Page 26 of Where We Promise

“Why not?”

Jameson stopped and gently tugged my elbow so I’d slow with him.

“Well for starters, you haven’t even been kissed yet.”

My body was going to erupt into a heaping pile of ash from how embarrassed I was.

I pulled my arm away and snapped, “Yes I have…why would you even assume that?”

His eyes looked like two pieces of caramel under the streetlights. I watched how his gaze moved around my face, as if he were searching for any hints of that fire that I had tried to kill.

“Because I watch you. You stare at people who kiss like you wonder what it would be like…you always get this tiny pink flare under your freckles, and then you dip your head like you’re embarrassed just thinking about it. People who have been kissed, don’t stare the way you do.”

I was going to die from mortification.

He’d noticed me staring at people kissing. Ohmyfreakinggod.

The earth could swallow me at any moment.

His thumb was pushing against my chin as my face fell, my hair shielding my burning face.

“I hate when you do this.”

My eyes were back on him. “Do what?”

He stepped closer, his thumb still against my chin, but now his fingers were spread out against my jaw. “Lower your face as if you don’t belong to stay in the moment…as if you need to separate yourself from what’s going on. You do it a lot in the club.”

I stared up into his eyes, letting his hand remain against my jaw.

“I don’t belong there.”

His thumb traced my bottom lip. “You do. You’re the only thing there that feels like home.”

I wasn’t sure what to do with that, but my heart seemed to falter under the weight of each word.

“I’ll go with you to the bonfire, Penny. I’ll watch over you, and you can kiss or fuck, do whatever you want but first, you’ll have this.”

He stepped so close our faces were merely an inch apart, now both his hands cradled my face. My breathing had become shallow, so not to break this moment or scare him away.

“Have what?” I whispered, my eyes still clinging to his.

A tiny spark of fire slid against my bottom lip as he moved the pad of his thumb over it again.

“Me,” he rasped, just a singular second before leaning in and pressing his lips to mine. His mouth was soft, his lips surprisingly warm and then his tongue traced the path his thumb had just outlined for him, as if he was following some invisible map he’d drawn. The hands on my face felt tighter as I lifted mine to grip his wrists, my head tilting to take him deeper.

There, on a cold October night, Jameson King stole my first kiss in the middle of the street.

I wish he hadn’t.

Because my heart seemed to grow talons, slicing through my breast and demanding entry in a place I knew wasn’t available. I wanted Jameson to want me. I wanted him to want my heart.

I wanted him to crave me the way I did him.

Still, I knew he wouldn’t.

That moment, stolen in time, would become a wildflower pressed into my journal.

A wish and a whispered prayer for someone I knew I could never have for myself.

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