Page 111 of This is a Kissing Book

“Like what?” I ask innocently, though the corner of my mouth lifts.

Her lip juts out in the smallest pout. “Like that. You know what I mean.”

“Do I?” I lean in closer, watching her eyes widen.

She pokes me in the side.

I can’t help myself and ask, “Was it the hand-holding kind of kiss?”

“What do you mean?” she asks this time.

I bring her hand to my lips and press a chaste kiss to her knuckles.

She rolls her eyes, but I catch the smile she’s fighting. “No.”

“A friendly peck on the cheek?” I demonstrate, my lips barely grazing her cheekbone.

“Linc—”

“A polite kiss goodbye?” I brush my lips against her temple, soft and quick.

“You’re impossible.” She laughs.

“A dramatic movie kiss?” I dip her slightly, hovering above her mouth.

She steadies herself against my shoulders, her fingers curling into my shirt. “Getting warmer.”

I straighten us both, studying her face. There is that telltale sweetness in her eyes, telling me she wants this as badly as I do. “Sugar eyes,” I murmur.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve got sugar eyes, Jules. Sweet and wanting.”

Her cheeks blush deeper. “That’s not a thing.”

“It most certainly is.” I smooth a piece of her hair.

She slants her head slightly as if to challenge me, but it’s also the perfect angle … if I just close the space between us.

Instead, I say, “So if when we kissed like that, as you said, wasn’t one of the kisses I asked about, then what kind was it?”

She tilts her chin up, defiant and playful. “The kind that made me forget my own name.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“That made me forget that we’d nearly died.”

The air shifts between us.

“It was the kind that made me realize that I want⁠—”

“Oh, you mean like this?” I draw her to me and kiss her again, softer this time but no less intense.

Her breathing turns ragged almost immediately, matching the drumming of my pulse in my ears. What starts gently quickly deepens, the kiss growing hungry, demanding. My hands tighten around her, pulling her closer, while her arms wrap around my back like she’s afraid to let go.

The kiss deepens and everything else falls away except for what she said just before our mouths met.

I want …