Page 153 of Friends Don't Kiss

The sight I’m faced with hits me like a tidal wave, my suppressed want hitting me full force. I lose my breath, my eyes blur, and the undertow of need sucks me in, pulls me across the long hallway, my feet flying, my legs propelling me, the wave of my emotion lifting me up, up, up—into Colton’s arms.

He lifts me effortlessly, twirls me around to cushion the force of my jump, his arms clasping around me while my ankles lock behind his back. “Sweets,” he whispers in my neck.

I inhale his scent—leather jacket, coconut shampoo, and something uniquely him—then dart my tongue to taste his skin, right under his ear.

He growls and moves to capture my mouth in his. Our tongues twirl softly at first, a timid re-acquainting I hate. Since when are we shy with each other? Tears spring to my eyes. This has been too long.Never, never again do I want to be away from Colton.

I run my fingers up his nape, knocking off the hat he’s wearing, and tug at his hair. His cheeks have a slight hollow that didn’t use to be there. His fingers dig deeper in my upper thighs, our teeth clash, and our kiss deepens to a level of erotic. We breathe through it, never breaking it, and all the while Colton is slowly twirling me in the middle of the grand foyer, under a crystal chandelier.

Finally we break the connection, staying an inch apart, drinking each other in. Colton’s eyes are shiny, his smile the biggest I’ve ever seen. “Hey there,” he says.

“Hi.”

A slow clapping erupts, bouncing off the empty walls. Antoine, the receptionist, is standing, watching us, a smirk on his face. “Ah, chapeau,” he says. “Bien.”

“What’d he say?” Colton murmurs. “He likes my hat?”

I lick his lobe, and this gets me a deeper squeeze of my thighs. “I don’t think that’s what it means, no.”

“Maybe it means ‘Get a room’.”

“Yeah, I think something along those lines.”

“Good, cause guess what?”

I squeeze my legs tighter around his midsection. “Good boy.”

He drops me with a slap on the butt and picks up a backpack. The thing seems to weigh a lot and is oddly shaped. “What’s going on here?” I say, picking up the cowboy hat on the floor and sticking it on my head—I’ll get to the bottom ofthatlater.

He rubs a thumb on his eyebrow and a shy smile illuminates his face. “Ah, sweets, you’re gonna love that. Hear me out.”

I hear him out, and my heart cracks open, my stomach flip-flops, and my mouth gapes.

Meanwhile, my brain is racing to figure a way out of this.

fifty-seven

Colton

Kiara’sfacegoesfromred to pale to red again, at least the part I can see under the too-big hat. She bites the inside of her cheeks, then attacks her fingernails.

“You can use whatever you want, sweets. It’s just a suggestion. Chris and Annabel put it together, we wanted to make sure you’d have whatever you needed from home to make something… you know… uniquely you.”

She tilts her head back, her throat bobbing in an erotic way when she swallows before adding, “How d’you get all this through customs?”

“I lied.”

“Youlied?”

I shrug. “They asked if I had anything to declare, I saidnon. Et voilà.”

A small smile lights up her face. “Shit, Colton, you coulda gotten in trouble, like real trouble.”

“Well, I didn’t. And it woulda been worth it. I know what this capstone project, or whatever they call it, means to you. I—we—wanted you to have the best chance of winning.”

She goes pale again, to the point where I’m wondering if she’s coming down with something. Maybe it’s the emotion—she wasn’t prepared to see me. That makes sense. That must be it.

“So the thing is,” she says, “the thing is, umm… it’s not a capst—it… ” Her eyes widen. “Shit, Colton, I’m so sorry.” She twirls her hands like she did something wrong.

---