Bright Before Sunrise(67)

Her lips against my lips. My world shrinks to the sensation of our mouths coming together and apart. The glide of her tongue across mine, the tug and give of her mouth. I feel drugged, hypnotized. Greedy. My legs halve the inches between us, and my mouth seeks more access.

Bright shifts away and I freeze. Is this the part where she changes her mind? Realizes she could and should do much better?

She removes her arms from my neck, and I hold my breath. She slides down from the hood of my car so she’s pressed between the bumper and my body. My hands are on her shoulders, shivering with the desire to be in her hair. I need to know if she wants them off her and in my pockets.

Step backward, my mind orders my reluctant legs. I do, with movements awkward and uncoordinated and eyes that won’t look higher than her flip-flopped, bandaged feet.

They step forward. Her hands circle around to press against my back. She waits for me to look at her—her eyes feverish and uncertain—then her lips brush feather-light across mine. My mouth opens in a groan. She tilts her head. Her mouth and my mouth are reunited. And I’m learning her as she learns me.

Not until she pulls back and buries her face in my shirt do I remember she’s fragile; I was going to treat her gently. But maybe she isn’t after all. Maybe she’s stronger than me.

I rub her back with one hand and lower my face to where my fingers are tangled in her hair. She smells like rain and something clean and innocent—like lemons and daisies. I know I should say something, but I’m too calm, too excited, too baffled to form any thoughts but Hold still. Stay.

I feel her mouth move against my shirt more than I hear her speak.

“What?” I smooth my hand through her tangles, reaching down to tip her chin up.

Her face is flushed, her lips swollen, and her eyes flicker over me, around the air. She sighs. I watch her hand curl in, nails hitting Band-Aids. She frowns and presses her palm flat against her leg. I fight the urge to crush her back against me and smother her words about this in my shirt; against my lips. Or buckle her in the passenger seat and drive away, leaving all consequences in the parking lot.

Her unbandaged hand reaches up to barely, barely touch my face. I lean my cheek into her palm, shutting my eyes for an instant to savor the sensation, then open them to watch her and worry about her silence.

One half of Brighton’s mouth quirks with mischief. “It’s only fair to warn me: Are you noisy and smelly too?”





38

Brighton

2:31 A.M.


10 HOURS, 29 MINUTES LEFT


I’d really said: That was nice.

Those were the words trapped in the weave of his shirt. As soon as the sentence crosses my lips, which still tingle and taste of him, I realize how wrong it is. I try to breathe and erase the tangle of emotions from my face.

When he steps away and asks, “What?” my heart lurches with fear he’s heard and is offended. Then comes the panic of finding something else to say. I reject all adjectives. How can I describe something that makes me feel like I floated out of myself while simultaneously making me more aware of my body than I’ve ever been?

His skin feels different than mine. I hadn’t considered that skin can be masculine, but his is. I want to trace the lines of all his bones beneath the covering of stubble and calluses and textures.

No. I need to speak.

We need to talk and say what that was. The Band-Aids on my hand interfere with my attempt to make a fist.

Jonah’s leaning away, shutting his eyes and shutting me out. The moment is dying.

I blurt out the first words that hit my tongue. “It’s only fair to warn me: Are you noisy and smelly too?”

His laugh rebounds off the empty pavement and the walls of the school. It settles in my stomach and calms the knives of panic while curling into a different type of flame.

“Sometimes.”

He slides his hand across my palm; fingertips on skin, Band-Aids, skin. Fingertips on fingertips, feeling like they might glow from the intense sensation. My laughter dies in a choked gasp.

“I really said, that was nice.” I won’t lie to him. Not now.

My fingertips slide from his, and my other hand drifts from his shoulder to my side. I look up at him through my lashes. His eyes are dark, searching, full of something I don’t understand and don’t know how to react to.

“Nice?” he echoes.

I’m hollow. Cold. Like he’s already interpreted this as an insult and walked away—taking with him all of the emotion of the night and all the warmth from the air.

“No.” He shakes his head. “No.”

I feel every slightly damp spot on my dress. I’m hyper-aware of the sweat on my lower back and palms—it’s turned glacial. I’m shivering. On my way to shaking.

And then—heat!

Jonah’s hands on my arms. Burning. Urgent.

“Nice isn’t good enough.” He leans closer, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. “I think we owe it to ourselves to do better than nice.”

I smile against his lips—more than willing to be convinced. When his mouth leaves mine to explore my neck, I whisper in his ear, “Really nice …”

His fingers lace through my hair.

“Super nice …”

His teeth drag lightly against the skin behind my ear.

“Really, super nice.”