Page 82 of One More Heartbeat
Sure, I could quiz the men prior to dating them about their opinionon chronic pain, but if I haven’t told my friends and family about it yet, why would I tell a stranger?
“So maybe this shouldn’t be a one-time thing.” Garrett sits up straighter. A hopeful smile curves his mouth, gleams in his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“You and I”—he points between us—“we kiss whenever we need it. Purely for stress release. For the dopamine rush.”
Part of me wants to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of what he’s suggesting. But the other part is nodding, one-hundred-percent on board. “That’s not a bad idea. And anytime one of us needs a hit of dopamine, they go to wherever the other person is and we kiss.” It might work.
My heart groans that it’s a stupid idea. I ignore it. What does it know? In college, it thought it would be a brilliant idea for me to fall in love with Garrett, and look where that’s gotten me.
“Right. But we should probably keep this quiet,” Garrett says. “Just between us. We don’t tell anyone, including your brothers and my brothers, or Simone, Jess, Emily, and Avery.”
“Good idea.” Simone and Em would think it was a bad idea or would get things all wrong. They know my feelings for Garrett go deeper than they probably should. And my brothers…they just wouldn’t understand. “The only people who have to know about our deal is you and me.” I hold out my hand to shake on it.
Garrett has different plans. His mouth christens mine with a stamp of approval, and I sink into the kiss, wondering why we didn’t think of doing this sooner. We really should have done this sooner.
My brain doesn’t allow me to lose myself in the kiss for long. It screams,We need to set ground rules, boundaries, if this will work.
I want to bat it away, tell it to get lost.
But it does make a valid point, even if I would prefer it made that pointafterwe finished kissing.
I pull away ever so slightly, my breathing and heart rate already runaway trains, and rest my forehead on his. “We need ground rules.” My voice flows out husky and low.
“What kind of ground rules?”
Willing my heart to get control of itself, I shift away from him on thecouch. I need distance between us if I’m going to get this out. “This is just about us kissing. No sex.” I’m not sure our friendship would survive if we took it that far. Not with how I feel about him. This proposition is risky enough as it is.
A flicker of something crosses his face. “Okay. Kissing only.”
“And if one of us should find someone else”—if he should change his mind about Athena being more than Peony’s nanny—“our kissing experiment ends.”
“Right.” His lips squish in the way that tells me something else is on his mind, but he doesn’t plan to tell me what it is. “Anything else?”
Lord, this is crazy. But crazy or not, it might just work. I snicker. “If I were a lawyer, I’m sure I’d come up with something. But I’m not my brother, soooo…”
Garrett coughs out a laugh. “I can only imagine the long list Jerome would come up with.”
I lean in and kiss Garrett again, not wanting to give him a chance to list some of those things. It’s a deep, knee-wobbling kiss that is all tongue, my hands threaded through his hair. I could get addicted to Garrett’s kisses, which is probably not a good thing.
Well, more addicted to them than I already am.
Temporarily sated, I reluctantly pull away, an inch separating our mouths.
A long shaky breath fans over my lips—his breath—and his eyes slowly open, as if he needed the extra moment to regain his senses.
“I should get going.” Garrett pushes to his feet. “I’ve got a few more hours to write before calling it a night. And I want to make sure Peony is okay.”
I begrudgingly unfold to a stand. My muscles ache at the effort, but the intensity is nowhere near as bad as it was this morning. I keep the wince off my face, though I can tell from Garrett’s frown I didn’t do a good job.
“I’m just getting old.” The lie floats out on a chuckle. When his frown doesn’t smooth away, I add, needing to distract him from the truth, “I really am fine, Garrett. Just tired.” That isn’t a lie.
I walk him to the door. “Well, have fun this weekend with thewarriors.” I kiss him, deeply again…to further distract him from the reason behind the wince.
And because I can.
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