Page 7 of A Moment for Us
She shakes her head and laughs. “No, we don’t. But at least I’ve had the courage to want more.” Delia exits the car without looking back, and I sit here, feeling like she punched me in the gut.
All these years, I don’t know that she’s ever been that bold. Sure, she says things, but it’s always been more subtle. This was not. Before I know it, I’m rushing after her. I have more courage than she can ever comprehend. Does she think it’s easy to want something and deny yourself?
I take her wrist, and she gasps, turning toward me. “What do you mean?”
“Mean?”
I look down in her coffee-colored eyes, searching for the answers. “Yes, what courage don’t I have?”
“Kiss me.”
I blink, my eyes instantly moving to her lips. “What?”
“You heard me, Josh. Kiss me. That’s what I want. It’s what I’ve always wanted. I have the courage to ask for it, do you have the balls to do it?”
Our breaths grow just a little deeper. I move my hand up her arm as the other snakes around her back, pulling her to me.
Warning bells go off in the back of my head, but I am too pissed, too challenged, to stop myself.
“You want me to kiss you?” I ask, needing to be sure I’m not dreaming.
“Is that what you want?”
Fuck yes, it is. I want to kiss her and do a hell of a lot more. The thing I don’t want is to hurt her or lie to her. I care too much about her to make her think there’s any chance of there being an us. All this can be is lust. I don’t have a heart to give her. “Yes, but you have to understand.”
The breath falls from her lips. “Understand what?”
“That this . . . this kiss, it doesn’t change anything. I can’t give you more.”
A soft laugh flows around us. “I never asked for more.”
I take a step forward, pushing her back against the door, and then I do what I’ve wanted to since I stepped foot back in Willow Creek Valley. Hell, since the last time I held her almost fifteen years ago.
I kiss her.
Chapter 3
Delia
He’s everything I remember but tried to forget.
Josh’s hands tangle in my hair, pushing my head to the side as his tongue slides against mine. He kisses me hard and then soft, playing with me like he’s done my whole damn life.
I don’t care that this will be all I’ll ever have. I relish in it because now I’ll know what it’s like to be in his arms when there’s no delusions between us.
I’m not a little girl, clinging to whatever desperate dreams I have about what our life could be. I already know—there is no life for us.
All there is, is this.
It’s lust, lacing its way through us, binding us as our mouths stay fused together. I push down all my desires for more and take what he’s giving.
My hands move up his back, gripping his strong shoulders, pulling him closer. The cool wood against my back is opposite of the heat on my chest. I moan softly as he kisses me harder.
Yes, God, yes.
He tastes like vanilla and mint mixed with sin.
Once, a lifetime ago, Joshua Parkerson kissed me, and he ruined me for years. Seems he’s determined to do it again.
