Jamie is kissing me.
And Jamie wasgood at it.
Way, way too good at it.
My fingers dug to his shoulders, and ever so slightly, I drew him closer. His hand hesitated for a second before it settled lightly on my hip once more.
Strange, new thoughts rushed in, like a dam had broken and a river now roared through. Thoughts like how it’d be to reach my fingers up, to trace them along the skin of his neck. Higher, and into his mess of brown waves. Lower, down the smooth bump of his shoulder blade. The force of the foreign thoughts slammed into me, knocking the air from my lungs.
Thoughts like how it’d be if my fingers found their way underneath his jaw, drawing his face up, bringing his lips to mine.
A forbidden thought, a wild, insane thought, but I thought it all the same. My fingers twitched, spurred by my imagination, sliding to act the recklessness out on theirown accord.Just once.I found the side of Jamie’s neck, fingers coming up just underneath his jaw.I need to see what it’d be like just this once.
The now-dark world blurred as I lifted Jamie’s head a fraction of an inch, his soft lips sliding just underneath my ear?—
Jamie is kissing me.
—just as the door to the guest bedroom exploded open.
“I said, no one’s allowed in the—oh my gosh!”
Jamie’s hand tightened on my hips, but he didn’t immediately pull away, not even as people pushed their way into the guest room to get a gawk at who they’d caught. His lips left my neck, and I could feel the shaking breath he let out as it slid against my skin, his shoulders trembling underneath my fingers.
The trail of kisses he’d left on my skin burned as if on fire, my entire body trembling from how fiercely my heart pounded. He’d had to have felt it beneath his lips, and I wondered what he thought—if he knew just what he’d done to me.
Heat flooded through me, pooling in my cheeks, and my fingers stayed hooked over his shoulders like they were the only thing keeping me upright.Holy crap.
The spell shattered into static as shocked voices burst around us:
“Ohmygosh!”
“Is that Daisy and Jamie?”
“See, I knew they were together!”
“Ohmygosh, at aparty?”
“I can’t believe it!”
My chest heaved as Jamie slowly—painfully slow—lifted his head from the crook of my neck. He looked up at me through the rim of his glasses, his brown eyes blown wide, pupils darker and deeper than they’d been seconds ago. The room felt too small, too bright, too loud.Too much, too much, too much.
But not enough.
I dragged in a breath, trying to be subtle, but it scraped my throat like sandpaper. I couldn’t look away from him. There were at least a half-dozen people crowding in the room’s door, but I couldn’t see anyone else. Just Jamie.
Only Jamie.
For what felt like the first time ever, it felt like I was trulylookingat my best friend.
Let me help you forget him.
“What thehell?”
This time, the voice caused both Jamie and I to turn. Nellie elbowed her way to the front of the gathered crowd, almost all of whom were whispering amongst themselves. Some even had their phones out. Nellie’s eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them, expression white.
But then, over her shoulder, I saw him. Dalton. He stood tall above Raelynn Meyer and Lydia Johnson, both wearing matching expressions of anger. Dalton’s face was different, though, more similar to Nellie’s than Raelynn’s. Not rage. Horror.
Horror.
