Page 90 of Eye of the Beholder
My heart picks up its pace. “I don’t think you want to kiss Jack at all. I think you’ve been fixated on him for so long that you don’t recognize that you don’t really like him after all.”
“Okay, Dr. Phil,” she says, but her voice shakes.
I shrug. “Think what you want. But you’re hiding so you don’t have to kiss him and so you don’t have to make excuses for not kissing him.”
“Can we just go?” she says, sounding exasperated.
I shrug. “Sure,” I say. I’m not particularly attached to the party scene anymore.
I open the closet door and slip out. She follows me, and we step out the back door. The wind is biting as we walk in silence around the side of the house.
When we reach my car, I lean against it and say, “So…did you like it when he kissed you? Was it a good kiss?” I can’t help it; I need to know.
“I don’t know that I’d know the difference,” Mina says, her voice flat. “Lack of experience and all that.”
I smile, watching as her hair whips around her face. “You’d know. If you don’t know, it wasn’t a good kiss.”
There’s silence. Then, so quietly I almost don’t hear her, she says, “Show me.”
My heart stops. Or maybe it speeds up. “What?” I say, narrowing my eyes.
“Show me,” she says, her voice stronger, although she still won’t meet my eyes. She scuffs her feet against the sidewalk as she speaks. “Show me a good kiss. Teach me.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, but despite my words I inch toward her.
“Don’t think you can?”
I move closer still. My heart is in my throat. “Are you taunting me into kissing you?”
No answer, but she folds her arms across her chest, and her breathing isn’t as even as it was a minute ago.
“You’re playing with fire,” I say. It comes out as a growl. I reach for her instinctively, and my hands slide into her hair. I lean forward—let my lips brush her ear as I say, “A good kiss makes your knees go weak. It makes your heart stop.” I trail kisses across her cheek, reveling in the sensation, at the softness of her skin. I knew it would be soft. Her breath is shallow, but so is mine. I’m ready to stop as soon as she tells me to—but I desperately hope she won’t.
“A good kiss,” I say, my voice low, my fingers trailing down the sides of her neck, “will make your mind short circuit. Do you think Jack can kiss you like that?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
“I don’t think he can,” I murmur against the corner of her lips. With an enormous effort of will, I pull back. “But if you find out, let me know.”
“How am I playing with fire?” she says, breathless.
I want to answer that it’s because if I kiss her, I’ll fall—completely and irrevocably. Instead I just smile at her as steadily as I can, trying to look teasing. “Because if I kissed you, you would fall immediately in love with me and all other men would be ruined for you forever.”
She stares at me, and I stare right back. My smile falters.
“Show me.” The wind whips around us, but her words are clear. “Teach me. Please.”
I sigh. “If I kiss you, it will feel real, Mina. You’ll think it’s real.”
Because for me, it will be.
“Fine. It’s not real. Now I know. Now teach me how to kiss.”
She’s killing me very slowly. I shake my head. “I’m not going to teach you how to kiss Jack.” Over my dead body.
“I never said anything about Jack,” she says, her voice even, her eyes intense.
My heart catches for possibly the billionth time in the last ten minutes. “Just so I’m understanding you correctly: You want me to teach you how to kiss?”