Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(88)
“Sorry.” But a silly grin spread across his face and he brushed hair and hay out of my face. “Not as smooth as your book crushes, huh?”
“I don’t know. I think I like the real thing better.” That earned me an even wider grin and this time when he bent to kiss me, we lined up perfectly. Hay dug into my back through my sweater and jeans and I didn’t even notice.
After what seemed like a lifetime of kissing, Dev pulled back, his lips a whisper against my cheek. “We need to get this wagon cleaned up and get to the bonfire before Mr. Hamm comes looking for us again and busts us for PDA.”
I groaned, but let him pull me up to sitting with a coaxing kiss…or two or three. “So, what do we do now?” A limp curl hung in front of my nose and I pushed it behind my ear. My hair was probably a rat’s nest of tangles, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Dev seemed to take a lot of pleasure out of helping me wipe the hay off of where it clung to my sweater and hair.
“Considering what just happened now and everything, does that mean I finally get a real pair of socks?” At the look on my face, he flicked a piece of hay at my nose. “I hear that kitchenered toe thing is amazing.”
I tossed a handful of hay in his face, then shrieked as he stuffed a retaliatory bunch down the back of my sweater.
“Goof,” I choked out between laughs.
“But a cute goof, right?”
“Bollywood-worthy cuteness.” In a move that would make Marissa proud, I reached up and pulled him down for a kiss, breaking away after a few seconds to start working on straightening up the wagon. I turned and smiled at his surprised but happy expression.
This was the best camping trip ever.
51
The camp was quiet at the moment. In a few hours, we’d be loading up the buses, but now, everything was still. I’d felt electrified all night, the haywagon and the bonfire and our ride back running over and over in my mind. So, when the first hints of sunlight tinged the sky, I climbed out of my bunk, grabbed a sweatshirt and my book, and slipped out of the cabin without waking any of the girls. A bit of reading might calm down my all-too-active brain. I touched my lips with my fingertips and stifled the urge to giggle like a little kid.
I set myself up on the dock, dangling my legs over the edge so the toes of my sneakers just barely skimmed the water’s surface. I only had about two chapters left of Cradled and I could probably finish them before reveille.
“‘Sometimes you need to leave everything you know to find yourself and to learn that life isn’t a solo,’” I read aloud to the pines.
“Talking to yourself?” A voice said behind me and I nearly fell off the dock. Dev grabbed my shoulder to steady me. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He joined me on the edge of the dock, letting his hand slide down my arm to capture mine. Even through my sweatshirt, his touch brought goose bumps up on my skin.
I tilted my head to look at him, smiling but wishing I had thought to put in my contacts. “I’m quoting from great literature while communing with nature, and you just interrupted me.” A part of me wanted to reach up and kiss him, but the still awkward and tentative part of me held back, waiting for him.
Dev didn’t kiss me, just started rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb. His other hand tilted my book so the page faced him, too.
“Is that the book with the whispering lips on the jawline?”
Out came the blush, rushing at warp speed from my roots and down my neck. “No, it’s the book about the violinist. And I’m never going to live that down, am I?” His lips turned up in a wicked little smile in response, and I sighed. “Didn’t think so.”
He bumped me lightly with his arm and squeezed my hand. “You could always take notes…”
Even though laughter was threatening to escape the faux stern set of my lips, I resisted the urge and pretended to go back to my book. It was hard balancing the book and turning pages with just one hand, though, and I resorted to trying to use my nose.
Dev laughed, tapped me on the tip of my nose, and turned my page. “Allow me.”
I smiled up at him and felt like my heart was going to burst through my shirt. His face was a silhouette against the sun as it rose over the lake.
“‘Oh, keep the world forever at the dawn,’” I said, quoting Kaylie in chapter eight when she quoted Emily quoting Marjorie Pickthall in Emily’s Quest, which was totally on my to-be-read list. I had to stifle a giggle at the fact that I was quoting a line from a real poem quoted by a fictional character being quoted by another fictional character. Like book geekishness times three.
“I’m down for that.” Dev’s fingers left my book’s page and he reached up to tug a strand of hair out of the loose crown braid I’d slept in. The curly piece bounced in front of my eyes.
Hands occupied, I twisted my lips and unsuccessfully tried to blow it out of my face. “What did you do that for?”
“I’m supposed to push a loose strand of hair out of your face, then let my hand linger on your cheek, or isn’t that how, like, every other kissing scene in those books you read goes?” He gently tucked that piece of hair behind my ear and let his fingers slide down to tilt my chin up until my eyes met his. “Well?”
I blinked, my skin hyperaware of his touch and probably short-circuiting my brain a bit. Even while being completely and totally swoon-inducing, he still managed to make me want to laugh.