Page 80 of Ghost of a Chance
“You look like you’re about to—”
“Don’t say cry, or I will,” he said.
“It’s okay.He was your best friend and cousin and you were close,” she said, looping her arm through his.“Even you’ve admitted you haven’t really dealt with your grief.”
She started toward the corner he’d pointed to a moment ago.
Tipping his head back and, having done it herself, she suspected he was blinking to keep tears in his eyes.
There was nothing that made you feel more vulnerable than crying in front of someone.There was no disguising how deeply something hurt/moved/touched you were when you cried.
“I wanted to show you that I’m proud to be with you at a frat party,” he said.“I wanted to make out with you in one of the hallways so everyone else would be jealous that I’m with the hot, cool author.”
Stopping, she stood in awe at him.There was something about being with someone who emoted so clearly, like a big, fluffy dog, that really got to her.She wanted to warn him to keep some of his feelings back.That the world was going to hurt him…that she might someday, even though she liked him and liked being around him.
She was basically a loner.Eventually she was going to be back in her small safe house creating in her fictional world and he was going to be in Chicago.A few states and a world away from her.
Still, she couldn’t resist basking in how he described her.“We can make out here.”
“Here?”
“Definitely.On this corner,” she said, hoping to replace a bad grief-filled memory with a better one.
“It’s not raining though,” he said a slight grin teasing his lips.
“Is that your only requirement to make out with me?”
“I thought it might be yours,” he said as tugged her off balance and into his arms.His hands rested lightly on her waist, his head tilted to the side, blocking out some of the light from the streetlamp.
The moon was still behind him, big and bright.Somehow making this night seem magical in a way that normally she didn’t take the time to observe.She was different with Jasper.Lighter.More…hopeful.
Looping her arms around his neck, she went up on tiptoe, canting her body into his until she felt the wool of both of their coats brushing against each other.The warmth of his breath brushed over her mouth.She parted her lips, their eyes met, and she knew that this kiss, this night was changing something fundamental inside of her.
She wasn’t giving herself permission to change, it was already happening.
His lips were firm and soft.His kiss not as gentle as it had been before, when he’d been trying to soothe her past hurt.
He wasn’t as kind to himself as he’d been to her.She hadn’t paid attention to that fact until now.He was hard on himself.Saw his life as aimless drifting instead of seeing his own strength, his resilience.The fact that he’d had a lot of blows in his life and still figured out a way to make it something he could be proud of.
When he lifted his head, she noticed that his breathing was heavier.So was hers.Lightly she ran her finger down the edge of his cheekbone.There was something sad and angsty about him that made her heart almost break.
“We have two choices,” she said.
“They are?”
“Continuing making out here and see how far we can take things without being seen,” she started.
“Or?”
“Something outrageous that will make you smile again,” she said.
“Both of those will make me smile,” he admitted, pulling her back into his arms.His mouth came down on hers again, hard and heavy.His hands were already undoing the buttons of her coat until he lifted her off her feet.
She forgot about where they were and about cheering him up.The kiss took her out of her own mind and into this place where only pleasure existed.Needing more of him, addicted to his taste and the feel of his hands as they roved over her body.
She was trying to get her hands under his coat when the streetlamp over their head exploded.
She screamed and jumped away from him.
