Page 17 of His Wilde Little
“Besides all that, I just want to know why it happened?” I asked.
“The kiss?”
“Yes.”
“You kissed me,” he said, adjusting his stance to stand wider almost.
“No, I think you kissed me. I was laid in the hay.”
“I laid there first.” He stared right at me with frosting on his lower lip, I was beginning to think I’d kissed him first now, because I desperately wanted to do it again. His lip like that, it begged for my lips to touch it.
Gulping slightly and adjusting the hand I held the thermos in, I walked closer to him, my voice growing quieter. “And it looked comfy, which I hear myself say, and I don’t think I’ve ever said that about hay before.”
Lorenzo shook his head. “I’d never make a move first.”
“That poor goat over there seems to think otherwise,” I said. “You’ve traumatized him.”
At the mention of the goat, one of them rammed into him and bleated before skittering off and seemingly laughing.
“If I wanted to kiss you, I would have done,” he said.
“And you did.”
“You’d know all about it if I did,” he said.
“I do,” I said with a chuckle. “Your head went to mine and your lips just mushed themselves against my lips. If you don’t remember it like that, then I don’t know what to tell you.”
The bridge of his nose continued to blush, and I wondered if I was also blushing. My face was quite cold in the early morning fall breeze, so it was mostly numbed.
He stepped closer and placed at my shoulder with one hand caressing the nape of my neck.
“You want to kiss me?” I asked, almost choking the words out of my mouth.
“I want to see something,” he said.
We grew closer to each other and then our lips touched. The sweet foresting from his lips had me desperate to go in for a second kiss, but he’d already pulled away, nodding to himself as if he’d made his mind up, or realized something about the kiss.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think I went in for the first kiss,” he said. “I just feel like your head moved in more to mine on the first kiss.”
“Try again,” I said. “Because you went in first.”
We kissed three more times after that, only stopping when the cats above us hissed, mainly at him. It wasn’t common for them to do that, but I reasoned with him that they thought he must’ve been trying to kill me with his mouth, and with the number of kisses we’d exchanged, there was definitely a part of me dying—and it was also the part desperate for him.
“I guess that’s our sign to actually do some work.”
“I thought we were, the work of trying to figure out who initiated this whole thing,” he said. “And I’d argue that it was you, not only because you joined me in the hay, but because you brought me baked goods on that first day, you wore that enamel pin, and just now, you gave me a cupcake. That was delicious by the way.” He smacked his lips. “And I’ll take some of the coffee if you’re offering.”
My eyes narrowed, desperate for confirmation. How could we go from those light kisses to—to nothing? “Do you like me?”
And he looked away. I’d been accused of moving fast in the past, especially on the apps. Dating in the country was hard, and now I was a stereotype, finding the first viable option and trying to straddle it into a relationship. At least I was using horse terminology now. That had to count for him liking me more.
8. LORENZO
Every idea, notion, and thought about what was going to happen next seemed to be obliterated with every other word that came from Jace’s mouth. I couldn’t predict it, but I liked going along with it. The cupcake, the kissing, and now the question. Did I like him?
“Of course,” the obvious answer. “I have no reason not to like you. You bring me food, you see an appeal in my mouth, and you’re easy on the eye.”
