Page 109 of Eye of the Beholder
Did Jack not tell him? Why didn’tItell him?
Oh—right. I didn’t think he felt the same way.
“You like me,” I say, still not quite able to believe it.
He hesitates, and then he says, “Yes.”
I clear my throat and scoot a little closer to him. He’s warm. “Like…romantically.”
He exhales and then says, “Very much so.”
“But you don’t want to encroach on Jack’s territory.”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “Don’t you take offense at the idea of being called a man’s territory?”
I smile. A giddy, light feeling is rising in my chest. “I do.”
I should probably tell him I’m not with Jack. I turn to face him, stepping closer. He just watches me, his eyes widening slightly, his lips parting.
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss his cheek, and his hands slide around my waist, almost automatically. I lean my head back and look at him; his eyes are closed, his jaw clenched, and he’s frozen in place.
Ears and face, right? I think that’s what he said.
I press my lips to his cheek again. I let my lips trail down his face, feathering kisses there, and his arms tighten around my waist. He lets his head fall back, his eyes closed.
“What are you—” he begins, but I put my hand to his lips, and he stops talking. I kiss my way up his cheekbone, noting his breath quickening. When I press a kiss to the hollow just below his ear, his fingers tighten convulsively against me.
“Mina,” he says weakly, his lips moving against my hand as he speaks—it’s plain that his restraint is starting to fail him.
I thread my fingers through the hair at the base of his neck. Then I kiss the corner of his mouth, letting my lips linger there.
“Mina,” he says again, but his voice is stronger this time—it almost comes out like a growl. “If you kiss me, I’m going to kiss you back. I swear I will. And this time I won’t pretend it doesn’t mean anything. I won’t hold back. I’m not going to sit here and act like I haven’t been waiting to kiss you. Don’t do this. Not while you’re with Jack.”
“I’m not with Jack,” I say, kissing the corner of his lips again—the other side this time.
There’s a second of silence.
Then Cohen says, “What?”
“I’m not with Jack,” I murmur against his neck, pressing a kiss there. “I figured he would have told you. You said you called him, didn’t you?”
“He wasn’t exactly sober,” Cohen says, sounding slightly dazed. “And you said—”
I sigh, resting my forehead on his shoulder. “I lied,” I say. “I didn’t think you liked me, and I was embarrassed. But we broke up after New Year’s.”
“Did you tell him we kissed?” Cohen says, his voice rough.
I frown. “Of course I did. I couldn’t keep something like that—”
But before I can finish my sentence, Cohen’s finger is under my chin, and he tilts my face up toward his. All I see is a flash of his widened eyes, an intense look of determination and wanting and hope—and the question he’s asking.
I nod, letting him know that I’m serious, that I’m all in.
And then his lips crash down on mine.
Fiercely and urgently they move. He kisses me like he’s drowning, and I’m fresh air. Like I’m all that’s tethering him to this world. This is a kiss born of waiting too long for something we both desperately want.
He deepens the kiss, and the sensation is incredible. I kiss him the same way, holding him as tightly I can, running my fingers through his soft hair, reveling in the smell of him. One of his hands is in my hair, the other cradling my neck, and there’s such hunger and longing in the way his lips move that it’s all I can do to keep breathing.
