Page 93 of Serpentine

He grabs the front of my shirt. “All those years that you saved your lips for me. All those lies about Mom being your last kiss. All the bullshit. Was it worth it?”

The room melts away, and I even forget Aella sitting beside us.

“I had to remember it…”

“We’ve wasted so much time pretending, Miles. I could’ve died. You can’t tell me you don’t feel the same. Miles, Aella is the first person I’ve seen you kiss since that night in my room. You didn’t want to erase my kiss. Admit it.”

My heart pounds in my chest.

“You still can’t? Even now?” His eyes are pleading, and I know Aella’s mind is whirring. I told her the same bullshit I told everyone else about why I don’t kiss.

I close my eyes, trying to figure out what to say, and I feel his grip on my shirt loosen. He lays back in his hospital bed, and that’s what jars me.

His hospital bed!

I open my eyes.

“It’s all ridiculous. I knew I was stupid for hanging onto it all. You’re too worried about what everyone will think. What they’ll say when our backs are turned…”

I grasp the front of his hospital gown and tug him back up to me, crashing my mouth to his. The same red-hot passion is still there as if it had been waiting these years since that fleeting night when we’d let it all go when we were eighteen. When we’d had too many beers, let one too many guard walls down.

He groans and turns his head, the kiss deepening, and my tongue slips into his mouth. Blazing warmth skims through my body, dick hardening for him.

“Fuck, Miles,” he says, breaking away only to dive back into me.

I grasp the back of his head, tugging his lips from mine, using his hair as a handle. “I’ve never stopped wondering if I was wrong for ignoring what’s been between us all this time. I know I’m a stubborn fool, but I didn’t need you to point it out in front of Aella.”

His eyes sober, lust floating away from inside them as he turns his head to meet Aella’s entranced gaze. She breathes out as I, too, turn my head. We’re still embracing. I grip his hair firmly in my hand.

Her mouth hangs wide open as she looks between us, blinking rapidly.

“You alright over there, Bambi?” Braxton asks sheepishly.

“I—Well, you—” She fans herself and stands, adjusting her pants, and we both register it. Brax chuckles as she does, but then he grumbles in pain.

I help him lie back easily. “Yeah, you idiot, you’re injured. Now really isn’t the time to profess your love and make out with people.”

“I didn’t profess my love. I was trying to get you to,” he groans, grabbing his incision wound to hold some pressure over it.

“Well, same difference.”

Aella is standing now, her mouth covered as she watches the two of us calculatingly.

I clear my throat, and her stare pulls to me. “Want to go into the hall with me, Aella?”

Her look gets a little sharper, and I bristle at it. She’s mad at me, I realize.

“I’ll stay here, thanks.”

I have to wonder if she’s mad at what she just saw or if her feelings will change between us.

No one knows what happened between Braxton and me, and I thought I’d always keep it that way. Keep my lips for only him; it would remain that way for the rest of my life. But I didn’t realize how much I was punishing us for something out of our control.

Aella sits on the side of the bed, and I decide to table it. There’s too much happening in her world right now, and I don’t need to add to it with my bullshit, even if I’m dying to know what she thinks about what she just witnessed.

Braxton is finally asleep, and Aella stands and stretches. The afternoon was only slightly awkward. Aella doted on Brax, feeding him and getting everything he needed. When the doctors wanted him up and moving, I helped him to the bathroom and around the room.

There’s tension between the three of us, but for different reasons.

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