Page 28 of Double Dared
I kept my gaze on Harrison because he was looking into my eyes as he spoke.
Even so, I could see the moment when Emma touched her friend’s shoulder, made up an excuse, and turned toward us. I could see her beginning to cross the room, could see the intention to greet Harrison because they kept crossing paths by fate’s design and Harrison’s, and could see the hopeful look on her face. Hopeful for what? That they might work out a way to remain friends? That he was happy with someone else?
That they could get back together?
As Harrison uttered the last words to me, I panicked. We still had nearly two weeks planned together. It was too soon, and we hadn’t done enough, and Emma didn’t look even remotely jealous, only amused and a little happy. And I wouldn’t see it end so quickly.
My hand went to the lapel of Harrison’s coat, and I pulled him in.
Abort! Abort! What the hell are you doing, you absolute idiot?
Yet I kept pulling him in, leaning closer to him, until I could see the surprise on Harrison’s face shift into something completely different, something warm and only a little startled and so full of relief that my heart ached.
My lips touched Harrison’s gently as our bodies came together. The warmth and softness of Harrison’s mouth on mine sent a tingling sensation from the back of my head down my spine.
As my hand on Harrison’s lapel tightened into a fist, my other hand moved to the back of his neck, holding him facing me, facing away from Emma, who quickly faded from my consciousness as the kiss deepened.
Harrison stood still for a moment while I kissed him, then moved his foot between both of mine, leaning in and kissing me back as the scent of his spicy cologne wrapped around me and pulled me into him. My skin tingled where his mustache met it.
He tasted like mints and strawberries and something indescribable, something that was so unlike anything else I’d ever tried to recognize.
His hand lightly brushed against my hip, fingertips grazing the fabric of my pants, and then he pulled back from me. “Wh—what was that?” he whispered, inches away from my face.
Heat rushed into my head so quickly I nearly lost my balance. “Trust me,” I whispered back. “Tell you later.”
I wished I could tell him why, could tell him that he could actually trust me, but all the words had just tumbled into the abyss of my subconsciousness, and I was speechless, dizzy, high on adrenaline, and so heated on the inside that all my clothes chafed me wrong.
When I remembered to look over Harrison’s shoulder, the room was empty again.
“Tell me about Maria,” I said, letting go of his coat.
Harrison cleared his throat, unblinking, his cheeks afire and his lips slick as he licked them. “I trust you.”
My teeth clenched, and I nodded, but it was a small, jerky gesture because all my muscles were tense, and I had only a vague sense of control over my body. I really needed to take my jacket off, maybe have a cold plunge, maybe climb the tallest mountain and shout from the top of my lungs, though I didn’t have any words I could shout out. I didn’t know words that tricky and big and impossible.
Instead, I listened to Harrison as he stumbled over a few words and began to tell me about Maria.
CHAPTER TEN
harrison
I staredat him as his dark, defined eyebrows moved so expressively; they rose, they fell deep, they curved and contorted, and he moved his head to one side, then cocked it the other way, and his lips moved with force and speed, too. He shook his head, locks of hair flapping around his ears. He moved some off his brow with one hand absent-mindedly, fingers slim and long.
He made a guilty expression, then, eyebrows lifting high as he finally focused his darting, wandering gaze on me. “…now that I’m hearing myself, it wasn’t the best…”
I didn’t hear much of the rest. I didn’t want to either. I’d been so absorbed in telling him about seeing Metropolis in Berlin, and he’d kissed me at the perfect moment, wrapping his hands around my heart and squeezing it so hard it stopped beating for a while.
It was all play. All an act. It was fake. It was fake bymy own design, a perfect fake relationship run that I had architected from the start and began to believe in. It was my own fault, but it was Taylor who had kissed me so tenderly, so sweetly, so convincingly. Was I really the only one at fault, then?
“Yeah, good,” I said, cutting him off with a wave of my hand. “Fine. Maybe dial it back down in the future.”
His face was vacant, empty, and devoid of feelings, and his gaze simply remained on my face. He searched it, then waited. I didn’t know what he was waiting for. A joke to break the tension? He wasn’t getting it. Something more understanding, more casual, that would convince him that kissing me randomly was just fine? Never gonna happen.
“Let’s not do that again,” I said.
Taylor nodded, but he still looked at me with the same weight of expectation. “You’re angry with me.”
“I’m not angry,” I said.
