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“Tell me what you want, Leelee.”
Eli’s voice is a low rasp, and it tugs at something in my chest. A ribbon of want unfurls inside me, slow and lazy.
“I don’t think we need to stop kissing,” I say. “Or that it needs to be done strictly when necessary.”
“No?” He takes a step closer.
“No,” I breathe. My hands tremble, but I hold his gaze steadily, feeling brave and reckless, ignoring the tiny voice telling me the ice is too thin here. It won’t hold me. I don’t care. “I mean, it might seem a little unbelievable if it’s not something we’re comfortable with.”
“Comfortable, hmm?” Eli takes one more step toward my spot on the counter until he’s standing so close, my knees bracket his torso and my dangling feet brush his thighs.
“I like the way you look with a blush on your cheeks,” he says, his gaze moving across my face. “Especially when I’m the one who puts it there.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I do.”
Eli brushes a fingertip over the swell of my cheek, then over the slope of my nose to the other cheek. My eyes are on his, but his are following the path of his finger. The blue of his eyes is dark, a heavy storm cloud over a tumultuous sea.
“You blush like a sunrise,” he murmurs, the rumble of his voice making my breath hitch. “First a light pink, then a deeper flush, and finally, rose red. Not just in your cheeks. Here,” he says, tapping the end of my nose, then sweeping two fingers to my jaw and trailing them slowly down my neck. “And here.”
I swallow, and Eli seems fascinated by the movement, tracing my throat with his fingertips.
“You know,” he says, his eyes still on the place he’s touching me. “You’re right—if we don’t spend time kissing in private, it might not look believable to other people when we’re in public.”
“We can’t have that,” I whisper. “I won’t let them deport you, hockey player.”
His eyes snap to mine. “No?”
I shake my head. “I think I’d like to keep you.”
I mean to addfor a little whileorfor as long as I can, but the words don’t come. Probably because they’re not true. I don’t want this to be temporary. I don’t want this to be an agreement, a list of talking points on a sticky note, balled up and tossed away.
But I’m not brave enough to say all that. Telling Eli this little bit I want feels like a start. A tiny step in the right direction.
“Will you kiss me?” I ask.
Eli slides his hand around the back of my neck, then up into my hair. He makes a humming sound, leaning in until our noses brush.
“That is,” I say, my eyes fluttering closed as his lips brush my cheek, his short beard prickling against my skin. “If you don’t think it will make things confusing.”
It’s too late for me. I am nothing if not a tangled knot of confusion, of warring wants and fears, but right now, my longing for Eli’s mouth on mine eclipses them all.
“I’m not confused,” Eli says.
And then his lips find mine. A light, teasing pass at first, a whisper of a kiss. Then another. But when a low noise escapes my throat, something in him seems to snap, and his mouth moves over mine, hot and sweet and so overwhelming, I’m immediately lost to him.
It’s better than I remember. Better without the whole stadium of people watching.
Better with no pressure and no hurry, even though we’re kissing with desperation. As though these are our final moments, a goodbye kiss. It feels like we’re at the bottom of an hourglass, sand spilling over us faster every moment.
I grip his shoulders, pulling him closer as he gently tilts my head to the side, his mouth finding my cheek, my jaw, my neck.
Until he pulls away suddenly. I blink at him, trying to orient myself to the harsh lighting above and the jar of cotton swabs to my right, the sound of dogs barking incessantly in the kennel nearby.
It only takes a second for me to see why Eli stopped kissing me. Doris is staring up at us both while lifting her leg and urinating on Eli’s shoe in a steady stream. Totally unrepentant. Brazen, even.
And we’re both frozen. At least, until Doris finishes and darts away, chasing the paper towel Eli dropped earlier.
