The Hating Game(21)

“You’re a way better stalker than I am.” I feel a chill of fear when I see his big thumb push the B button. He looks down at me, his eyes dark and intense. He’s clearly deliberating something.

Maybe he’ll murder me down there. I’ll end up dead in a Dumpster. The investigators will see my fishnets and heavy eye makeup and assume I’m a hooker. They’ll follow all the wrong leads. Meanwhile, Joshua will be calmly bleaching all my DNA off his shoes and making himself a sandwich.

“Serial killer eyes.” I wish I didn’t sound so scared. He looks over my shoulder at his reflection in the shiny wall of the elevator.

“I see what you mean. You’ve got your horny eyes on.” He spirals his finger dramatically over the elevator button panel.

“Nope, these are my serial killer eyes too.”

He lets out a deep breath and pushes the emergency stop button and we judder to a halt.

“Please don’t kill me. There’s probably a camera.” I take a step backward in fright.

“I doubt it.” He looms over me. He raises his hands and I start to lift my arms to shield my face like I’m in some awful schlocky drive-in horror movie. This is it. He’s going to strangle me. He’s lost his sanity.

He scoops me off the floor by my waist and balances my ass on the handrail I’ve never noticed before. My arms drop to his shoulders and my dress slides to the top of my thighs. When he glances down he lets out a rough breath which sounds like I’m strangling him.

“Put me down. This isn’t funny.” My feet make little ineffectual spirals. This isn’t the first time a big kid’s thrown his weight around with me. Marcus DuShay in third grade once slung me onto the hood of the principal’s car and ran off laughing. The plight of the little humans. There is no dignity for us in this oversize world.

“Visit me up here for a sec.”

“What on earth for?” I try to slide down but he spans his hands on my waist and presses me against the wall. I squeeze his shoulders until I come to the informed conclusion that his body is extravagant muscle under these Clark Kent shirts.

“Holy shit.” His collarbone is like a crowbar under my palms. I say the only idiotic thing I can think of. “Muscles. Bones.”

“Thanks.”

We are both desperately out of breath. When I press my leg against him for balance, his hand wraps around my calf.

When he puts one hand on my jaw and tilts my head back, I wait for the squeeze to start. At any moment, his warm palm will snap tight and I’ll begin to die. Nose to nose. Breath against breath. One of his fingertips is behind my earlobe and I shiver when it slides.

“Shortcake.”

The sweet little word dissolves and I swallow.

“I’m not going to kill you. You’re so dramatic.” Then he presses his mouth lightly against mine.

Neither of us closes our eyes. We stare at each other like always, closer than we’ve ever been. His irises are ringed blue-black. His eyelashes lower and he looks at me with an expression like resentment.

His teeth catch my bottom lip in a faint bite, and goose bumps spread. My nipples pinch. My toes curl in my shoes. I accidentally touch him with my tongue when I check for damage, although it didn’t hurt. It was too soft, too careful. My brain is whirring hopelessly with explanations of what is happening, and my body begins to better its grip.

When he leans in again and begins to move his mouth against mine, softly plying it open, the penny drops.

Joshua. Templeman. Is. Kissing. Me.

For a few seconds I’m frozen solid. It seems I’ve forgotten how to kiss; it’s been so long since it’s been a daily activity. Not seeming to mind, he explains the rules with his mouth.

The Kissing Game goes like this, Shortcake. Press, retreat, tilt, breathe, repeat. Use your hands to angle just right. Loosen up until it’s a slow, wet slide. Hear the drum of blood in your own ears? Survive on tiny puffs of air. Do not stop. Don’t even think about it. Shudder a sigh, pull back, let your opponent catch you with lips or teeth and ease you back into something even deeper. Wetter. Feel your nerve endings crackle to life with each touch of tongue. Feel a new heaviness between your legs.

The aim of the game is to do this for the rest of your life. Screw human civilization and all it entails. This elevator is home now. This is what we do now.

Do not fucking stop.

He tests me and pulls back a fraction. The cardinal rule broken. I pull his mouth back to mine with my hand fisted at the scruff of his neck. I’m a quick study and he’s the perfect tutor.

He tastes like those spearmints he’s always crunching. Who chews mints? I tried it once and burned my mouth out. He does it to annoy me, flickers of amusement in his eyes at my irritated huff. I nip him now in retribution, but it urges him closer against me, body hard, warming me everywhere we connect. Our teeth chink together.

What the fuck is happening? I ask silently with my kiss.

Shut up, Shortcake. I hate you.

If we were actors in a movie we’d be bumping against walls, buttons flying, the fishnet of my stockings shredded, and my shoes falling off. Instead, this kiss is decadent. We’re leaning against a sunlit wall, dreamily licking ice cream cones, rapidly succumbing to heat stroke and nonsensical hallucinations.

Here, come a little closer, it’s all melting. Lick mine and I will definitely lick yours.