Page 98 of Only in Your Dreams

“To me. One day, you’re going to stop fighting it. You’ll admit I’m exactly what you need in your life, and I can’t fucking wait.”

She rolls her eyes, but then gives me that smile. That perfect, flawless smile made even more special knowing how rarely she offers it. The inside of my chest feels thicker than the pre-storm air, goes even warmer when she lets me pull her close, bury my face in the top of her head. She smells like a football field. Like grass and personal triumphs. I love it on her.

“You have no idea how bad I want to kiss you, Clover.”

“You’ve already kissed me. In the woods.”

My fingers run a line down her spine. She shivers. “That kiss was… needy. Angry. And fuck, Clover, it was so good. But it’s not how I ever wanted our first kiss to go.”

“How would you have wanted it to go?”

I pull back to look at her. She’s not smiling anymore. The curve of her eyebrows, the soft eyes, they scream of want. It was ten years ago, the last time she gave me a look like that. At her bedroom door. At the edge of the biggest regret of my life.

“You and me kissing, after all this time?” I release a long breath. “It should have been at sunset, with rain pouring down on us. It should have been at the top of the Eiffel Tower, with Paris at our feet.”

Mel bites her lip, body melting into mine. “You’re a romantic.”

“You bring it out of me.”

“I hate it.” Her eyes fall shut, but her cheeks go pink.

“No, you don’t.”

Her mouth pinches in a smile. “No. I don’t.”

I place a kiss on her cheek. The tip of her nose. Her forehead, the other cheek. Soft, fleeting kisses. Her skin feeling so damn smooth against my lips.

“Clover.” I brush a lock of hair off her forehead. She opens her eyes. “Give in to me.”

She sucks her lower lip into her mouth, eyes on mine. “But we’re not in Paris.”

“I can live without Paris.” I press my forehead to hers. “Give in.”

“There’s no Eiffel Tower.”

I grin. “I’m terrified of heights, anyway.”

“It’s not even raining.”

Once in a while, these moments happen. I’ll be thinking about something I’ve long lost, and it turns up a minute later. Lose my sense of direction on my way somewhere, only to end up exactly where I was headed. Those are the moments I feel Grams the most, know she’s still looking after me from wherever she is.

Tonight, I feel her in that first drop of rain, landing on Melody’s cheek.

Her eyes widen in surprise. She inches away, staring at me and then the sky like she believes I had something to do with this, figured out how to command the weather just to steal a kiss from her.

But then the shock fades off her face, and her fingers dig into the hair at the back of my head and all I see are perfect, bright blue eyes blazing with want.

Fuck.

Our mouths crash together. I’m pretty sure I’m the one who moans first, but there are so many sounds, so many incredible, sweet sounds coming from both of us now, lulling me into my favorite childhood fantasy. The one where Melody Woods kisses me, then runs her fingers through my hair, and tugs gently to bring me in closer. The one where she lets me slide my tongue against hers, kiss her deep and hard and needy.

Except this isn’t a fantasy. It’s real.

It’s real, right?

Mel’s kissing me, and it feels nothing like the hate-laced kiss from camp. It’s slow. A fucking luxurious kiss as the rain falls around us, like we’ve got all the time in the world. The kind of kiss where you breathe into each other, break apart in simultaneous blissful smiles before coming back in for more.

Subconsciously, I know this could be nothing more than the product of overwhelming adrenaline. From winning her game, from feeling like herself again after working so hard at it. But I don’t care. She can give me whatever she wants, take from me whatever she wants. Kissing her is a fucking gift, and I don’t care what it means right now.

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