CHAPTER TWENTY

“What?” I asked. Was I drunker than I thought? Recently I hadn’t been drinking very much, mostly because I couldn’t afford it. I’d also been so busy with my decorations and setting up my new life and getting accustomed to it that I hadn’t really found the time for alcohol. I must have become more of a lightweight because I was obviously feeling the effects from my drinks at the clubs and the two glasses of champagne.

And if it wasn’t affecting me, then the alcohol had clearly affected Tyler. In some ways it was kind of fun—he was like Tyler on steroids. More charming, more playful, more fun.

Somehow more attractive.

“I could kiss you,” he repeated. “As an impartial third party, I could judge for myself whether or not you are a bad kisser. Then you would have empirical proof that he was wrong.”

Why did this sound logical? I knew that it wasn’t. “But we’re friends. Just friends.”

“And don’t you think this is something a friend should do? If they could?”

Again, totally reasonable.

My conclusions meant that I was not myself because I knew somewhere deep inside me that this was not a good idea. And what if I was truly bad at it? Did I really want him, of all people, to know it? “Maybe we shouldn’t. Since we’re both a little drunk.”

What are you doing? Shut up! He wants to kiss us! But he didn’t really want to kiss me. He was just offering to judge me and I was pathetic enough to agree to it because I had wanted to kiss him and more than kiss him for what felt like a very long time.

“I’m not drunk,” he said, his eyes glittering with a look I didn’t recognize. “I consent to it if you consent to it.”

That almost sounded like a dare and something inside me rose to respond. “Okay.” After I’d said it, I felt unbelievably awkward. What was I supposed to do now? For a judgment kiss? Was I supposed to kiss him first to prove my talents or was he supposed to kiss me?

Suddenly some part of my brain buzzed, like an annoying fly, that this was a Bad Idea. “You know, we don’t have to . . .”

My voice trailed off as he moved closer to me. Oh. I guessed he was going to kiss me. He moved in close, reaching up with his right hand to hold the side of my face. I drew in a trembling breath, unprepared for the onslaught of feeling that came just from him barely touching me. Every nerve ending crackled and sparked with excitement.

“You bought my dog a present,” he whispered.

I looked into his beautiful eyes, noticing that there was a ring of gold around the pupil, something I’d never noticed before. Mostly because our faces had never been this close before. Well, not when there was light and I could see him.

“Yes,” I whispered back. “We already established this earlier.” It felt like a weird thing to bring up, given the moment.

Then he smiled and moved toward me, like he was underwater or going in slow motion. It took me a second to realize that he was doing it so that I could say no.

He confirmed this when his lips hovered above mine. “Are you sure?”

Every cell in my body hummed with anticipation and desire. “Yes.”

Then his lips were against mine, softly, sweetly, a featherlight touch. The kind of kiss you imagine when you’re a tween dreaming about your first kiss. He’d obviously intended for it to be sweet and gentle. Which meant that it should have made me feel dreamy and nostalgic and swoony.

It did none of those things. From the moment his lips touched mine, it was like someone had plugged my mouth into an electrical socket. A surge zipped through me, giving me goose bumps and heating my blood.

It lasted for only a few seconds but it almost zapped my ability to hold myself upright.

He pulled back slightly, still within kissing range. I felt his warm breath against my face and it took all my restraint not to press my mouth against his and keep this going. Which he may not have wanted. I swallowed, trying to figure out what to do next. I settled on finding out what he’d thought of our experiment.

“How,” I started to speak, surprised at the breathy quality to my voice. “How was that?”

His lips pulled up into a smile. “I think I need more data before I can draw any conclusions.”

Again, perfectly sound logic. I nodded, feeling as if I couldn’t quite catch my breath. I noticed that he was looking at my lips. As if he’d only had a fleeting impression and now needed to do a more thorough investigation. The look in his intense blue eyes made the air around me feel charged with energy, like lightning could strike us both then and there.

That feeling didn’t lessen when he pressed his lips against mine again, this time kissing me. Not just a peck, but moving his mouth against mine with a gentle firmness that left me weak and shivering. He made the nerve endings in my lips explode from sheer pleasure.

Now both of his hands were on the side of my face, guiding my head this way and that as he kissed me over and over again.

Some detached part of my brain was warning me to pay attention to the technical aspect of the kiss, so that he wouldn’t think I was terrible at it, but I was so caught up in what was happening that I couldn’t focus on anything except the feel of his strong mouth on mine.

He tasted like champagne, and it was delicious. He was delicious.

Time passed—seconds, hours, I didn’t know—and somehow, something changed. A sense of urgency crept in and I didn’t know whether he was the cause of it, or if I was.

I suspected myself. Because while kissing him was almost transcendent, better than anything I could have imagined, I wanted more. More kissing. More of him.

At this point I didn’t even care if I was truly bad at it. It didn’t matter because obviously Tyler had been created solely to kiss women into oblivion. Yet another thing he was fantastic at.

The pressure of his mouth increased, his movements faster, and I immediately responded. A buzzing sensation whipped through me, and I wanted to get closer. My hands moved of their own volition, wanting to touch him. Hold him close. Feel the strands of his soft hair against my fingertips.

His arms went around my waist, tugging me up. I got to my knees so that I could be closer to him. He shifted his body up into a kneeling position, too. The sensation of him wrapping his arms around me, holding me tight, made me sigh with pleasure, every part of my body tingling in response.

The sound I made did something to him, as if the electricity passed through me and traveled into him, and he groaned against my mouth, deepening the kiss. A lightning storm burst to life under my skin, making my lungs constrict and my heart feel as if it were about to explode.

We kissed and kissed, building and building the storm until it threatened to rage out of control. I couldn’t have guessed how long we stayed locked in our embrace, only that I wanted to spend the rest of time kissing, and being kissed by, this man.

I’d never known anything to be quite as glorious or as intoxicating.

Then he suddenly stopped, resting his forehead against mine. His hands moved to my shoulders, and I didn’t know if he meant to push me away or pull me back in. I was confused, but felt a primal surge of satisfaction that he was breathing as hard as I was.

I heard his husky intake of air, and it made my shivering intensify.

“You,” he said, his voice raspy and harsh, as if he could barely control it, “are not a bad kisser.”