Page 43 of The Moon Also Rises
“I can’t promise I won’t still be a bitch.” Jake turns his head away, staring at the pond. “But I will try to be less bitchy to you, or about you.”
“You’ve been bitchy about me? Who to?”
“Sharon, of course. What else am I supposed to do with an over-efficient personal assistant who shares my general distaste for humankind?”
“You deserve each other.” I chuckle.
“Probably. She will be disappointed she lost her bet though,” Jake says.
“What bet?”
“She assumed we’d never get away with it today. She was convinced someone would see through us. Or rather, that I would cop off with a barman or something.”
“Well, you were flirting with that one fella—”
“I was not!”
“Jake, you were fluttering your eyelashes at him.”
“Fine, I was doing that, but I wouldn’t specifically call that flirting. My kind of flirting is much more creative than that.”
“Oh, how do you like to flirt?”
“Like this.” He turns his body so it’s facing mine, one of his knees touching the side of my thigh. Although it’s not cold, there’s a slight chill in the air and I like the bolt of warmth his touch brings me. His eyes are back on mine when he speaks again. “Rami, did you know that your eyes are like pieces of the moon? Like a little bit of silver light shining in the dark? Like something I could look at forever?”
I open my mouth to speak but my tongue is too dry and heavy. Jake’s almost expressionless face is still turned towards me, his eyes searching mine and all the affected, over-emphasised ways he has of looking are gone. His mouth is relaxed and level. His eyes are warm and dark in the low light. His forehead is slack, no frown, no strained smile, nothing. I suddenly find myself wondering if that wasn’t him pretending to flirt. What if he’s been wanting to flirt with me all night?
I lean forward ever so slightly, barely moving my body, but shifting enough that our legs touch. When Jake doesn’t move back, I take that as all the invitation I need.
“Forester, I’m going to kiss you again,” I say, and I give him the shortest second to tell me not to. Maybe it’s not long enough because his face barely has time to look shocked as I close in on him, but I don’t care. I have to take this risk.
When my lips touch his, it’s not like before. It’s gentle, it’s fragile, it’s barely there. Our lips align like they know exactly where to be and I gently, gently pull his bottom lip between mine. I feel his exhale on my upper lip and feel his bodyweight pivot to lean towards me a bit more. Bolstered by this, I nudge my mouth open a little and stroke my tongue against his lips.
It was the wrong thing to do.
Jake pulls back a few centimetres, but bizarrely, endearingly, his eyes stay closed.
“Rami,” he says.
“Yes?”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to kiss you.”
“But—”
“Do you want me to stop?”
His eyes finally open. “Funnily enough, not really.”
“Well, then shut up, Forester.”
Jake hums a little and it sounds like a purr. “You know you can be very authoritative when you want to be.”
“Oh, you like that?”
“Certainly better than the limp lettuce leaf you’ve been in the office since day one.”
