Page 62 of Revive
“I still want to kiss you,” she said, as much as hand holding was nice.
“I know. I want you to kiss me too.”
Her head immediately came up, sought his gaze, but she squinted, not seeing permission. Contrary sod. She stared at his lips. Their softness. The fullness of his pout. The man had ridiculous soft pink lips, especially the lower one, and worst of all, she knew exactly how good they felt caressing hers. Merely thinking about it sent ripples of remembered pleasure through her chest and shoulders. It quickened her breath, spread a crimson wave over her skin.
The annoying bugger floored her with another sexy grin.
“You’re so hungry for it right now.”
“Sadist.”
That only seemed to elevate his delight.
“Come up here.” He took a perch on the grassy verge by the side of the path, and coaxed her onto his lap, straddled across him.
Doing so confirmed what Alle already suspected. He wasn’t only torturing her. He was torturing himself. “Why not give in?”
“I like this feeling, Alle. Don’t you?”
She did. But she liked the collapse and rewards that followed more.
“I like pushing myself to breaking point,” he said. “Don’t get mad at me for it, but it’s one of the things I realised that attracts me to Xane.”
At one time, it would have stung to hear him say it. Now, she knew he was telling her because he was trying to let her in. Hence, she clamped down hard on any hints of jealousy in her thoughts. It was rare for him to be so candid about what he felt, so she was damned well going to listen and learn.
“I like how it fizzles and pops and makes me so fucking uncomfortable. How the sparks get so bright and fierce right before the snap, and how it’s never just one of us that goes. It’s both of us. Like it’s agreed beforehand. Only it isn’t. And then all the tension of it unravels and makes the high that much higher.”
“I don’t give you that?” she asked, nervous of the answer.
“You could,” he said. “I’ve never let you. No, that’s not actually true. You have. A few times, when I’ve not been able to keep you distant enough. It’s increasingly difficult.”
“Like when. Give me an example?”
“The studio the other day. In the tour bus kitchen when we were on the boat.”
She thought back to those times, compared them with others. How he always guided and manipulated her to create the ultimate experience for her, while simultaneously keeping himself in check. “Those times have certainly been some of the more memorable occasions. But I’m sad I’ve only got to see the unfiltered version of you a couple of times.”
“I told you, I’m scared,” he said, after a minute or two of silence, and it was so honest the way he said it, that she was momentarily shaken. “I’m frightened that if I don’t ration myself, I’ll take too much. I want to glut myself on you, and if I do that, I think maybe you’ll be disgusted.”
Alle brushed the back of her index finger back and forth along the line of his jaw where a couple of days’ worth of stubble was poking through the skin, making it scratchy. “Spook, you’ll never disgust me.”
“You can’t know that. The inside of my head isn’t pretty. And that’s even before we get to the matter of trust. Alle, every woman I’ve ever been with, pretty much every woman in my life has let me down. This isn’t just a matter of trusting you to say stop when you need me to stop doing something. It’s trusting you not to rewrite events after the fact, or mess with my head, or—”
“I get it, Spook. I understand why it’s hard, and I think you’re amazing and brave for trying, and I’m honoured that you’re trying it with me.”
He took hold of her hand and briefly squeezed it.
“I don’t suppose it helps knowing she’s still out there, either.”
“You mean, Siv?”
“Yeah, sorry to bring her up.”
“It’s okay. It’s not quite so hard to think of her anymore. I still don’t want to run into her, or talk to her, or any of that, and most of the memories are still really unsettling, but I don’t want to throw up anymore just because I hear her name.”
“That’s good.” She stroked a hand down from the crown of his head along the length of his blond hair to his shoulder. “I still want to kiss you really badly.”
“The answer’s still no.”
