say it, but the silence was too uncomfortable to sit in.

“Your ex’s aversion to kissing,” he said tentatively. Like he was holding something back.

“I don’t know why. She said she didn’t enjoy kissing anyone.” I lowered my gaze to the space between us. It felt awkward. “It made me self-conscious for a while, like I was a bad kisser, but I guess I got over it.”

“That probably made the pictures of them kissing worse…”

I cringed. “I didn’t think of it that way at the time, and I’m glad I didn’t.” It stung now, so it would have more back then, but that felt like another lifetime even if it had only been a couple of months.

“I like kissing you.” His words stole my breath.

My eyes flicked up, searching his. “Do you?”

His tongue swiped over his lips. “How could I not?”

I smiled in spite of myself. In spite of my confusion. In spite of not understanding any of this. “I don’t know?—”

He cut me off with his lips and teeth and tongue, pressing me into the back wall. “You don’t know what?” He didn’t give me time to reply, kissing me thoroughly and deeply.

My fingers dug into his skin, pulling, aching, craving the close contact. Kissing him until I couldn’t breathe, until I couldn’t think of anything but how his lips felt against mine.

His fingers brushed over my nape to fist in my hair, sending a shiver down my spine. He groaned in the back of his throat, pressing forward so our hips met.

He. Was. Hard.

Panic ate at my throat, driving home that I was really making out with a man. I didn’t pull away, but he must have noticed the change because he slowed.

“You okay?” he asked, breathless.

I barely found my voice. “Yes.” I dipped my tongue past his lips, chasing the taste. Or maybe I was trying to avoid thoughts, or processing any of it, or most of all, having to talk to Varian.

“I don’t believe you.” His voice was hoarse, but he kept kissing me, and it was electric.

Sparks and the whole nine yards. Nothing like kissing anyone else had ever been.

His hips jutted forward as he arched, full press of hard bodies. Muscled and aggressive. Nothing like being with a woman.

Fuuuuck. I pulled back, breaking the kiss and trying to catch my breath.

Varian didn’t chase. He rubbed his fingers over his swollen lower lip.

“Say what you want to say,”I urged, needing to know what he was thinking.

“What’s wrong?” His hair was a mess, half in his face, and his chest heaved, bare with hard nipples.

I couldn’t stop looking at him. Admiring. I liked all of what I saw. All of what I felt. Why couldn’t I get past what he had below the belt?

I forced myself to look into his eyes again, finally answering. “I don’t know how to do this.”

He arched a golden brow, and it would have been comical if I wasn’t in the middle of an existential crisis. “This seems like freaking out.”

“It’s not.” I wiped a hand over my face. “Words escape me.”

---