Page 131 of The Secret

The pair of us had matching grins as we turned to our three friends.

“You could at least pretend you’re sad you’re not coming out with us.”

Murray patted Penn’s cheek. “But I promised to never lie to you.”

“Don’t wait up,” Payton called after me as Murray took my hand and pulled me away from them, back into the open air where his driver was already waiting for us.

We moved through the traffic, his hand never straying from my lap, and when we pulled up outside Payton’s apartment, he jumped out his side, rounding the back before opening my door.

It had been less than two hours since he’d stopped kissing me, but during that time, I’d been waiting for the feel of his lips on mine again. Just like in the past month, I hadn’t just missed it; I’d missed a part of him. He walked me up the steps to Payton’s door, and I expected him to push me against it like he had in the bar, but he didn’t, he merely shielded my body from the road.

He picked up the ends of my hair and began twisting them through his fingers. “You have one more kiss, Columbia, and then I’m leaving you until the morning.”

My heart tightened at the use of his name for me, I hadn’t heard it since before our new dating relationship had started. “Better make it another good one then, hadn’t I?”

I reached up, standing on the very tips of my toes, my lips pressing lightly against his, inviting him to sink into me until he did. His mouth enveloped mine, open and warm, totally different to the hungry, desperate kiss we’d had in the bar. This one was sweet, brimming with love and need, and more emotion than I’d ever felt in my life.

It was over too quickly, slipping away from me while I was far from finished. I wanted more. I knew I would always want more.

His knuckles brushed my cheek. “I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll be outside at eight a.m. sharp.”

I melted into his touch. “I’ll be waiting. And I only need jeans and sneakers?”

I had no idea what he’d planned, but jeans and sneakers cancelled out all options for fancy restaurants and glamourous dinners, which was more than okay with me. I was hoping our night away involved room service, and nothing else.

“Jeans and sneakers,” he confirmed.

He waited until I walked in the door before moving off the step and back down to his waiting car. When he’d vanished into the traffic, I closed it behind me and sunk down to the floor, trying to calm my racing heart.

If I thought I was in love with him before, I knew for certain now.

He owned my heart, my mind, my soul.

Me.

24

Murray

When I was in college training for the Ivy League Swimming Championships, which took place every year over a four month period of qualifiers and heats before the knockout stages leading into the finals, I would stop drinking. Not a drop of alcohol touched my lips. I didn’t go out and party, my diet was strict and my training regimen brutal. I trained, swam, and studied for four months, until I was crowned champion.

With the exception of the day I broke my leg, I won every single race.

At the end of every championship, the team would go out. The celebrations were legendary on campus and everyone knew it; we weren’t bigger than the football team, harder than the hockey team, or as crazy as the baseball team, but we had longevity. We partied until we collapsed.

That first glass of beer after the tournaments had finished was hands downthemost incredible thing to ever pass my lips – that first sip was better than the champagne parties, better than any vintage whiskey or rarest wines. The crispness of the hops, the chilled bubbles hitting my tongue and bursting in my mouth, refreshed me like a cold shower after a day at the beach. The second the alcohol hit my bloodstream and rocketed to my brain, I was giddy and lightheaded.

Floating.

I didn’t think that feeling could be beaten. I’d never found anything that had.

Until last night.

That feeling, euphoric and heady and exhilarating, had paled in comparison to what had flooded my veins as her lips touched mine after almost a month of holding back. The sweetness of her tongue hit me like a lightning storm on the ocean, her unique current surging through me, bringing me back to life, and to my senses.

If anyone had asked me a month ago whether I thought it was possible to fall more in love with Kit than I already was, I’d have answered with a resounding fuck, no. If anyone had asked me whether I’d manage a month without touching her, kissing her, tasting her, I’d have laughed all the way to the bank, having placed a very hefty bet against it.

But I had.

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