Chapter Eighteen
ALTA
“Is this a haunted maze?” Harper asked as we neared the entrance of the large stacks of hay on the beach far away from the main party. But the words I heard on repeat sounded a lot like,when I first saw you…
The comment had landed like a blow right on my chest. I hadn’t believed he said that. How could I when my first memory of him was his judging eyes deducing me to the same thing everyone else did?
Liar. What about that first look?My traitorous brain tried to remind me.
I often thought about that tiny moment before Gus’s eyes changed. What it meant, what he was thinking andwhy it felt like he saw me—like,reallysaw me? In one second I had been ready to give it all to him, and in one more it had all come crumbling down with his words.
I guess that’s why he’d always bothered me so much, because while everyone else’s assumptions hurt, Harper’s killed. And now all of a sudden he was telling me otherwise. Telling me that he thought I was strong, that I was beautiful. Smart. Capable. Worthy.
No wasn’t the time to decipher that, though.
“Yeah, isn’t it cool?” I asked. I had led him here, feeling high off of our stint on the dance floor. Burning with all I wanted from him after he’d uttered those words. He’d wanted me to kiss him, but what I wanted–God, what I wanted…
I wanted his arms around me like they’d been when we were dancing, his hands plastering along my body possessively. I wanted that sweet, sultry tone he used when he was showing me how to dance. I wanted the laughter we shared with my head thrown back on his shoulder, his broad chest rumbling against my back.
God, I wanted so much, but I wouldn’t—couldn’ttell him that the release he thought I wanted to use him for, I got just from being near him. Especially not when at that very moment when he wanted me to kiss him,Ialso wanted me to kiss him.
So I kissed him. I kissed him with everything in me and the more I kissed him the more I realized that there was a fire in me tonight. It had started burning a while ago, maybe when he first asked me to kiss him, maybe even before. Maybe it was always there, I didn’t know.
All I knew was that I wanted Harper. And this time, I wasn’t going to be the one to stand in the way of me getting him.
We flipped, going from me leading the way to Harper picking safe places in the sand for me to walk. We were near a rockier part of the beach and though they were platforms, these shoes were not meant for coastal activities.
Looking up as we arrived, he ran his eyes over the fixture, nodding. “This whole night has been pretty damn wicked.”
“Right!” I perked up, excited. “And did you see people walking around with your tattoos?”
He smiled softly, his eyes skating from one end of my face to the other. “Yeah, I saw that.”
I paused, cautioned by the way he was looking at me. It made me want to wipe my face or fix my hair, afraid that something was out of place. “What?”
Slowly, he shook his head. “Nothing, just… That’s not why I asked about the maze.”
“Oh,” I let my eyes fall. “Right.”
“No, no, no,” he said, and suddenly his face was in my face, his nose nuzzling into mine as his lips dragged along the swell of my own. Against my side, he buried his fingers into the cushion of my hip. “I promise to worship your every idea later. Because you were amazing today. But after a kiss like that just now, I would really like to worship something else.”
“You think I was amazing?” I asked, still hung up about my night.
His chuckle was so deep it moved me. “Can you focus?”
I giggled too. “How about this? You worship me nowandlater.”
“Oh,” he murmured. “You give a girl one compliment and she starts making demands.”
“Is that okay?—”
Lips, soft and warm, cut me off and I slowly began to walk us into the maze. The attraction was closed for the night but it wouldn’t be picked up until the morning.
“Don’t ask if what you want is okay. It’s always okay with me,” he said
“Okay.”
He smiled and pressed himself against me again, his bodychasing my every step. “That was the most traffic the shop has ever gotten in a single day. All because of you.”
