Page 44 of That Time We Kissed Under the Mistletoe
“You have to lick the thread.”
She eyes me sideways. “Excuse me?”
“Like this.” I stick my own thread into my mouth to demonstrate. “This joins the two split ends. Now it’s just one point. Easierto get through.”
“I see.” Sara takes her thread and puts it between her lips. Then she clamps down, sliding the rest of the strand out of her mouth. A flash of pink tongue peeks through her teeth, and she holds up the thread, presenting it to me for inspection. “Did I do that right?”
Whoa. I bite my cheek to stifle another groan.
“Yeah, you did,” I choke out, but my voice is obviously husky. So I clear my throat, gathering myself. “Now try again.”
With her gaze laser-beamed on the needle, Sara slides her green thread straight through the eye. “I did it!” she cheers. She tosses a look of triumph my way, but by now my jaw’s come completely unhinged. In fact, I’m pretty sure saliva’s about to dribble down my chin.
Sara looks up and meets my gaze. Her dark eyes sparkle like two hot coals, and her cheeks flush pink. “Now what?”
Great.
How am I supposed to teach Sara anything else when my heart feels like it’s just been shocked by a defibrillator?
Tearing my focus away from her lips, I grab a piece of popcorn from the bowl. I might as well have tree trunks for fingers, but I can’t let Sara know how much her closeness still affects me. So feigning a nonchalance I don’t feel, I push the threaded needle through the puff of popcorn a little too enthusiastically and pierce the pad of my pointer finger.
“Ouch!” Dropping the popcorn, I shove my finger in my mouth. A whiff of salt and copper hits my nose. When I pull out my finger, it’s still throbbing. So I whip my hand around like I do after I get stung by a bee.
“Stop!” Sara commands. “You’re going to make it worse.” She reaches for my hand to examine my finger. When the wound blooms red with fresh droplets of blood, she presses a napkin to the spot. After a long moment, she slowly peels the napkin away to check for more bleeding. “Does it hurt?”
“I’ll be all right,” I croak, already embarrassed by my overreaction. But Sara just nods, with her gaze still settled on the pinprick.Then she parts her lips and oh so slowly gently blows on the tip of my finger.
One long, soft stream of air.
Whoa.
Her warm breath against my wet skin ignites something inside me. And as she lifts her gaze to meet mine again, her eyes are black and achingly tender. She gulps, and the vulnerability in her expression makes me want to … apologize.
For what? Well, I have a few ideas.
Maybe I’m sorry for busting into this house when I saw smoke instead of calling 911.
Maybe I’m sorry for letting her take care of me instead of finding someone else to do it.
Or maybe I’m just sorry for being too proud and young and stupid to be fully honest with Sara ten years ago.
I lean toward her now, waiting for her to either pull away or to make her own move. As I hold my breath, she shifts closer to me, then her gaze drops to my lips.
There’s your answer, Three.
This might be the dumbest instinct I’ve ever been tempted to give into in my life, but when Sara exhales, the sweetness of her breath is an elixir I want to suck up and savor forever. My face inches nearer to hers, and she blinks, eyes locked on mine. Ten years without Sara in my life. Without tasting her kiss. Without her warmth and reassurance. And I’m about to end that decade of drought, when my phone starts vibrating on the table. Sara gasps and pulls away.
Great.
My sister’s calling.
Chapter Twenty
Three
My insides lurch.
And not just because Nella interrupted what could’ve been a real kiss between Sara and me, but also because I’m about to talk to my sister without the convenient time delay of text threads and voicemail. I won’t have chance to think through my responses or plan out any questions of my own. And thanks to this concussion—not to mention Sara’s proximity—I’m not exactly firing on all cylinders. So it’s really too bad the success or failure of this conversation could impact the mood of my entire family for the rest of their cruise.
