Page 108 of Her Wicker Guardian

He looks back at me. “Because you kissed me?”

“Probably.”

He thinks about that, then starts to reach toward his waistband. I catch his wrist gently. “Wait.” He stops at once.

“I need to see.”

“I understand.”

“I do not know what it is doing.”

That takes most of the humor out of me. He isn’t embarrassed. He’s trying to understand his own body, and I’m the only person here who can explain it.

“You have an erection.”

“A what?”

“An erection. It’s something a male body can do when you’re sexually aroused.”

“What is sexually aroused?”

I take a breath and remind myself that somebody has to be the first person to explain this to him. It would be a lot easier if my own pulse would stop pounding long enough for me to do it. “It means your body is responding because something feels really good to you. Something you want.”

Locke looks at me, then at my mouth. “I want to kiss you again.”

Something low in me pulls tight. “That would qualify.”

He looks down once more. “Is it bad?”

“No.” I should probably stop there, but I don’t. “Definitely not bad.”

When Locke looks at me again, his attention lingers on my mouth before returning to my eyes. He may not understand everything his body is doing yet, but he understands enough to take one careful step closer.

“Can I kiss you again?”

This time I don’t have to think. “Yes.”

He lifts one hand and stops it an inch from my cheek. “Where?”

“Anywhere you’ve touched me before,” I tell him. “You don’t have to ask for those.”

He thinks about it. I watch him go through the list. “Your hair.”

“Yes.”

His hand returns to my waist, warm and careful, and the other slides along my jaw and back into my hair the way it did on the porch the morning he braided it. Only this time he isn’t untangling anything. He’s holding me where he wants me, and for the first time in years, being held still doesn’t feel like being kept.

Mine slides to the back of his neck. The living willow there gives slightly beneath my fingers, softer than it looks, and the fresh green scent of him rises between us. Willow after rain. Damp wood warmed by sun.

Then his mouth is on mine again. The first kiss taught me how unexpectedly soft he is. This one teaches me something else.

He tastes green. There’s no better word for it. Fresh and clean, faintly sweet in a way I can’t place, like biting into something still alive enough to remember sunlight. I make a small sound before I can stop it and feel Locke’s hand spread more firmly at my waist.

He pulls back barely enough to look at me. “Was that good?”

The concern in his face nearly undoes me.

“Very.”