Page 19 of Flynn

“What are you talking about?”

He grinned now, and the sight of it made my heart swell. Even if it was at my expense, I loved it when I could get him to really smile.

“The feeling of butterflies in your stomach. Your skin coming alive so that it feels hot and cold, so that you feel the blood pumping in your veins and the air in your lungs heat. That feeling of anticipation, like you’re going to come out of your skinif you don’t touch that person, if you can’t press your lips to theirs.”

I swallowed hard, and I was sure he’d somehow gotten closer again. Even more unsettling was that everything he described was what I felt when I was with him. But Flynn wasn’t right for me. I knew that without anyone having to tell me.

“No,” I whispered and shook my head. “I don’t feel that with Ellis.”

Flynn nodded and looked down at me with curiosity. “What do you have to do if you don’t kiss him?”

My cheeks warmed some more. “I’m supposed to run a lap around the yard in my underwear.”

Flynn grinned, eyes flashing in humor. “That’d be a sight.”

I slapped his chest, finally realizing he was close enough for me to touch. His hand caught mine before I could take it back and my mouth went dry at the contact.

“You know they can’t make you do either of those things, right?”

I nodded. “Yes. But I joined in, and I knew the stakes. If I don’t, they’ll think I’m a coward.”

“And you suddenly care what people think?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

I sighed. “I’m in high school, Flynn. Everyone cares what people think.”

He shook his head. “Says the girl who resists drinking, smoking, dating, cheating on tests, and most other forms of rebellion.”

He had a point. I might care what people think, but I never did something I wasn’t comfortable with.

“So, what are you going to do?”

I hesitated and dropped his gaze, my eyes focusing on my hand he kept pressed to his chest. My brain was having trouble focusing right now. “I…I’ve never kissed anyone, Flynn. I don’t mind the idea of kissing Ellis, but I don’t want my first kiss to be in front of so many people or for a silly game I didn’t even wantto play.”

Flynn didn’t respond right away, and the way his throat bobbed drew my attention back up, slowly taking in the strong angle of his jaw, his full lips, and back to his deep green eyes.

“So, kiss me.”

My breath caught, and I thought for sure I’d imagined the words—he’d said them so softly—but when he edged closer again, I knew I hadn’t.

My brain was short-circuiting. “Umm… what?”

Flynn gently tightened his hold on my hand. I tipped my head back to keep my gaze on his, feeling my back press against the door. “You said you don’t want your first kiss to be in front of everyone. So, kiss me. Right here.”

My heart pounded hard, and it was difficult to breathe, to think, my world narrowing down to this one boy in front of me telling me to kiss him, offering to be my first kiss so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself in front of all those people out there. Flynn was older, he was eighteen, he’d had several girlfriends in the two years he’d been here, andallof them were the kind of girls you knew had experience in more than just kissing. Flynn was practiced in all things intimate—it was a widely known fact—and now he wantedmeto kisshim?

“I… I don’t… Why?”

Flynn’s other hand pressed against the door by my head so he could lean in closer, and I drew in a sharp breath.

“You want privacy for your first kiss,” he answered softly.

“And you? What do you get?” I asked, not sure if I was making sense.

He paused, eyes locking with mine. “I get to kissyou.”

The ability to think clearly was becoming harder, and I found myself aching for him to touch me, to feel his lips against mine. A reel of scenarios flitted across my mind, of the way he could kiss me, of how he could spin us around and press me down ontohis bed. The way I’d wrap my legs around him and let him touch me and kiss me wherever he wanted as long as he made good on the promise in his eyes that he could make me feel things no one else ever had. A throbbing started in my body, a pulsing that I could feel all over. My skin was alive with anticipation, my breathing uneven.

“Tell me you want me to kiss you,” he whispered, his voice rougher than before. “Let me be your first kiss. Say yes.”

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