Page 37 of Faking Ever After

And that was the end of it. I knew it was the end. I failed to trust him when I needed to, so the very foundation had to be too soft to build on. Next, he would thank me, politely tell me to keep the bracelet and revert to the distance that we had created when we first met.

“If you’re sure I can’t help, then so be it,” he said in a nondescript tone. Soon after, his voice warmed up. “Finn, we all have baggage. I’m thirty. I wouldn’t be going into this fresh as a daisy, either. I’ll take your word for it that you’re safe, but you won’t argue if I increase the security around you.”

For a moment, I thought I had misheard him. I opened my mouth, closed it, swallowed, then tried again. Going into this? “You still want to try?”

Percy smiled brightly and exhaled with relief. “Finn, I’ve been attracted to you since the moment I saw you on the jet. And the way you spoke to me through the entire takeoff, I think my fate was sealed right there and then. Yes. I still want you.” He looked around, then gazed at the distant horizon, his cheeksturning a little red. “I booked us an apartment above Apollo’s Lantern. You’ll love the tavern. They have the best wine around here. I was thinking, with the house so crowded, I’d keep this place ready for us if we ever need a break. You can only swim so far out before Mother sends the Coast Guard after you. And I…”

He was rambling. He had expressed his most intimate wish and some boyish fright propelled him to cover it up with an avalanche of lighthearted words.

The sun had moved our shade off Percy’s face. The light fell on him as if he was blessed by Apollo himself. His lips were red and slick after he’d licked them, and he spoke on and on about just wanting to avoid the overcrowded house. He spoke of some local distillery and the taverns and the wise food choices inland as opposed to the seaside, but I watched him, stunned.

“…so yeah, if you’d like, maybe…”

I didn’t realize I was doing it until I was already in the middle of my leap. Over the plates of cheese and cold cuts and olives, I knelt and bent forward, slamming my lips against Percy’s.

He stopped speaking at once, frozen, shocked, confused. After a single heartbeat, his body relaxed under mine, and we sprawled on the picnic blanket. Percy lay on his back, one arm wrapping around my torso, the other resting on my upper back. He ran his fingers through the hair on the back of my head and pulled me in, my lips pressing harder against his.

The moment’s surprise passed as if it had never happened. He relaxed fully, and I relaxed against him, lying on top of him and kissing him as if he were all the food and water I needed to live. I kissed him with the kind of passion I had forgotten existed in me. Fiercely, heatedly, I gasped and kissed him harder, our lips parting and the tips of our tongues meeting.

The sunlight caressed the back of my head, heating it up, but it was nothing compared to the heat that rose into my face as our kisses grew firmer, more deliberate. Whatever uncertaintyand indecision had existed in Percy moments ago was gone, exorcized by the most passionate kisses. He was strong and determined to take all I had to offer.

And when reality caught up with us, and I realized our souls hadn’t actually left our bodies to traverse the astral panels and galaxies, I pulled back, wide-eyed, and looked at him. Silently, I asked if he thought that had been too sudden, but his pink cheeks and deep dimples told me it had been perfectly timed.

“So, is that a yes to Apollo’s Tavern?” he asked with a grin.

Words had dried up in me. But Percy had been right. These things were better shown than spoken aloud. So, in reply, I leaned in slowly, and I kissed him again. This time, it was soft and patient. This time, I didn’t feel like it was the only chance I would ever have, so I did it in a way that allowed me tofeelhim. I wanted to feel every little bit of him, to taste him, to inhale his scent, to remember just how soft his lips were under mine.

I nodded as I pulled back, sometime later, and smiled at him. “I think that’s a yes.”

Percy smiled.

CHAPTER 14

Percy

Finn kissed me.

It was the millionth kiss that day and each one felt as surreal as the one that had preceded it.

After our breakfast in Zeus’ field, I took Finn up the marble stairs to the residential heart of the village. We explored all morning, stealing kisses in secluded corners, sitting on marble benches, and tasting wines in hilltop taverns once the clock struck noon. We reached the peak for breathtaking views of the mountain ranges, aptly named after Zeus. “Not the donkey, sadly, but the god. When he was born, his father wanted to eat him like he’d eaten all his children, afraid of the prophecy that a son of his would dethrone him as the god of gods. To prevent the loss of another child, Zeus’ mother hid him in these mountains. She gave her husband, Chronos, a bundled rock to eat instead, and he’d done it with such zeal that he never noticed it wasn’t his son. There’s a cave, just over there, where soldiers were stationed with swords and shields to protect the baby. Every time Zeus cried in his cot, the soldiers clanged their swords against their shields to mask the sound. Later, Zeus would grow up to fulfill the prophecy and dethrone his father, freeing his brothers from his father’s stomach and rising againstall the Titans. Through a bit of trickery, Zeus, the youngest of the sons, split the universe with his brothers so that Poseidon ruled the seas, Hades ruled the underworld, and Zeus sat on Mount Olympus to preside over all.”

“He got away with trickery and rock swapping,” Finn mused. “That’s the level of responsibility dodging I can only dream of.”

“Says the man hiding on a mythical island from a powerful foe,” I teased. If Naxos had served Zeus well enough as a hiding place, I was confident I could keep Finn safe from anyone wanting to find him.

“Hiding here just got infinitely better,” Finn pointed out, then turned to me fully, rose on his toes, and pressed his soft lips against mine.

My heart fluttered each time he did this. My stomach filled with butterflies like I was eighteen all over again, my fingertips tingled whenever I touched him, and my body filled with a burning desire to lift Finn off his feet and carry him away.

“Show me Apollo’s Lantern, Percy,” he whispered over my lips. If I had imagined the tingles running through my body were at their maximum, their intensity just doubled.

The waning sunshine turned to the lovely colors of aged gold by the time we descended the hill and found our tavern.

Neither of us was hungry, although the evening was drawing close. We moved through the quaint tavern with its brick and wood interior design, climbed upstairs to a spacious suite, and Finn kissed me again once the doors closed. “I can’t believe I get to do this,” he whispered.

I cupped his cheek and looked into his warm, brown eyes. “I should have made things clear much sooner,” I said.

“Plenty of chances to make up for the lost time,” Finn said as he hovered his lips near mine, then denied me the pleasure of kissing him. With the corners of his lips curling up in a sneaky smile, he disappeared into the bathroom.

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