Page 69 of Every Step She Takes
“Um, I-I don’t have much experience in… in this,” I mutter, and the intimacy of the moment goes out with the tide.
Mal chuckles lightly as her hand finds my waist beneath her coat. “Kissing is like flirting,” she tells me quietly, “you’ve got to start by actually looking at me.”
I level my gaze with hers. My stomach leaps into my chest again.
“Then you can touch me…” she coaches.
Anxiety surges through the sangria fog. “Touch youwhere?”
Her mouth is back on my ear. “Anywhere you want.”
A shiver of anticipation ricochets through me. I lift my right hand and clumsily put it on her bare forearm, where it was when we were dancing. There’s absolutely nothing sexy about the way I clutch her tibia, but she doesn’t falter. “Then you lean in…”
I lean and Mal leans, and… I nearly headbutt her, for Christ’s sake. I’m in my head instead of my body, fumbling every move.
Her grip tightens on my waist. “And then you just kiss me, Sadie,” she says. And I try to. I arch my head to the side and press my mouth to hers. Only, I barely catch her mouth, and my lips end up mostly on her chin. It’s as terrible as all those kisses with men over the years.
Humiliated, I try to pull away, but Mal’s hand firmly holds me against her. She slowly shifts us both and gently presses her mouth to mine. And… and it’s not terrible at all.
I’m stiff in her arms, not sure if I should move or how, but she somehow decodes my anxiety, and her other hand comes up to gently cup the place where my neck meets my shoulders, her thumb resting on my cheek. The tension spools out of me.
Her mouth is soft and firm at the same time, like her hands. She parts her lips just enough to coax my bottom lip with hers, and it’snothinglike all those kisses with men.
Time slows down on this dark beach, like I’m watching game footage of this kiss in slow motion. I can feel Mal trying to teachme with every touch, every subtle shift. I follow her lead and allow my mouth to soften against hers.
I’m kissing Mal. I’m kissing a woman.
What the fuck am I supposed to do with my hands?
They’re hanging limply at my sides like a pair of dead fish. Reading my mind somehow, Mal takes one of my hands in hers. If it’s supposed to make me relax, it has the opposite effect. Mal’s skin is so warm, it ignites my entire body. Something hot and restless glides down my spine, pooling heat in my lower stomach.
Mal guides me like a marionette, taking that hand and putting it on her right hip. My other hand gravitates to her left hip. I’m gripping her in place.
My hands clutch the soft flesh and sharp bone beneath her hiking pants and some heady instinct takes over.
I pull our bodies flush. My mouth opens wider against hers, and I can feel the heat of her breath, taste the sangria we shared, feel the tip of her tongue as it enters my mouth and licks, before retreating in a way that makes me want to chase her.
I do chase her tongue with mine, and I’m rewarded with a hot, hot, burning heat that courses through my body.
It’s the opposite of kissing men in every possible way. I want more, not less, and I feel wild with that need. The heat of mouths and tongues and hands and all the places our bodies meet. I moan into her, like she’s a pasteis de nata, but sweeter.So much sweeter.
She meets my moan with her own breathless growl and arches her body against mine.
I try to remind myself that Mal is kissing me for educational purposes; that she’s only kissing me because I literally begged her to. This moment might mean the world to me, but it means nothing to her. Ineedto remind myself of that fact.
Only Mal is kissing me back like it could meansomething. Time has sped up again, and my brain can’t keep up with mybody, with all the things it wants to do and is doing. I’m kissing Mal frantically, clutching her hips like I might drown if she doesn’t keep me afloat.
When Mal finally breaks away, her breath comes out in sharp exhales. She clears her throat and tries to detangle our bodies. “Did that confirm your hypothesis?” she asks with scientific detachment, as if she hadn’t stuck her hand halfway up my shirt.
I shake my head with zero detachment. “I think I need multiple data points.” And I pull her back to me, sloppily capturing her mouth with mine. Drunk and dizzy, I kiss her, and she kisses me back, and I maybe grind myself against her hip bone. I’m not overthinking this.
My hands are about ten steps ahead of my heart, which is desperately trying to remind me that this is only an experiment, but it’s hard to focus on that when Mal is touching me everywhere I wanted her to.
When she pulls away again, I collapse into her in a boneless heap. I want more—more and more and more—but I force myself to let go of her hips. She lets go of my waist.
Mal clears her throat so intensely it sounds like she dislodges her lungs. “That seemed…educational,” she says, dignified, despite her swollen bottom lip. “Do you have the data you need?”
“Absolutely.” I manage a curt nod, even though it feels like the sand is shifting beneath my feet. My wholeworldis shifting. “So it turns out, I might really be a lesbian.”
