He kisses me for what feels like forever, changing up the pressure to find a new angle, grazing his nose against my cheek, but never breaking our connection. He’s all my senses now, the smell of flowers and summer night air fading, the sound of his breath overtaking the distant city noise, the warmth from his body and the contrast between his soft lips and the friction of the scruff on his jaw sending wildly contradictory and intense signals to my brain, but it’s offline, too lost in sensations to do more than record it all. This will be a permanent record in my archive, one that I might study when I revisit it, but right now, it’s only about the feeling.
He shifts. I make a sound of protest, thinking he means to pull away, and give his lower lip a scolding bite to warn him that I still have more to explore. He laughs—or maybe it’s a groan, or both—and moves both hands to my waist, snaking around me and hauling me into his lap to deepen the kiss.
This is smart. He is so smart. What a brilliant man is Jameson Paul. This new position allows me to rest against his chest, slide my own hand into his hair, and pull him closer to explore his lips, to steal tastes of him while I wind my hand through his hair, his almost-curls twisting like soft spun cotton around my fingers.
At one point, he pulls away to murmur, “This is crazy. Why is this so …” But he abandons the thought in favor of more kissing. So smart. Brilliant man.
It takes beard burn for me to finally draw away, pushing on his chest to create enough space for me to tilt my head and smile at him.
His return smile immediately turns into a frown. “Your skin. Are you okay? It looks like I sandpapered you.”
I cup his jaw and tap my thumb lightly against his lips. “No regrets.”
“But—”
I press this time, and he nips the skin of my thumb, which is how I discover it’s highly sensitive. I draw him in for more kisses despite my chafed skin, but he resists and pulls my hand down to tuck it against his chest.
“No, Phoebe. Let me have you this way for a minute.”
I can’t argue with that. I settle against him, drawing my knees up as he folds his long arms around me and presses a kiss against my hairline.
We stay like that for a long time, letting in outside sounds again, cricket song and snatches of laughter I barely hear over the steady thump of my heart.
Eventually, a siren breaks through. I haven’t heard many since I moved in, and I send up a prayer that whatever is happening, everyone involved will be okay.
It seems to have broken the spell for Jay too, and when he shifts as if to reposition me, I slip from his lap instead to settle on the bench, right next to him this time, our thighs touching. He rests his arm around my back.
“I didn’t come here to do that,” he says after a while.
“I know.”
“I’m not sorry.”
I nod. He doesn’t need to be.
“Are you?” he presses when I stay silent. “Sorry?”
I sigh, and he answers with one of his own.
“You are,” he says.
I shake my head. “No. I’m not. But it complicates things.”
“Because of the board? They’re happy with your work. It’s not going to be an issue if we tell them.”
“You know that because you speak freely among yourselves. That’s going to change if they know we’re dating.”
His forehead furrows. “But we have to tell them.”
“I know that. If we’re dating.”
“If? Is the idea that we make out, never label it, and then we don’t have to tell them?”
“Of course not.” But I can’t help darting a look at those perfect lips. He catches me, and they curve into a smile. I hate to erase it, but I have to. “I don’t know about dating. If we should.”
Sure enough, the smile disappears, and Jay doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then he gets up and paces to the roof’s edge to lean against it, facing me. I miss the warmth the second he moves despite the summer night air.
“Toothpaste,” he says. “This feels like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.”
