Full Tilt (Full Tilt #1)(66)
She dropped her sleeping bag on the smoothest flat of ground, cushioned by dried pine needles and soft, long grass. She stood a moment, her back to me, slender and luminous in the moonlight. Her head turned, taking in the view of the valley before her, and then tilted up to the stars above. Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep inhale. The breath filled my own lungs, along with a desperate urge to move behind her, hold her body to mine, fist my hand in her hair and kiss the soft skin of her neck.
Kacey shook out her sleeping bag and climbed inside. I laid mine out beside hers, and together we lay on our backs, looking up at the stars.
“So incredibly beautiful,” she said. “Amazing all of this is here, in every night sky, but we rarely see it.” She rolled over in her bag to look at me. “You’re awfully quiet tonight. What are you thinking about?”
You. My thoughts are filled with you. Always.
“Can I tell you what I’m thinking about?” she said before I could answer. “I’m thinking right now, we’re lying here with less than a foot between us, but in separate sleeping bags. Because we’re friends. You’re there, and I’m here, and we’re pretending friendship keeps us at a safe distance.”
My heart began to pound. “I know. I shouldn’t have told you to come back to Vegas. And I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“I had to come back,” she said. “I never should’ve left. If I’d moved to some other city, I would’ve been alone and miserable and missing you. We lost twelve days when I left. I want that time back and I don’t want to lose any more.”
“Kacey…”
“I can’t keep going on like this, Jonah,” she said, turning to look at me. “As friends. I know I should try, but I can’t. I can’t…not touch you. I want to be able to kiss you if I feel like it, and I think you want that too. Like our first kiss at the casino. It was everything to me. Everything.”
“It was for me too,” I said. “I want to kiss you again. I want to kiss you so bad I can’t breathe. I want to be with you every second of my life but… God, Kacey, how much time is that? How do I put you through that?”
“And what about you? You continue on, alone?” She shook her head. “You can trust me. Trust me when I say I can take it. You and me. I can take it. Whatever happens.”
“I do trust you. My pushing you away was never about mistrusting you. It was me not wanting to hurt you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, since the first moment I saw you. To protect you. To keep you safe.”
She smiled then, her eyes filled with happiness. And God, somehow, even with all the crazy stuff going on in my life, it all boiled down to whether or not Kacey was happy. I wanted to make her happy any way that I could, because that’s what she did for me. Little by little, day by day, like sunlight seeping through the cracks of an abandoned, boarded-up house, Kacey was invading me. Tearing down the shutters, ripping out the boards and letting the light in.
“Come here,” I said.
She wriggled in her sleeping bag for a moment before climbing out of it. My heart stuttered at bare legs, a flash of pink underwear, and the outline of her breasts under her button-down shirt. I held my bag open and she slid in, her body curving perfectly into mine, as right and perfect as our kiss.
She sighed, her breath fluttering as she put her hands on my face. “I’m sorry I left.”
“I told you to go.”
“I should’ve stayed. I never should’ve left at all. And I promise you, Jonah, I’ll never leave you again. Never again.”
“I’m going to leave you,” I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper. The words hung between us, the crux of all our pain and tears and hesitation.
But Kacey smiled—smiled—with brave tears sliding down her cheeks. “Not yet. Not tonight. We might not have months or years, but we have moments. Thousands upon thousands of them. Let’s take each moment, seize it and wring it dry. Okay?”
I gazed down at her. “Okay.”
“This is a good moment,” she whispered.
“One of the best…” I let my head sink down toward hers. Our lips brushed and hers parted for me immediately. Our tongues met and I shuddered as a current raced through me, burning through me like a fuse.
“God,” I whispered against her mouth.
“This,” she breathed back. “This moment.”
She pulled me into her kiss and this one went on and on. She felt perfect beneath me, fit perfectly against me, and our mouths moved in perfect tandem, our tongues sliding and touching so softly. The need that had been growing and simmering between us sparked and caught fire. My hands became greedy. She moaned and pressed herself into my touch, while her own hands roamed—in my hair, down my back, around my waist. She found me hard, and stroked me through my flannel pants.
“Jonah…” She pushed toward me, drawing me close with her leg. “I want to. So much. Can you?”
“Oh, I can,” I said. “And I’m going to.”
She let out a little sound of want into my mouth as I kissed her hard, while my hands sought her breasts under her shirt. The feel of them, the weight of them and her soft skin against my rough palms. All of her, her breath, the scent of her, the way she kissed me… I’d never wanted a woman like this. Ever.