Grave Phantoms (Roaring Twenties #3)(35)

“All right, maybe they only had two children. A boy and a girl. And the wife dances, and they have a nanny. And even though the scholar worries how they can afford all this, they somehow make it work, and for five wonderful years they live a joyful, humble life together.”

He slipped his fingers around her wrist and stroked the tender skin there. All this closeness and touching and talking of big beds was funneling all of his blood down between his legs. He vaguely thought he should be careful before he embarrassed himself, but another part of him didn’t care.

“One day, the happy couple decided to return to their village to introduce their families to the children, so they gathered up their kids and traveled the long road back home. On the last stretch of road, the scholar set out ahead to meet her father, because he was afraid the man would be upset and wanted to prepare him. But when he got to their home, her father was not only surprised to see him, he called the scholar a liar.”

“Why?” Astrid’s cheeks were very pink now.

This gave Bo a little thrill.

“Well, you see,” he told her in a low voice, “the father took the scholar back to his childhood sweetheart’s old bedroom. And there, the scholar sees what the old man was talking about. His childhood sweetheart had been sick for the last five years, lying in bed, nearly dead. At this moment, his wife walked into the house with their children, and saw her sick body lying in bed, and they merged together.”

“I don’t understand,” Astrid whispered.

“His childhood sweetheart had loved him so much that five years before, her spirit left her body to meet the scholar on the road to run away with him.”

Astrid’s mouth curved into a little O shape.

He rested his forehead against hers. “Sometimes, while you were in Los Angeles, I’d lay awake at night and imagine my soul breaking away from my body and flying across the state to be with you.”

She made a small noise and squeezed her eyes closed.

At some point, all the gentle stroking they’d been doing had stopped. They were now gripping each other’s hands so tightly, he worried he was crushing her fingers. But she wouldn’t let go. And he couldn’t let go. Because if did, some part of him worried that he wouldn’t be as lucky as the scholar, and that she would float away like a lost balloon, never to be seen again.

Beyond the gallery door, he heard the muffled sound of the yapping dog. Astrid heard it, too. And they both knew what it meant. Their private jungle was being invaded. How long before the door swung open and broke the bewitchment that had Astrid clasping his hand like he was the most important thing in the world?

“Bo,” she whispered. Damp eyelashes fluttered and left small streaks of mascara on the skin beneath her eyes. And those eyes were now fixed on his mouth.

He heard the yapping dog.

He felt his heart hammering wildly.

He saw Astrid looking at his mouth.

And then he saw nothing.

One hand instinctively lifted to cup the back of her neck as he pressed his mouth to hers. It wasn’t a sensual kiss. Not skilled or erotic or knee-weakening. He kissed her like he was the heartbroken scholar in the fable and she’d just appeared on the road to run away with him. He kissed her like it was all he’d been dreaming about doing for the past few years.

He kissed her like the man that Pretend Astrid wanted him to be—like a man who could move mountains.

And the way she kissed him back (warm mouth, fingers digging into his arms, desperate moan, scent of roses) . . . it made the Real Bo believe he actually could.

THIRTEEN

Hours after the kiss, Astrid continued to walk around in a daze. She could still feel the thrill of it cascading over her, and was halfway afraid Bo had rewired her nervous system, because everything she touched—her coat, the car door, the silverware at the dining table—set off small fireworks beneath her skin.

Bo had kissed her.

She’d kissed Bo.

This repeated inside her head, over and over, as though her brain was afraid she might forget. Impossible. She’d never forget. It was a desperate and crazy kiss, and when his lips touched hers—lemon bright and frighteningly sultry, all at once—she struggled with the shock of it. He was so sure of himself and she was not. She worried she felt awkward and inexperienced to him. Worried they’d waited too long or built up too many expectations.

But her body had known better than her brain in that moment, and when she’d let it take over, it had roared up like a beast and devoured Bo. Maybe there was some truth to his fable about souls separating from bodies, because she wouldn’t be surprised if her beast of a soul had taken a big bite out of his.

She saw him differently now. There was the Bo who drove her to the conservatory, and there was the Bo who drove her back home and dropped her off while he went to work. The new Bo was far more dangerous to her erratic feelings, because now that she’d had a taste, she wasn’t sure she could go back.

Stars. One kiss and she was free-falling off a cliff and floating over the clouds. He’d barely touched her. She’d done more petting years ago with the boys in her high school. Done a lot more than petting with Luke.

How could a simple kiss make her feel a thousand times more than any of that? She knew the answer, of course, and she was asking the wrong question. The right one was: what could Bo make her feel if it were more than a simple kiss?