Page 42 of Campus Crush
“You okay?” I asked, my voice coming out rougher than I intended.
She nodded, her eyes wide. “Thanks to you.”
I should have let her go then, made sure she was steady on her skates before continuing our lesson. But I couldn’t bring myself to release her. She felt too perfect in my arms with her warm body pressed against mine.
“Foster,” she said quietly, and something in her voice made my heart race.
“Yeah?”
“I think…I think I’d like to try again.”
For a second, I thought she meant skating, but then she reached up and wrapped her hand around the back of my head, pulling me closer to her, until our lips were almost brushing and my brain short-circuited. I swallowed hard, my gaze dropping to her lips.
“Are you sure?” I asked, giving her a chance to back away if I’d misread the situation.
Instead of answering, she rose up on her toe picks and pressed her lips to mine.
The kiss was gentle at first, tentative, as if she was testing the waters. But then I responded, letting out a deep groan as I slid one hand up to cup the back of her neck. She melted against me and her mouth softened under mine. I kissed her slowly, savoring the moment I’d been thinking about for weeks.
She tasted like mint and something sweet, and when her fingers threaded through my hair, I pulled her closer, deepening the kiss. She made a small sound in the back of her throat that nearly undid me.
If I thought I’d been enamored with her before, it was nothing to how I felt now with her lips on mine. It felt like I’d spent my whole life lost at sea and she was my lighthouse guiding me home. We were a perfect fit and I never wanted it to end.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard. I rested my forehead against hers, unwilling to put any more distance between us than necessary.
“Wow,” I breathed, a smile tugging at my lips.
The moment the word left my mouth, Abby stiffened in my arms. Her hands dropped from my neck, and she took a step back, nearly losing her balance on the ice.
“Abby?” I reached for her, confused by the sudden change. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, but her voice was tight, and she wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I just… I think I need a break.”
“Sure. We can take a break, maybe have some hot chocolate, if you want.”
She let me help her off the ice, but as soon as we reached the bench, she dropped my hand and busied herself with unlacing her skates. The easy warmthbetween us had vanished, replaced by a tension I didn’t understand.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked, sitting beside her. “If I misread the situation?—”
“No, it’s not that,” she said quickly, still not looking at me. “The kiss was… it was nice.”
Nice? Nice was not what a guy wanted to hear when the kiss for him had been earth-shatteringly good.
But it felt like something else had happened after that kiss—something I was missing. Everything had been going so well, and then suddenly it wasn’t. “Please, Abby. Talk to me.”
She finally looked up, and the vulnerability in her eyes felt like a punch to the gut. “I-I don’t know if I should’ve done that. This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to be so…fun and wonderful and attractive. You weren’t supposed to make me feel like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like butterflies have taken permanent residence in my stomach, and my heart is constantly racing, and…honestly, just confused.”
“Confused about what?”
She hesitated and then the words came out in a rush. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. There’s…there’s someone else. Another guy I’ve been talking to for a while…someone I thought maybe I had feelings for.”
Bear. She was talking about Bear.
It was time to tell her the full truth.
