Wished

Chapter 17

17

I think I finally understand why Max avoids passion. He’s an unlit powder keg, and one stray spark will cause a massive, city-destroying explosion.

That one spark is a kiss. Just a simple kiss.

I’ve had plenty of kisses in my life. Closed-mouthed pecks. Cautious, curious first-date kisses. Open-mouthed, exploring, will-we-won’t-we kisses. Boring kisses. Wet, sloppy kisses. Gross kisses. Nice kisses.

Mostly, if anyone had asked me before today what I thought of kissing, that’s what I would’ve said.

Kissing is okay. Kissing is nice.

Nice.

There is nothing nice about Max’s kiss.

The second his fingers stroke across my cheeks and his mouth touches mine, all pretense, all pretend, all polite disappears.

He makes a low sex noise in his throat—a rumble that shoots straight at me and hits me so suddenly I’m inflamed.

He slants his hot mouth over my lips, diving in as if I’m the first and last woman he’ll ever taste. He’s feasting on me. His fingers dive into my hair, and then he grabs a fistful and tugs my mouth closer. I gasp at the sting of his fingers in my curls, and at my gasp he bites my lower lip and thrusts into my mouth.

I’m invaded by him. He thrusts and tangles his mouth with mine, biting and nibbling, retreating and then invading again. My skin is hot, flushed with the glow and taste of him. Crème brulée, hazelnut, and cream. The sweat on his skin, the salt on his lips, the scent of him wraps around me and I’m dizzy with the onslaught of his mouth.

“Hell,” he whispers against my lips, and then he licks the seam of my mouth, pulling his tongue across my lips. “You taste better than my memories. How can you taste better?”

I bite his lip, not caring if I taste better. I’ve never tasted him at all.

He swears then plants his hand on my sacrum and pulls me on top of his lap, positioning me so I’m straddling him. He presses his palm into my lower back, and I rock against him. He’s hard. Very. And when I press against the length of him I let out a soft shudder that he captures with a groan.

We’re at the edge of the Seine, under a weeping willow’s ribboning light, kissing for the first time. Around us couples picnic, friends walk the bank, and tourists glide past in tour boats. The city is bright and noisy and crowded. But all of that disappears with the press of Max’s hand to the curve in my back and the heat of his mouth against mine.

My dress falls around my legs, leaving my thighs bare and scraping against Max’s jeans. The lace of my underwear rubs him. We’re hidden by the long curtain of the tree’s leaves, in our own secret world where kisses are more erotic and explicit than any sex I’ve ever had.

There’s something happening here. Something I’ve never experienced before.

I’m vibrating, glowing brighter and brighter. I’m drunk on this kiss, dizzy and spinning, floating out of myself. I take my hands from the contours of his leather jacket and send them under his shirt, moving up along the bare planes of his abdomen.

His muscles flex under my questing fingers, and beneath me he thickens even more, his hips rolling in a lazy move that matches the thrust of his tongue.

My breath is tight, my heart gallops in my chest, and my skin is so sensitized that everywhere Max touches me lights up and sparks.

I press my fingers to the flat of his chest, where his heart thunders under my palm.

He pulls his mouth from mine. His lips are red and wet from the trace of my tongue. The light in his eyes is a violent, burning fire. His chest shudders as he draws in one deep breath after another.

I stare at him, still dizzy. Still aching.

He presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth, his stubble roughly scraping my skin. “If you knew how much I want you in this moment, I think you would run.”

I shift over the hard length of him, my thighs clenching in response to the tight heat running through me. “I think I have a good idea.”

“Darling. You have no idea.”

At his rough growl I sink against him, and he twitches beneath me, the thrust of him involuntarily rising to meet me.

“This is the first time in my life,” I admit, slowly pulling my hands out from under his shirt, “that I’ve nearly had sex in public.”

At my admission Max’s eyelids droop and his gaze burns again. “My mind is telling me this can’t be real, but everything else is telling me it is.”

Beyond the curtain of the tree a woman’s sharp laugh sounds, cutting through our conversation. Max shakes himself, reawakening to the day. He pulls his hand free from my hair and glances at his watch.

“We have to go,” he says, frowning at the time.

“Time to unmarry?” I ask, shakily climbing off his lap.

My limbs have that strange half-asleep pins-and-needles feeling. I’m heavy and clumsy and tingling. My face is tilted toward the stone and the river and I’m braiding my hair, smoothing my dress, but when Max doesn’t answer I look back at him.

He’s watching me braid my hair, a low flame burning in his gaze. “What happens if this can’t be fixed? If my theory proves false?”

I pause, letting my fingers fall from my braid. “I ...” My heart stutters, shudders, and then thumps along again. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

Max nods. Then, in a smooth motion, he stands and holds out his hand.

I take his outstretched hand and he pulls me up. A sparking current travels along my hand, up my arm, and crackles over my skin.

“Never mind,” he says, keeping ahold of me. “It’ll work. By tomorrow we’ll be strangers again.”

He doesn’t sound exactly happy when he says this, but I only nod.

Then he gathers the remains of our meal and I pick up the sadly wilted freesias, the flowers drooping toward death with every passing hour.