Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
But he didn’t need to know that much.
“It was beautiful, Kyle.”
Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say. Maybe the wisest thing I could have done was to deny how it had felt. But maybe, for just a moment, I wanted to enjoy the only thing I’d ever experienced that felt real.
Nervous as I was that I hadn’t chosen the right words in the moment, I feared just as much that he hadn’t felt the same.
“Sounds about right,” he said.
And just as problematic as our words was the relief I felt in hearing them. For a fleeting instant, even my most cynical, agnostic heart knew that magic was real.
19
Kyle
As I slid into the driver’s seat of my car, I leaned back, catching my breath like I had after the kiss. It wasn’t just about his lips anymore, or the way he’d let me have my way with his mouth.
It was his admission.
I’d feared—been terrified—he’d deny he felt anything when I knew that wasn’t the case, but just as bad was the fear that maybe he hadn’t felt it, or not as strongly as I had. I told myself a thousand times over that there was no way, but if it had been so little to him, that would have been as bad as if he hadn’t thought of me as more than another one of his students.
The kiss played on repeat in my mind, along with all the caution and apprehension I battled as I tasted him, felt him, smelled him.
Needed him.
Now that I knew he felt the same, it was like I’d been given permission to revisit it again and again, without worry or regret.
It was all I’d be able to hold on to now that I’d have to conjure the strength to keep my distance. I could restrain my selfish desire, so long as I could remind myself in moments of temptation that everything James loved would be destroyed if we acted on anything as we had before. We risked his job, his freedom. Everything about us would vanish in a moment if anyone discovered what we had done.
If I wanted James, this was the only way I could have him. It was enough, if only because it had to be.
The next day was more like usual. I didn’t catch any look from James that left me wondering where we stood, or anything uncomfortable that might have left me suspecting he’d changed his mind since our discussion. He would glance at me occasionally, but as he had before, with those gentle eyes and friendly smile. The simplest of looks had transformed into so much more in my head.
We weren’t “back to normal.” There was no going back. I would never be able to shake the memory of his lips, his taste, the way I felt he wanted me, the way I discovered I was right about all I’d experienced.
“It was beautiful.”
So fucking beautiful.
Even more than the kiss, though, I treasured what we’d talked about. Him telling me about his wife and her betrayal, and me telling him about my parents. We’d shared things we hadn’t with anyone else.
We didn’t only have one secret, but several, and I enjoyed being the keeper of his.
A part of me felt like some switch had turned on in my brain that night in the alley, yet I was aware that what had led me to that extracurricular assignment had been more fascination with James than this overprotective impulse that just grew in intensity the more I got to know him, the more we got to know one another.
I believed Saturday would be the real test for how we would manage our agreement. And even just waking up was different. Normally I was groggy, tired from the deliveries I’d made Friday night, but I headed out, refreshed and eager. When I arrived at the site, I parked alongside the street, and as I walked past the cars, took note of James’s. Then I noticed him farther down the drive, chatting with the usual gang, his gaze shifting to me as though he’d been waiting to see me as much as I’d been waiting to see him.
He didn’t stifle that broad grin or that gleam in his eyes, one that had me thinking that everyone could read what the warmth in his expression really meant. Although, the obliviousness in everyone’s expressions reminded me that no one could read our thoughts, despite how loud mine were screaming as I replayed that kiss for maybe the thousandth time since Wednesday.
He wore a dark-gray pullover that let me know I wouldn’t be getting to see his gun show that day, but as long as he kept smiling like that, I wouldn’t care. I caught up with DJ, Hanna, Bentley, and Maya before we hit the roof, working with some newbies while James did his usual thing. There was a sort of calm to it, not that sting like I’d felt before our talk. We shared the occasional looks as we did in class, and it was enough, until we found ourselves at lunch, on our own, since DJ, Maya, and Bentley had to chat with Hanna about solving an issue inside the house we were working on.