Page 37 of Hiding from Hope

“Uhhh, no,” I lie. “I don’t have anything interesting to say.” I haven’t told anyone about the book. Thought about submitting it to publishers, but the story felt too personal, too vulnerable, and I’m not exactly ready for people to see the wounds of my soul. It feels like some kind of betrayal to lie to her. I know deep down Casey would only shower me with praise and support. Perhaps it’s the latter that scares me. I know she’d encourage me to publish. In fact, I’m almost certain she’d go as far as sourcing editors, publishers. Fuck, she’d probably design me a cover and become my manager.

I turn my head over my shoulder, and there is a delicate pink on her cheeks that makes me want to brush my fingers against it and follow the trail to see how far down her neck it spreads. It makes me want to get rid of this friendship label, so I don’t have to have restraint. So I can touch her and learn her in every way. So I don’t have to hide how my heart is slowly growing, warming, and it is just filled with Casey.

She doesn’t continue to ask, so I take the opportunity to change the subject. “Have you ever thought about offering the re-binding as a service? I feel like people would pay good money for those covers.” She releases a self-deprecating laugh and I turn to her as we exit the stall, and she looks up at me.

“Not at all. But I like that it’s just for me.” She says it with a sweet smile, and fuck, I want to kiss her.

Your move.

Noah’s words from earlier taunt me. I want to make a move. God, do I want to make a move. But I don’t want to ruin… whatever this is. The last few weeks, I’ve felt more like myself than I have in the last two years. Sure, I’ve been making more of an effort, but I know the lightness and happiness I wake up feeling every day is solely because of Casey. The fact I can get through a day without chewing off someone’s head has everything to do with Casey. The prospect of seeing her, talking to her, or even spending the slow café afternoons thinking about her, makes me feel like I can get through the day again.

I know she doesn’t feel the same, and I’m not losing the only friendship I’ve maintained in order to trial a stupid fantasy.

We turn and continue down past a few more stalls, Casey loads up a basket of craft materials before checking out–that I then proceed to carry for her–and we continue for a few more minutes in peaceful silence, taking in what’s on offer until we get to a crepe stall.

“Hungry?” I look down at Casey and ask as she practically beams up at me.

“Yes!” She skips over to the crepes, and I can’t help but stare after her, can’t hide the awe in my face if I tried.

We order and continue to walk. Casey holds a huge, folded crepe in a cone, covered in chocolate spread, strawberries, and powdered sugar. She ordered two, so now I’m also getting a toothache at the sweetness. I usually can’t stand these kinds of desserts, but when she turned at the stall and asked if I was getting one, too, I couldn’t say no to that smile.

We walk until we find ourselves at a table and chairs off to the side of the market. The lights are lower, the air slightly cooler, and the quaint world of the market slips away as the busy nightlife of the city creeps in.

We spend a few moments eating in blissful silence before Casey drops a moan that has my eyes snapping to hers and I watch as her long eyelashes fan out across her cheeks and her lips pucker as she chews on her food.

“Oh, God. This is honestly heaven.” She mumbles over her food, the sounds sending flames of desire across my skin. I watch her for a moment, and it does nothing for my self-control. She pulls away and her eyes look at me for a second before looking to her crepe and snapping back, probably realizing I’m staring at her. “What?” she asks, still fumbling food in her mouth. The incredulous look is so adorable on her, my heart beats a little faster.

“You have shit all over you, Ace.” I smile at her, and she tries to wipe the chocolate from her face, missing it completely.

Still beautiful, even if she has chocolate and powdered sugar smudged across her cheek. I shake my head at her mess.

“Did I get it?” she asks and then tries again, missing again, and this time, I can’t help myself, a laugh tumbles out and I scoot slightly closer to her.

“Here.” I drag a thumb across her cheek and wipe the chocolate from her perfect skin. I linger longer than is necessary and I watch as her lips part on a sigh. I wipe again, nothing there, but selfishly, I can’t help myself. The touch burns across my skin, and seeing her physical reaction as she leans slightly into me has my self-control flying out the window.

With the chocolate off her skin and now on my thumb, I do the only thing my man brain can think to do, and I place my thumb in my mouth and lick the chocolate clean off. The same chocolate that was on my now forgotten crepe, and yet it tastes a thousand times more delicious. She swallows and her eyes track my thumb as her crepe lowers in her lap. We sit close enough that she is practically in my lap. She bites down on her lower lip, and that previously mentioned slip of my self-control snaps entirely.

Fuck it.

I move fast enough to not second guess, but slow enough that I don’t startle her, as I grip her chin and pull her in to seal my lips on hers. The second my body registers the taste of Casey, all blood leaves my brain and heads south. Relief flooding me when her body softens, her perfect lips mold against mine, and I swallow the little moan she releases when she relaxes against me. A gentle swipe of my tongue against the seam of her lips and she opens for me. The taste of her is chocolate and sugar and so incredibly sweet I think I might die. I could die here, right now, with Casey Baker kissing me.

My crepe finds its way to the ground as my baser instincts take over. Gripping her waist, I haul her onto my lap, and she wraps her arms around my neck without missing a beat, pulling her chest firmly against mine.

She feels incredible, the warmth of her seeping through our clothes, with her legs falling to cage my thighs and my hands exploring her back until my fingers tangle and pull on her soft auburn hair. Fuck, the need to lay her out on this table and fuck her mindless is like a restless energy I struggle to control as it vibrates through my veins.

Our tongues dance desperately, her lips soft against mine, as I learn the responses of her body. Her moans, the way she delicately rolls her hips, have me remembering how very public we are and how very carried away I’m about to get. I pull back, reluctantly breaking the best fucking kiss of my life, and lean my forehead against hers to catch my breath.

I pull back further to look at her, gauge her reaction, and pray to God I don’t find any regret. My heart is in my throat at what I find. Stunning blue eyes sparkling back at me, a light pink blush dusting her cheeks, and a dazed smile across her pretty face. My expression must reflect whatever she was hoping to find because she bites her bottom lip to suppress a smile, and a small laugh, that is beginning to be one of my favorite noises, tumbles out of her, her eyes flitting back to my lips.

“Umm.”

“Yeah,” I respond. Both of us unsure what happened. Only that I kissed her, and she fucking kissed me back. I’m desperate to not break the spell, to keep her here, panting in my lap. Even if I could bring myself to pull away from her, I’m going to need a minute.

“Why?” she whispers. The one question I was dreading, the one that forces me to face the possibility of rejection, to come to terms with the fact that Casey Baker is not in my future.

“Because I wanted to,” I say softly back, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t care about the consequences or what any of it means, because somehow, even if she isn’t into me, Casey is the only person that makes me feel unbroken.

“Me, too,” she whispers back, biting down on her smile again, and I feel that familiar fire burn under my skin. It takes everything in me to wrangle back control and not wrangle her into an Uber, take her back to my place, and properly lay claim to her. Instead, I stand, her still wrapped around me, and I release my grip on her hips to lower her to the ground. Before I can say anything, the sound of her phone ringing pierces the perfect bubble we’d been floating in.

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