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Baby toe? Also yes.
That part of your elbow that supposedly has no nerve endings? EVEN THAT.
He suddenly veers away from the automatic doors and steers me toward the alcove where the carts get returned, moving us just beyond the vending machines until we’ve got privacy. Well—as much privacy as you’re going to get in a grocery store.
Carefully, he takes my grocery bag and sets it next to his on the floor. Then he crowds me up against the wall, placing one hand on the wall behind me and gently gripping my waist with the other.
“Before we go, I want to get a few things off my chest,” he says.
“By all means. The floor is yours,” I tell him.
“Chels,” Mason says in a low, rough voice that makes my fingertips tingle, “you are the only woman I have thought about, the only one I’ve wanted, for years. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know sooner. I’m sorry for elevating my friendship with John above the relationship I’d like to have with you. I’m done holding back. I’m done being afraid. There is nowhere I’d rather be than right here with you.”
I’m grinning, probably too hard, but who cares. “Can you … say all that again so I can record it on my phone?”
He snorts. “Absolutely not. Also—I know we’re not finished with our first date, but I’m going to preemptively ask if you’ll go out with me on a second date. Will you?”
When I start to answer, he lifts his hand from my waist and places a finger against my lips. “Full disclosure, I’d also like to ask you on a third date.”
I speak around his finger, barely resisting the urge to give it a little nibble. “But we haven’t finished our first date, and I haven’t said yes to a second.”
He removes his finger. “So, is that a yes to a second date?”
I giggle. “Yes.”
“Good. I know you felt like you’ve had a first-date curse, and I don’t want you to worry for a minute about me asking you out on more dates.”
“What about the fourth date?”
He hums, and I’m not sure there’s a sexier sound. My gaze drops to his full lips. His mouth is a tractor beam, and I’m a tiny starship, gunning the engine to fly into the hangar even faster.
“Since you asked, yes. I’d like a third and a fourth date and a fifth.” He pauses, the look on his face intense and earnest. “I’d like to beallyour future dates. I know I mentioned it offhand earlier, but now I’m asking for real—if you’d have me, I’d like to be your boyfriend.”
“Yes, times amillion. I would love for you to be my boyfriend. I’d love to be your girlfriend—why does that sound so good? Can we get matching t-shirts or—”
“No.” He cuts me off first with the word. And then with a kiss.
I wasn’t prepared.
Not for his lips on mine in this moment. And not for the way the kiss knocks my entire body off balance. And I don’t just mean physically, though I do start to slump and have to be held up by Mason’s arm around my waist.
I feel the kiss in every cell but also somewhere deeper. In my soul, in my heart, in whatever invisible place holds my very essence. It’s like a shop owner flipping the open sign to closed—my sign flipped fromsingletoMason’s.
His mouth is hot and demanding, but not forceful. Mason’s lips use just the right amount of pressure, tempered with a teasing softness and the occasional scrape of his teeth.
I forget about getting home in time for the ball to drop, forget about breathing, forget that we’re standing in a pretty unromantic area of a grocery store.
My knees also forget how to properly work as my legs actually give out, but Mason must have been prepared, because he scoops me up in his arms without his mouth once leaving mine.
“Impressive,” I say against his lips.
“Hardly,” he murmurs against mine. “You just wait.”
Now,thatis what I call a promise.
His lips are so soft, so skilled, so expressive. I swear, I can hear more unspoken promises in this kiss, as though his mouth is making up for what it doesn’t always say in words. Even though tonight he said a LOT of words, this kiss says more.
Mason blazes a path up my neck and across my jaw and then back to my lips. I love the conversation of this kiss and what we’re vowing to each other with every movement.
