“Yes,” she replied absently. Her mind was elsewhere as she dragged her gaze from that cheeky strand of hair that fell over his eyes, to his grey irises, that faint dimple on the bottom corner of his mouth, and lastly, she paused on his lips. “I need you.”
“Oh?”
“Wipe that smirk off your face. You know what I meant.” Lingering there in the driveway, Celine was really,reallybeginning to wish she could just settle back into his car again and drive around the city with no aim and no worries. She wanted to keep talking about the studio as if it was already refurbished and they were going to open it tomorrow. She almost asked him to return. Almost.
Her fingers twitched involuntarily, tightening around Bastien’s hand for a moment. She didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want to wait until the next challenge to see him again, either.
“You will come to my birthday, won’t you?”
He hesitated for a moment, nudging the gravel with the toe of his shoe. At last, he said, “Of course, I will,” and leaned in to place a kiss on her cheek.
Celine’s breath hitched in her throat when his lips met her skin. The subtle smell of cigarettes and sugar hit her senses, and she turned her head to look at him, but Bastien hadn’t drawn back yet.
Their lips brushed.
“I’m sorry,” Celine said mortified. But his hands close on her elbows, stopping her just as she was retreating backwards.
“I’m not,” Bastien uttered and captured her mouth with his again.
The shock of his lips on hers again registered for only a brief second. Then it fell away like a dimming star from the dusky backdrop of the evening as Celine held tight to his shirt, scrunching it in her fists. She tried to send signals to her hands to let him go, to stop this, but Bastien’s kiss was slowly erasing everything from her mind, including her ability to do anything beyond kissing him back. Every single one of her thoughts was so addled, she couldn’t even feel the goosebumps that travelled down her spine.
But she could feel that something had changed in the way he was kissing her. There was a delicate tremor in his hands when he let go of her elbows to cup her face and deepen the kiss. He was holding her more timidly. And yet, every flick of his tongue tasted sweeter, causing a concession of sparks to pop in Celine’s chest.
Bastien pulled away, just slightly, so he could say, “That first lesson is really paying off.”
“Mhm.”
“God, I’m a good teacher.”
“Yes,yesyouare,” Celine replied, and it all came out in a string of hastily uttered words, because she was hoisting herself on her tiptoes, throwing all of her weight at Bastien.
It was a gamble—whether he would catch her or not.
Regardless of the outcome, she lifted her hands up to his face, unable to remain stiff anymore, then dipped her fingers into the soft strands of his hair and met his lips again. She hadn’t realised how much she had wanted to kiss him again until now.
Bastien sighed into her mouth. He held fast to her waist, careful not to trip over the border lining the driveway. The shower of beads on Celine’s dress crinkled under his palm. His heart beat against hers wildly, erratic. Andloud.
Celine could hear it in the quiet of the night like a ceaseless bell ringing in the distance. But when she flitted her eyes up to look at him, there was only an indecipherable expression on Bastien’s face.
“Count this as a second lesson,” he said breathlessly. “You start paying on the third one.”
Celine blinked up at him, her lips parted as if to speak. But her brain was struggling for purchase. All she found herself focusing on was her lipstick smeared all over Bastien’s mouth.
A shaky breath loosened from her lungs.
Bastien ran a hand through his mussed hair. “I-I’ll see you soon then,” he mumbled. “Goodnight, Celine LeBeau.”
“Good”—he was already in his car, driving off, before she could get the rest of the word out—“night.”
Celine stood there for several minutes, waiting for the billow of engine fumes to dissipate. The night air nipped at her skin—she could hardly feel it. Her bare arms were still burning where Bastien’s fingers had grasped, holding her tightly to him. Her heart was racing on a track, going for the win.
Celine pressed her fingers to her lips.
What had just happened?
She glanced around as if to find an explanation on one of the pebbles in the gravel, but they yielded up nothing. She had gone insane. She was out of her mind to be kissing Bastien again. Nothing else could explain this.
Finally, a shiver coursed through her arms, and she pried herself from the driveway, heading inside. But she had barely taken one step when she stiffened, heart stopping on the spot.
