Page 26 of Luck Be a Genie

I reached up and gripped his shirt like a lifeline as his mouth moved intently over mine. It was soft presses and little nibbles at first, and then the kiss deepened, and it was all I could do to hold on.

His kiss didn’t make my heart race, and it didn’t make my skin tingle.

Because it went much deeper than that.

As his lips adored mine, I could feel all of the things he wasn’t saying yet—all of the things he couldn’t say yet. It was in the way he wrapped his arms around me and brought me closer to his body, as if he could protect me from the world. It was in the way he continued to gently hold my hair so it didn’t blow in my face.

And suddenly, a thousand other moments with him ran through my mind like a kaleidoscope.

How his face always lights up when he sees me. How protective he is of me, even when it drives me crazy. How he always makes me laugh, even at the chaos that surrounds me sometimes. How our conversations make me feel treasured. How sometimes he looks at me as though he’s terrified to lose me.

Like I’m a dream he never dared to dream.

Too soon, he gently pulled away and rested his forehead against mine as we tried to catch our breath.

For some reason, I was fighting back tears when he whispered, “Was that okay?”

I buried my forehead against his chest so he wouldn’t see a tear streak down my face.

“It was perfect.”

Chapter 10

Nick

Icouldn’t sleep that night. I kept reliving the kiss again and again in my mind. One minute I was flying, and the next minute heartbroken at the tears she’d tried to hide from me.

I wasn’t sure what the tears meant, and the not knowing was messing with my mind.

I was also sad that she felt like she couldn’t be vulnerable with me yet. I knew we’d just gotten together recently, but we’d known each other for a lot longer.

I was hopeful the tears meant that the kiss had impacted her as deeply as it had impacted me, but as I’d walked her back to her room last night, she’d been quiet. Then she’d kissed me at the door, and slipped inside her room.

I’d stood outside her door like an idiot for a few minutes, wanting to comfort her. To talk with her. But in the end I’d gone back to my room to give her space.

Which was why I’d been basically pacing my room all night like a caged animal.

My phone buzzed on my dresser. I nearly pounced on it, hoping it was Lucky, but instead growled when I saw the name flash across the screen.

Declan.

“Please tell me you have a good reason for calling at seven in the morning,” I said as I answered. My eyes flicked to the connecting door I shared with Lucky again for the seven hundredth time, but I still couldn’t hear her. She was either still asleep, or being very quiet.

“I’m not sure it’s a good reason, but Kian wants to get together to play poker. What’s wrong with you? You sound depressed still. I thought you were with your girl at a resort.”

My siblings gossiped like old women.

Declan and Kian were the siblings born just after me, and were twins. Declan was the grouchy, emotionally complicated one. Kian was the one that never met a person he couldn’t befriend. Even his twin, which was saying something.

“I’m fine, and I don’t think I can. Lucky isn’t up yet to ask, and I don’t want to just spring you guys on her. You all are a lot to just spring on someone.”

Just then, Lucky came through the connecting door in a robe, looking all warm and soft from sleep. She still had creases on her face from her pillow, her eyes looked half open, and her hair was messy, but she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life.

I stared stupidly at her for a long moment until I heard my brother from my phone speaker. “Hello? Is this thing still on? Nick! Snap out of it, man, and ask your girl!”

I ignored him.

I wanted so badly to hang up the phone and hold Lucky all morning. I craved her nearness like nothing else I’d ever craved in my life. But I wanted her to feel safe with me, and that probably meant that I needed to wait and let her make the first move this morning. After her tears last night, I just wasn’t sure what to do, or what she wanted.