“Okay,” I whisper. My heart is in my throat.
“Okay.” He squeezes my hand. The rain is sheeting down now. We’re both soaked and the outside world is a dull murmur beyond this pocket of storm.
“I think the bracelet is helping me now.”
We raise our linked hands and look down. Thedandelions are a cheerful yellow even in the dim, green-washed light of the storm.
Now, Katie. Do it now.He deserves this. Don’t be scared.My heart is hammering in my chest, nearly as loud as the storm.
“Tristan, I—”
“Katie, it—”
We speak at the same time, then laugh.
“You first.”
“I’m so nervous.” The words tumble out.
He rolls his lips to hide a smile.
I press my palm to my stomach. I’m really about to do this. To blow up my friendship with Tristan, even though there’s no hope that this will ever be anything more.
“I lied. Two nights ago, on the dock.”
His gaze is searching my face again, bouncing from my eyes to my mouth, then back up. He looks lost for a second, as lost as he did that day of the funeral, but his fingers are tight on mine, and I think he feels like I do.
I think he wants this too.
“Tristan.” I let myself lean into him and all that warm, damp skin. His hand slips under my coat to clutch at my waist. His body is taut, and his eyes—I let my fingers drift over his jaw, trying to read his expression. He looks anguished. Starved.
“It didn’t feel like practice to me. I said it was practice, but it wasn’t for me. It felt—”
“Real,” he whispers before he seals his lips to mine.
46
KATIE
Our mouths meet in a desperate, searching kiss that quickly turns deep, then deeper, then slow and claiming. My hands are in his hair as I stand on my tiptoes. Tristan holds me up. He tastes like rain and whiskey, and the way he groans into my mouth makes me feel drunk.
“Katie,” he breathes. His hand clutches at my hip, then my ass, dragging my dress up and pressing me against him.
I make a shattered sound when his teeth find my bottom lip. “I can’t think, Tristan. I want too much.” I sob out a desperate sound as he pulls me flush against him.
“Don’t think,” he says raggedly. “There’s no such thing as too much when you’re with me.” His mouth finds mine again, or mine finds his, and we sigh at the same time. Each restless press of our lips draws warmth up inside me.
I want more. I kiss him harder, then dig my hands into his shoulders. I feel like a rubber band that’s being stretched too tight. “Tristan,” I urge. He sucks on the crease of my jaw.
“Yeah,” he hums, sounding lost.
I scrape my nails over his chest and arch against him,wanting more of what I felt on the dock, more of that wild, clawing need.
He’s hard against my stomach, and when I reach down and find his erection pulsing in his sweatpants, he groans. “Fuck.” He presses his face against my throat, stubble scraping, until I can feel his pulse and the shallow breaths he’s taking. “Katie, fuck.” Each curse sounds a little like a prayer, and I feel like I’m floating.
I did this. I’mdoing this.He makes me insatiable, but I might make him that way too. I can’t stop touching him, from damp, smooth skin to soft hair and back again. I’m melting, warmth spilling through me.
He raises his head and kisses me again, and then we’re stumbling through the grass, his mouth fused to mine, his hands pushing at my coat, mine on his sweatpants.
