Page 61 of Blush Crush

She cranes her neck up to look at me. In that small movement, something shifts—the tension between us growing, pulsing like it’s alive, like it’s waiting for one of us to do something about it.

She’s close enough that I can see the slight unevenness of her chest rising and falling, the way her lips have parted ever so slightly. Her blue eyes are wide and soft and too honest—and I watch her gaze drop to my mouth for just a second before she catches herself and brings it back up.

But it’s too late. I already tracked it.

“Cole,” she says softly. A warning, maybe. Or a question. She doesn’t seem sure which one she means.

“Yeah?” I rasp, my throat swallowing sand.

Neither of us moves, both of us standing on the edge of what comes next.

The fire pops behind her. Somewhere outside, one of Nora’s horses shifts in the paddock, the distant sound of hooves stomping against frozen ground drifting in through the walls. The Christmas tree lights blink softly, all warm gold, and Ariana is standing in the middle of it all looking like something otherworldly. Someone never meant for me to touch but fuck if I’m going to let that stop me.

I’ve been trying very hard for a long time to not want her. And I’m so fucking tired of denying myself.

My hand moves from her waist to the small of her back, a slow, intentional game of inches, and I hear the air catch in her lungs.

“We should probably keep practicing,” I say quietly, eyes drawn to her pouty lips.

She blinks, her long lashes mesmerizing as they flutter. “The hug?”

“The other thing.”

“Oh, right,” she says, sounding dreamlike.

I can’t tell if she’s against it or not, and I have to be sure. I can’t push too hard. Not her. Not when she trusts me with all her fragile pieces. I want her too badly to risk getting this wrong. “We don’t have to?—”

“I know.” She swallows, and I watch it work down her throat. “But we should.”

I give her time. I’m good at a lot of things and patience has never historically been one of them, but I find I have an endless supply of it when it comes to her. I wait until she tips her chin up the rest of the way, until the distance between us is down to almost nothing, until she closes her eyes like the impact might shatter us.

Then I close the rest of the gap.

It’s soft. Deliberately, carefully soft—just my lips against hers, barely a touch of pressure. She stiffens for half a second before her fingers curl back into my shirt and she kisses me back.

And that’s the part I wasn’t ready for.

Not the kiss itself. I’ve thought about kissing her enough times that the reality of it shouldn’t be a revelation. But there’s something about the way she does it—tentative and uncertain at first, yet determined and almost demanding, needy in a way that sends a zing of heat down my spine and has my cock thickening beneath the restraint of my briefs.

I pull back before I do something inadvisable.

We stand there for a moment, her hands still fisted in my shirt, eyes hooded and hazy, both of us breathing a little unevenly.

“Okay,” she says finally. Her voice comes out slightly wrecked and she clears her throat. “That was?—”

“Yeah,” I agree.

She looks up at me, pupils blown, color high in her cheeks. “That was good practice…”

“So good,” I say, still engulfed in a fog of lust.

We stay unmoving, gazes latched.

And then I stop being smart about it.

My hand finds her jaw before I’ve made a decision, tilting her face up, and this time when I kiss her there’s nothing careful about it. Just her mouth and mine coming together in a perfect crash. When my tongue slips between her lips and tangles with hers, she makes a small sound against me that I feel in my sternum.

I expect her to be the one to stop this. To come to her senses where I’ve abandoned any claim to them. But she doesn’t. She’s right there with me.