Page 130 of The Dearly Departed

“No,” I whispered back. “Nothing ever is.”

I tipped her chin upward and brushed my thumb across the line where her lips met, her flesh soft and supple.

"Cigarettes and … mint," she whispered, breathless.

"What?" I asked, angling my mouth toward hers.

"That's what your breath smells like."

I couldn't help but huff a chuckle. "I'm sorry."

"No," she replied. "I like it. It's exactly what I would’ve expected."

"You expected my breath to smell like an eighty-year-old chain smoker with decent oral hygiene?"

She smiled against the pad of my thumb. "Something like that."

We were wasting time. I couldn't allow another moment to escape my greedy grasp. So, without another second to spare, I kissed her, pressing my lips hard against hers and stealing her breath away. She lifted her hands to press her palms to my cheeks, and through a surge of anxious fear of being somehow found out and recognized, I took her wrists in my hands and pulled them away.

"Please," she begged in a whisper against my lips. “Let me touch you. Just for a minute.”

I opened my eyes to see hers were still covered by my tie, and I allowed the concern to dissipate as I laid her hands back against my bristled jaw.

She reached with outstretched fingertips for my face, moving her hands from my cheeks to my neck to dance along my hairline.

“Why do I feel like I’ve waited my entire life for this moment?” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Why do I feel like I know you and your hands and your—”

“Stop thinking, Princess,” I murmured, my lips moving against hers.

She moved her head in a subtle nod as she tangled her fingers in the depths of my hair, tethering herself to me as she kissed me again, parting her lips and accepting my tongue.

The passion of the moment, the things I accepted and allowed my heart to feel for her, crushed against my chest and rattled my soul. Awakening something primal and desperate as our hands grasped and tugged, hopeless with a need for closeness as the reality of our situation hung over our heads like a dark, damning cloud.

It was the first kiss I’d ever wanted to have, and it never should’ve happened.

I held my hands to her cheeks and wrestled my lips away from hers.

I laid my forehead against hers and whispered, "You have to go now."

She exhaled with a sob. "No," she uttered in a pleading whisper. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to do this.”

"I know … but you have to," I argued before pressing one last kiss to her forehead.

With great regret and restraint, I took a step back and put a dreaded distance between us, knowing that, from this moment forward, everything would be different. We were changed. The line we’d been dancing along for years—the one separating the sides of what was acceptable and prohibited—was now faded, and there would be no going back to the way things had been before.

But she’ll be married soon, I thought, my eyes lingering on her lips, now bruised and swollen, the evidence of our forbidden desire. And if I’m lucky, Gerald will kill me.

Death would be merciful compared to the torment he’d likely put me through.

Quickly, I pulled the mask and gloves back on as Dean hurried toward the gazebo, a look of silent determination on his face.

And there was something else in his eyes too.

Something I hadn’t seen before.

"You've been ignoring your phone, sir," he accused me, obviously bothered and, dare I say, worried. "Lisey, we have to go. Now."

And from the way he spoke to her, I recognized what that something else was.