Page 38 of Ticket to the Stars: Part One

But, again, let me emphasize: Deacon wasn’t my type. I didn’t like guys with long hair. I didn’t like assholes, even if they had a softer side to them. I wasn’t… I definitely wasn’t going to crush on Deacon.

Or that playboy Priest.

Or Bishop, the one who couldn’t remember me.

I tried to move, just a little. A squirm of a movement to test things out, like how strong his grip was on my side, how firm his body was pressed against mine from behind. I could feel his chest rising and falling with even breaths, and that told me he was still asleep, so I might be able to get out of this. If I moved slow, as in as slow as a snail, he might not wake up.

I let out a sluggish breath, steeling my nerve. I clung to the back couch cushion, pulling myself into it to hopefully crawl up and over it—but Deacon chose that exact moment to move. He rolled onto his back, no longer pinning me against the couch, and the arm that had been draped over my side fell away.

Crap. I froze the moment I felt him moving, and I waited a good minute or two before using the extra space to glance over my shoulder at him.

The first hint of daylight steamed through the wall of windows nearby, allowing me to see Deacon’s slumbering face. Now that he was on his back, his right shoulder and right arm—the arm that had been on me—sagged toward the floor, almost falling off the couch.

Hmm. Heaving myself over him might be easier than crawling up the back of the couch.

I held my breath as I rolled over to face him. I moved as slow as I could, one leg first, and I positioned that leg on the other side of his. I had to set my hand on the couch near his head for support as I started to move over top him.

Slow and steady, Mags. Slow and steady and you won’t wake him up. You can tiptoe to your bedroom and pretend this never happened.

Except, when I was directly above him, he woke up.

Deacon’s green eyes opened, and he must’ve reacted on instinct, because the arm that kind of draped off the side of the couch snapped up and curled around my back, like he thought he had to catch me or something.

And then his eyes widened as he realized that, in doing so, he only held me tighter against his chest… and that I was basically laying on top of him.

He yanked his arm off me as his shock morphed into a scowl. “What are you doing?”

“What amIdoing? What areyoudoing?” I threw the question back at him, because that felt like the best thing to do.

“What am I doing?” he repeated the question. “I’m not the one on top of me right now.”

“No, but you were the one pinning me to the couch a minute ago,” I hissed. The look he gave me right now was akin to the expression he usually wore. Maybe last night had been a fluke and nothing more.

Deacon’s scowl intensified. “I wasn’t—I didn’t. You’re the one that invited me to stay.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did,” he shot back, with such vehemence it made me wonder,did I?His green eyes blazed with a mixture of annoyance and fury, but even though he could easily sit up and get me off him, he didn’t move an inch. And neither did I.

I’d never been on top of a guy before. Heck, I’d never been this close to a guy before. My body lay on his chest, our legs intertwined. My head was about six inches from his, and it struck me then that this wasn’t a bad place to be.

It was kind of nice, actually.

As my face flushed due to that thought, I mumbled, “I was trying to get out without waking you up so it wouldn’t get weird.” My white hair fell around my face like a curtain, blocking out the rest of the suite. All I could see was Deacon and the hard look he was giving me.

His scowls were kind of cute, now that I was thinking about it.

All Deacon said to that was, “It got weird.”

“Yeah.”

We stared at each other, neither one of us moving an inch. His scowl lessened when his stare dipped lower on my face—I was pretty sure he glanced at my mouth. I bit my lower lip in response, wondering if it would be so bad to kiss him.

I mean, kissing for these guys was probably like a handshake to any normal person, right? A kiss didn’t have to mean anything. So what if I’d daydreamed about my first kiss and wanted it to be with a guy I loved? Life wasn’t a fairytale. Love hardly ever came before a kiss.

Deacon must’ve had the same thought, because he couldn’t take his gaze off my mouth. The arm that had curled around me moments before lifted, and his fingers swept some of my hair behind my ear. His other arm was slow in moving beneath the blanket, curling around my lower back so tightly there’d be no way I could get off him now.

My heartbeat kicked up, my skin getting hot. I swallowed when the hand that had tucked some hair went to the back of my head, like he was going to guide my head down to his.

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