But I didn’t hear anything else that came out of his mouth. It was as if I’d stuck my head out the window of a car going down the highway at seventy miles an hour. My ears filled with loud air, tunnel vision catching four Peeping Toms staring at us from the cabin’s bay of windows.
All I could hear was Claire’s plea that I do this favor for her. Noah in the background calling me “sis”. Ken and Annie being nice. Too nice. They weren’t supposed to be this nice. They were supposed to be like the Montagues and Capulets. The Montagues and Capulets I could lie to. They were trying to keep Romeo and Juliet apart, and in the end, were partly responsible for two deaths. But Ken and Annie weren’t…
I swayed a little on my feet. Claire and Noah, Ken and Annie, Romeo and Juliet…all their faces spun around my head like bodyless busts, talking at once. Then my eyes pinned on Landon. Lowered to his lips. The spinning heads quieted for a second before taking turns to speak.
“Please,” Claire begged. “For me.”
“Have you kissed him yet?” Harper this time. “Married people kiss.”
“With the space you’ve put between the two of you…” The Ken Abrams from my imagination didn’t have to finish his thought.
And I had none in my head when I did what I did. Landon’s lips were moving. I could see them as they pressed together, parted, formed words. But like a praying mantis with prey in its sight, I struck. My hands flew forward, grazing the prickly hairs of his beard before clutching the back of his head and bringing his lips down to meet mine with a crushing force. My body followed, springing forward and punching into his, pushing his back against the wood siding of the shed. Our teeth clanked together, and my fingers—and probably his skull—smashed from impact.
I jumped away, horror flooding me at what I’d just done, jaw ringing and fingers pulsing. Impulse transforming into the worst kiss in history. I covered my mouth with my hands, eyes wide, head shaking.
His gaze searched me, and I felt exposed beneath it. Felt like an idiot. An awkward, starved-for-love moron who’d literally just thrown herself at the first male attention she’d gotten in years.
And it wasn’t even genuine! The whole blasted thing was a piece of fiction!
I’d never really questioned if I’d been a factor in Parker’s struggle. Not really. But after that performance, I confess the thought Did I turn my ex-husband gay? crossed my mind. I couldn’t even kiss a man without causing bodily harm! Who in their right mind could be attracted to, much less pleased by, someone like me?
Landon’s gaze momentarily hung over my shoulder. His body tensed before his eyes rested on mine once more. The muscle in his cheek jumped, but I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. Or rather, where he’d place me on a stupidity scale of one to ten. Off the charts, if you asked me.
He sighed, and his chest seemed to cave a bit in disappointment.
Yeah, I’m pretty disappointed in my kissing abilities too, buster. Probably a good thing we aren’t really married, huh?
I opened my mouth to reassure him I wouldn’t try to put any more moves on him for the last two days we were here, but then his head lowered and his forehead rested on mine.
“What am I going to do with you?” He spoke so softly I thought he was talking more to himself than to me.
Then in one smooth move his arm lowered across my back, and he pivoted us so my spine was flush against the side of the shed and his wide shoulders blocked the view of our audience at the windows. His other hand came up to cup the side of my face, and his thumb grazed across my cheekbone. He didn’t say anything, but the way his eyes moved back and forth between mine was a conversation in itself.
If only I spoke that language.
And then, in a breath, his lips were on mine. It wasn’t two semis colliding like my kiss had been. No, it was perfection. It was Rhett telling Scarlett, “You should be kissed often, and by someone who knows how.” It was Captain Wentworth telling Anne, “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.” It was Doctor Zhivago saying, “It’s as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven and sent down to earth together, to see if we know what we were taught.”
Every sigh-worthy, swoon-worthy romantic climax to every tale ever told unfolded in that kiss. His lips moved over mine, igniting a passion and longing deep in my soul. My hands slid over his chest, clung to his shirt as I pulled him in even closer to me. Clinging, because I knew if I didn’t hold on for dear life, I’d plunge over the cliff of no return.
