Page 68 of When the Walls Come Down
As we ascended, it was time for me to come clean with her.
“Peach, I need to talk to you about something.”
Side by side, we watched the numbers climb as we neared our floor.
She tilted her head to look my way, and her expression was calm and easy as she replied, “Sure. What’s on your mind?”
The doors opened and we both just stood there.
“Our friendship,” I said as we began walking down the hall.
We’d teased and joked and skated around the fact that we were now just friends, but the truth was I’d been lying, or maybe just pretending, trying to fool myself into thinking it was possible.
But it wasn’t.
Not anymore.
Not for me.
We stopped at my door, and she gazed down at her feet. “What about it? You don’t think we make good ones?”
“I want things with you that people who are just friends don’t,” I confessed.
Her blue eyes finally met mine. “Like what?”
I stepped closer to her, not meaning to crowd her against my door, but she took a step back as I neared. “Well, for example, I want to be close to you and not feel like I’m too close or crossing some invisible boundary.”
“I thought that was just you’re old and have a hearing problem,” she contended and quirked an eyebrow, as if she had no qualms about proximity at all. Then she grinned and added, “I don’t mind.”
“I want more than that. I want to touch you too.” I moved her hair off her shoulder, and then I let my fingers graze her skin.
Her eyes fluttered, and her breathing picked up.
“And I want you to touch me,” I said because, dear God, there was nothing like her hands on me.
I skimmed my way down her arm and linked my fingers with hers. She held on to them and her thumb rubbed the side of my index finger.
Okay, Shane. Okay. She’s not shooting you down. Keep going.
“And—hear me out, because this is a big one—I need to be able to kiss you or wrap my arms around you, and friends don’t do that.”
So far, she hadn’t disagreed or argued, but I could see the trepidation mix with a hint of excitement in her eyes. “What else do you want that friends don’t do?”
I took another step closer, until her back was all the way against my door, and I brought our connected hands above our heads, pinning them there. My mouth was inches from hers, and I could feel her heart pounding through her thin dress at my chest.
“I want an all-access pass to this spot right here.” My mouth revisited her newly pinkened shoulder, and then my eyes returned to hers. “And this unfriendly spot right here.” I nuzzled my way to her neck, where I knew she loved having my lips.
Then we were eye to eye again and I saw it, everything that I’d hoped to find.
The desperation.
The need.
The desire.
It was all there for me.
I knew as soon as the next words came out of my mouth that I wouldn’t be able to take them back, but the only thing that would have been worse was not saying them at all and wondering later if I’d missed yet another chance to show her—to tell her—what I needed.
Her words from weeks ago cheered me on.
“You don’t have to hold back with me.”
“Be with me again, Peach.”
Her pink lips thinned as she began to smile, but then she paused. “But, Shane—”
“No buts. No what-ifs. No worries or cares. Not right now. Right now, let’s just be us. You and me.”
Her breaths were short and shaky. “I want to, but I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too. Can’t pretend anymore that this is something it’s not. Because I’m more scared that, if I don’t show you what you mean to me, I might lose you altogether.”
Her eyes flared, and she rose up onto her toes. “Well, are you gonna show me or not?”
When my mouth claimed hers, it was like the flood gates I’d been holding shut for weeks finally opened. I took the time the moment demanded to just enjoy the feel of her lips against mine, but only for a few seconds because things were about to become much more heated and the hall on the sixteenth floor was nowhere even close to appropriate for what I had planned.
But I didn’t dare break that kiss, not after how long I’d waited for it.
With the stealth of a marksman, I retrieved my keys, unlocked and opened the door, lifted her body into my arms, and kicked the door shut behind us.
Against the wall, we were mouths making up for lost time. Hands wandering and clutching each other closer. It was two people who’d somehow in this crazy, big world been paired perfectly by chance and drawn together by something bigger and stronger than themselves.
