My So-Called Sex Life (How to Date, #1)(38)

I laugh briefly from the surprise, then look at the shaved distance between us. “See? We’re closer. But we’re still not accidentally kissing.”

Even though I kind of want to be. Even though my heart is beating faster than it was before.

When Axel looks at me, his eyes are darker than I’m used to. “Because someone always has to make the first move,” he says.

“Even if there’s an accidental-on-purpose kiss,” I add.

“Like in a book,” he says as he curls his hand a little tighter around my arm. I hope he doesn’t let me go.

Since I’m letting go of reason, I let go of the past too. In this moment, I want an accidental-on-purpose kiss.

“Sort of like this?” I ask, then lean in and give him a swift peck on the cheek. I catch the fading scent of the forest after it rains. I let out a tiny gasp.

His breath catches.

I pull back from his cheek, meet his eyes. They’re wild. Hungry. Then my gaze strays to his lips. They’re plush, pillowy soft.

“Or maybe…” I lean in, and I don’t accidentally kiss him. I kiss him on purpose. A soft, barely-there sweep of my lips. “…like this.”

“Like that,” he murmurs against my mouth.

I linger in the kiss and then take a little more. Another brush of our lips. Another press of my mouth to his.

Another hiss of breath from him.

Then a hand on my face, fingers gliding over my jaw, a touch that sends delicious tremors over my skin.

Axel Huxley can kiss. A tantalizing tease of a kiss like I’ve never felt before.

This one radiates down to my bones, through my skin. I swear I can feel it in my eyelashes.

And most of all, in the center of my chest where I’m melting.

When the train straightens out seconds later, we break the kiss.

“So,” he says, huskily, looking like he’s reorienting his reality, perhaps to this new one where we’ve kissed very un-accidentally.

I’m adjusting to my new world order too—one where I want to kiss him on purpose again and again.

But if I stay like this, hovering on the edge of want, I’ll climb onto his lap and kiss him so purposefully it could only lead to the bedroom.

What would happen in the morning though? No idea, and I’m not sure I’m ready to face a morning after.

Maybe he’s not either, since he nods toward the bedroom door, then rasps out, “You should get in bed first.”

Whatever his reasons are, I vehemently agree. We need some separation.

I head into the room, shutting the door to change into sleep shorts and a T-shirt, then opening it to invite him in. With my back to him, I hop under the covers, my stomach still fluttering, my body still craving.

He comes in a minute later, turns off the light, and heads to his side of the bed. I look away, even though I want to stare at him.

I want to read his reactions in his eyes. In his face. I want to study him to see if he’s still wondering what the hell just happened and why it felt so good.

I hear him set his glasses on the nightstand, then he slides under the covers.

We’re two stiff logs in a queen-size bed, hustling along the European coast after dark.

I’m acutely aware of how near he is but how far apart we are too.

And how completely deliberate that kiss was for both of us.

“Good night,” I say, my voice full of unasked questions.

“Good night,” he says, the same way.

Neither one of us falls asleep for a long time.





18





GAME FOR ANYTHING


Axel

That list of regrets I keep on my laptop?

The French Riviera is nowhere near it. In fact, I might need to start a list of un-regrets and this stunning view of the sea will be at the top of it.

We’re in Parc de la Colline du ch?teau in Nice the next afternoon, after having trekked up a steep hill to this park. It overlooks the Baie des Anges in the sapphire-blue Mediterranean Sea. This is why people work their asses off all year for a vacation—I feel like I am living inside a travel brochure.

As I stare out at the water, I try to focus on this moment, rather than on last night.

That kiss has been playing on a goddamn loop in my mind, and I need to stop it.

I try to commit to memory the blazing emerald colors of the park and the rusty red of the roofs below, along with the salty scent of the sea floating on the summer breeze. Maybe, just maybe, they can fill the space in my head that she’s taking up. Possibly, I can use them to block out the new item on my list of regrets.

Kissing Hazel Valentine last night.

But it’ll be like scaling a mountain to erase that kiss since she’s currently standing at the edge of the park, talking to the tour group about, what else, kissing.

Fucking kissing.

“Once I discovered this park on a European trip, I knew I had to include it in a book someday,” she tells them.

I seethe.

Bet she took that trip here with a guy. Was it Max? Or maybe it was Jacob, the musician she dated before him, another guy in a history of bad-news boys.

Jacob was a jerk too, married to his guitar and his gigs rather than to her. The dude left her hanging far too many times, canceling, forgetting, then asking for forgiveness.

What is wrong with men?

Present company included.