Page 88 of Runaway Bride and Prejudice

I open my mouth, but words vanish at the tempest brewing in Van’s dark eyes.

Idohave something I want to say. But I’m still struggling with getting the words from my head to my mouth. They’re getting lost in translation somewhere in the short space between.

So, I decide to forgo words and go all in with one risky move.

I lift up on my toes and press my lips to his.

It’s a tiny kiss. Short, soft, a little bit awkward and a whole lot hesitant, as though I’m fourteen and this is my first-ever kiss. And it feels that way to me—like this one brief touch erased any kiss before it. The press of his mouth to mine hits some kind of reset button in me, leaving me new and naive and innocent.

Van’s whole body goes still. Underneath my palm, still splayed over his chest and half inside his shirt, he’s not even breathing.

Did his heart stop? No—there it is, a faint pulse barely registering under my fingertips.

But more importantly, I realize—his mouth does not move.

He isn’t kissing me back.

As my heels settle once more on the sand, the drop back down feels like a freefall from a tall building. Ending with a splat on the sidewalk.

My hand falls away from Van’s chest. I stare down at my bare toes, still perfectly pedicured from an appointment the day before the wedding. The heaviness in my stomach moves from an ache to more of a cramp.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I thought?—”

Van’s hands curl around my upper arms, tugging me closer, and when I look up, his eyes are wild, his lips are parted, and his breath is coming in short pants.

“What did we say about apologies?” he whispers. “Because I refuse to be sorry about this.”

And then he’s the one kissing me.

Only it’s not a quick, chaste press. There is nothing awkward or innocent or hesitant here.

It’s a claiming, a confession, completely consuming. His mouth is hot, the press of his lips firm as one hand travels up my arm and tunnels into my hair. Like he’s been dying for days to do this.

His other hand finds my waist, sliding around until he’s nudging me closer, fingertips along my spine.

No space between us, breaths mingled, and our words spoken solely through motion.

I grip the front of his shirt so tightly a button pops off. He must feel it because he chuckles. I swallow the sound, hungry for it, for him.

I don’t want this moment to end, and at the same time, I want to have five thousand more moments just like this one.

A lifetime of this.

“Van,” I murmur.

“Mills.”

His lips drag away from my mouth, reluctantly, like it’s work to pull back. But then he kisses across the swell of my cheek and along my jaw and just beneath it, as he nibbles my neck.

The firm press of his lips and the insistent scratch of his facial hair is the perfect combination. It leaves my legs shaky and my skin buzzing. I’m holding onto him now not because I’m desperate for him—though I am—but to keep my knees from buckling.

The slap of a rogue wave high against our legs sends us both stumbling. I’m almost certain it’s the only thing that could have pulled us apart short of an alien invasion or maybe the jaws of life.

My dress is soaked up to my thighs and so are Van’s shorts, though only the very bottom. The perks of being tall. We stare atone another, then burst out laughing. He sends an arc of water my way. I gasp as even more of my dress gets drenched.

“You looked like you needed to cool off,” he says.

I gape at him. The man I was just kissing. Who seamlessly transitioned back into our playful back-and-forth without missing a beat.

---