Gin Fling (Bootleg Springs, #5)(31)

16





Shelby





The stars were bright, the flames were high, and I was dancing with Jonah Bodine. And dang it, now I was doing the first name last name thing. But the moment called for it. It felt momentous and ordinary. Intimate and somehow distant.

The music was low and slow. People surrounded us, all in their own little worlds.

I hurt everywhere. I’d overdone everything today. The food and the sun. The fun. I was exhausted and knew I’d pushed too hard. But I wasn’t going to let it make me miss out on Jonah.

He was looking at me. Focusing in like there wasn’t another thing in the world that deserved his attention.

I wanted him to kiss me. But that was old-fashioned, wasn’t it? Waiting for the hero to bestow a kiss. Couldn’t I be my own hero?

I wet my lips and noticed Jonah noticing.

“You’re a great guy.” The words escaped before the thought was fully formed.

We stopped swaying. “Is this a brush-off?” he asked.

“Oh, God no. It was just a thought that popped up. Considering we’ve spent the last week or so in a rather contentious situation. I’m noticing now that you’re pretty great and was just trying to work up the courage to kiss you. Not tell you that you have a nice personality. Which you do. I’m not saying you don’t.” Shut up, Shelby!

“Shelby?”

“Huh?”

“Maybe just don’t talk for a minute?” he suggested.

“Yeah, okay. I can do that. No problem—” He pressed a finger to my lips, sealing them. Everything that hurt stopped hurting. My body stopped telling me how exhausted it was and started reporting in how Jonah’s finger on my mouth was the most important thing in my world.

I’d kissed and been kissed before. But I’d never hung as much expectation on a first kiss as I was piling on this one.

Was it because he was so blatantly male? So physically appealing? Was it because his green eyes had flecks of gold in them? Or that there was a picture of him grinning, surrounded by weightlifting senior ladies, circulating on social media? Or maybe it was that he cared enough about his family to be hurt when he thought they were rejecting him?

The balance of strength and vulnerability in Jonah was extremely attractive to me. And so was everything else about the tall, leanly muscled man before me.

Or maybe it was just the romance of witnessing the happiest day of another woman’s life that was confusing things for me.

He removed his finger from my mouth and slid his hands along my jawline and into my hair, tilting my head up, up, up.

Our eyes locked, breath mingled. I was no longer sure that the heat on my skin was from the bonfire alone. Using his thumbs, Jonah nudged my chin up, and I watched him lower to me. Whisper-soft, his lips brushed mine. Once, twice, before landing lightly. I sighed into him, melting. And the kiss changed. He was still gentle, still slow, but now he was tasting me. Thoroughly savoring every breath, every sigh, every second.

I wanted to watch him kiss me, wanted to keep my eyes on his face so I could see how he looked as he breathed me in, lapped me up. But my lids were heavy, and the sensation of his mouth on mine, his tongue against mine, was too decadent to be dissected and analyzed. A first.

The kiss stretched on and on. My hands fisted in his shirt at his waist, my body pitching forward into him. And still he kissed me.

This wasn’t an appetizer, a teaser to sex. This kiss was the main course. A living, breathing chemical reaction.

After an eternity that was entirely too short, he eased back ever so slightly. “I wondered how you’d taste,” he said quietly.

His lips were millimeters from mine. Our breath, heavy and hot, mingled in the tight space between us. He threaded his fingers through my hair combing it back and sending a delectable shiver up my spine.

“That was a movie-worthy kiss,” I breathed. “That was—that was really good. Really good.”

We were swaying again somehow. Dancing and kissing under the stars in West Virginia. Who was I? Jonah toyed with the ends of my hair as I clung to his shirt. The kiss was still a palpable thing between us. It was movie perfect.

“I’m probably going to want to do it again,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up.

I nodded, still breathless. “I don’t have a problem with that.” Oh my god. If he kissed me again, I might accidentally tear my own clothes from my body and insist on sex.

“Is this a mistake seeing as how we live together?” he asked gruffly. His nose nudged the tip of mine, and then his lips were in my hair.

“Seems pretty convenient to me,” I said breathily. Move over, Marilyn Monroe. Shelby Thompson is in the house. “It’s a kiss, or possibly several, or maybe even sex. Which is all very biologically healthy. Humans complicate sex with expectations.”

“What are your expectations, Shelby?” Jonah asked me.

Orgasms galore? Spending long hours staring at the perfection of Jonah’s body while he slept naked next to me? Falling in love with him and then being devastated when the time came for me to move on to whatever job I’d land? Or worse, falling in love with him and then being devastated when he decided to leave town and pursue Shelby-less dreams?

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s next for me,” I confessed.