Page 105 of To Love Jason Thorn

“Oh, she’s good. Don’t worry.”

“You look okay, Jason,” he said, eyeing mecautiously before Olive started her song.

I took my eyes away from Olive as she triedto get on the barstool. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I know better than to believe anything Iread in the tabloids, but after all those photos and videos…well, you lookedlike you were a bomb ready to go off at the wrong move. I’m glad you’re backwith us, and if she is the reason…well, good for you.”

Instead of answering him, I grunted andgave all my attention back to Olive.

As always, she hadn’t been able to get onthe barstool, so when she started Ed Sheeran’s song “Kiss Me”, she was standingup, one hand wrapped tightly around the mic, the other resting on the barstool.

After a while, when the song pitched higherand her sweet voice charged through the space, everyone seemed to be shockedinto silence. Tyler spoke up again. “She seems to be good at a lot of stuff,your wife.”

I nodded; that was all I could manage atthat moment.

Somewhere in the middle of the song, afterher eyes had finally found mine in the crowd, her voice turned soft and huskyas she gently ordered me to kiss her. I held her eyes because I needed thatconnection since it felt like we were busy falling in love with each other. Shewas seeing me, and maybe for the first time, I was seeing her too. Her voicecalled to me as much as her eyes did, but then she hid those beautiful eyesfrom me, and I found myself crossing the room to get to her.

I wanted her to look at me.

I wanted her to see me when I waskissing her.

And I needed her to kiss me back.

When the song ended and she opened hereyes, I was standing right in front of her. She smiled at me as if she’d knownshe would find me there waiting for her.

Taking another step, I closed the spacebetween us. Prying the mic out of her hands, I laid it on the barstool. My handcurled around her neck and I asked, “Do you see me, Olive?”

The question was important to me, heranswer even more so. It wouldn’t be the movie star Jason Thorn kissing her intooblivion in a few seconds. It would be me. Jason. Her friend. The man who wantedto make her his.

A shiver went through her body as shelifted a shaky hand to put on my cheek. Her voice was nothing more than awhisper when she answered me. “I’ve always seen just you, Jason.”

Then my lips were on hers, and her lipswere on mine. We kissed long enough to cover years. In front of everyone, herlips became mine and I took her breath for myself, because I needed it morethan she did.

I was aware of the whistles and all theapplause, but I couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel anything beyond the woman in myarms. In my mind, it was just the two of us. Standing in the middle of a darkroom, we were in each other’s arms, where we had locked ourselves in and tossedaway the key without a second thought. She tilted her head and my tongue sliddeeper into her mouth.

It wasn’t enough.

Burning with the need to consume her, Igripped her waist and leaned my body over hers, forcing her to arch her back,and kissed her more desperately.

Harder.

Deeper.

I put everything I’d started to feel forher in those past few weeks into the kiss and offered it back to her.

Our first kiss.

I wanted it to be good for her, change herworld in some way. I wanted it to be her best first kiss of all the firstkisses she had experienced.

It was my first time touching her heartafter all; she needed to remember every second of it.

Her arms went around my neck and her fingersslid into my hair.

I groaned.

She whimpered into me, her body shakingwith fine tremors.

She would remember it all.

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