‘Shh, distracting you,’ I murmured as my nose lined up with his. ‘Just close your eyes and think of England.’
He didn’t close his eyes though. Not right away. My lips found his and they were cool and surprisingly soft for all their firm lines. I pressed against them gently. I didn’t want to move too much and unbalance the cage. Which left the kiss chaste and sweet; the kind I probably would’ve had with a teenage boy on this wheel, if any teen boy had ever actually asked me.
The kind of kiss unlikely to interest an experienced man like Stephen, now I thought about it.
But then he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose, his mouth relaxing under mine. Just that little yield made my tummy flutter and a touch of guilt assailed me. Was I taking advantage of him here under the guise of helping him? Probably a bit. Maybe a lot.
His lips parted and he tilted his head ever so slightly. I figured if I could get him to take his death grip away from the side of the car and transfer it to me, that would prove he was getting something from this. That it was working to distract him.
I brushed my mouth over his again, and he caught at my bottom lip gently. My tummy flutter twisted and grew, anticipation and warmth shimmering through me. I slid my hand down his neck and inside his collar, fingers shaping to his firm muscles. I completely forgot I wasn’t meant to be moving much.
He stilled. I sneaked my eyes open a fraction and saw that we’d moved past the top. We were almost a quarter of the way down.
‘Stay with me. We’re nearly there,’ I whispered and something wild inside, a temptation I couldn’t deny, made me stroke my tongue slowly across his top lip. He shuddered and I really hoped it was a good shudder. I planted one more, full-on kiss firmly against his wonderful mouth and forced myself to move away. We were nearly at the bottom. ‘You can open your eyes now. We have to get off in a minute.’
He opened his eyes and the look he speared me with was so full of raw emotion it made me breathless.
I lifted his hand in mine and peeled his fingers free. He glanced away and when he saw we were nearly at the bottom, dared to straighten up in his seat.
We exited the ride in silence. I’m not normally at a loss for words – as he so graciously pointed out before – but I was stumped if I knew where to go from here.
‘So. I’m going to visit the little girls’ room.’ I backed away. His face gave nothing away as he looked at me. He was still so pasty, but I could see a hard edge creeping into his expression that had me worried. Was he mad? Had I taken advantage and he was going to call sexual assault at me? ‘Meet you by the margarita hut again before we leave? I bet you could use a drink.’
And then I fled, like a coward.
I couldn’t avoid him for the rest of the evening though. As soon as I was finished in the ladies, I grabbed us a bag of hot sugary donuts as a peace offering and headed back to meet him. Hopefully he was feeling better now and not going to throw me into the sea. I was delving inside, breathing in the delicious doughy, crisp scent and nearly screamed as someone caught my elbow.
Stephen dragged me between two of the huts and I had to clutch my donuts to my chest, despite them burning my hand through the paper bag to avoid them being spilled on the ground.
He hemmed me in, one arm either side of me. ‘What was that before?’
‘Hmm…?’ I gave him my best innocent expression.
‘Why did you kiss me on the wheel? You were the one who said no flirting and no funny business. Those wereyourrules. First it was hand-holding. Now it’s kissing.’
‘It wasn’t a real kiss. It was just a distraction tactic. I figured that having someone as annoying as me lay one on you, would take your mind off your irrational fear.’
‘So, it hadnothingto do with being attracted to me?’
‘No.’ And it hadn’t. I hadn’t made the decision to kiss him because I was attracted to him. The last thing I wanted to do was kiss him when I was attracted to him and knew there was absolutely no future in that. Okay, well, maybe not thelastthing. But it wasn’t a sensible thing to do. It had been purely an act of kindness – to make up for forcing him on the wheel in the first place.
‘You’ve never considered what it would have been like between us? If it hadn’t all been a ruse on New Year’s Eve? If we had met up and done some of the things we talked about in those messages?’ He smoothed his fingers over a loose strand of my hair. Rather than tuck it behind my ear this time, he followed it down, the pad of his index finger following the line of it from my ear, down my neck. He leaned in closer. ‘Do you remember saying that you wondered what I would taste like? And now you know. Is there anything else you’d like to find out?’
I shook my head. Unable to speak. Mint. He tasted of mint and salt and sin.
‘You haven’t wondered? You haven’t imagined it? Us, skin on skin, a long night ahead of us.’ His fingertip danced along my collarbone and my body warmed in ways that had nothing to do with the summer heatwave, or the bag of hot donuts leaking grease onto my chest.
I closed my eyes for a brief moment and told myself I needed to get it together. This was not going to happen. I was not going to let him seduce me. I was not going to be another conquest he would move on from in a matter of days.
‘I imagined everything,’ I said in a husky whisper that I didn’t have to fake at all. He moved back to look me in the face and the heat in his eyes captured me – almost made me forget I was supposed to be putting him back in his place. How easy it would’ve been to let him kiss me. Properly. But no. I squashed down the part of me that was yearning for it and raised an eyebrow at him, smiling. ‘I’m a writer; I always imagine everything. I imagined what it was like to kiss you. And to slap you around the face. To wake up with you in the morning. To pour a milkshake over your head. Curse of the writer’s brain.’ I shrugged. ‘It doesn’t mean I want any of those things to really come true – after all, I write about murders for a living.’
‘It meant nothing then?’
‘It was exactly what I said it was. A distraction for you. It kinda worked and now we don’t need any more distractions so…’ I made a little motion with my hand for him to back up and give me some space. He obliged, slowly. Thank God, now I could breathe. ‘Donut?’
‘Thank you.’ He grabbed one out of the bag, took a bite. I could see a smile tug at the edge of his mouth and sugar glistening on his lips. My mouth was watering. ‘Have you ever done the donut challenge?’ he asked.
‘Eat a whole one without licking your lips? I’ve heard of it. Seems a bit pointless to me. You should just eat the donut and enjoy it.’
