Page 25 of Silver Player

“Now, we have other questions to be answered. You still didn’t tell me if I saw what I think I saw. You kissed Clyde outside the pub.”

“It was only on the cheek. He was being a gentleman.” I don’t know why I answer him or even justify the action because it’s none of Billy’s damn business. “Why? Were you jealous?” I retort, throwing the question back to him. His nostrils flare, but he doesn’t answer.

“Like this kind of kiss?” He lowers quickly to my upper cheek, close to my ear, giving me a whisper of a peck. I can’t speak. I’m so stunned by the motion I can’t find words. He slowly pulls back, dragging his nose tenderly along my skin to the corner of my mouth. He draws back only enough for a wisp of space between our lips.

“Or was it more like this?” He shifts his head to the other side of my face and kisses the opposite corner of my lips. My breath hitches, and my lips part. I’ve never had a corner-lip kiss before, and it’s terribly sweet and disturbingly sexy.

“More like the first one,” I choke out, my voice husky and rough. Billy tips back, allowing more space between us, but his eyes linger on my lips.

“Doing the gentlemanly thing,” he whispers. He steps back and releases my hands. I’m strangely chilled without his warmth, and my fingers tingle, wanting to reach for him and follow his retreat. Instead, I squeeze them as if restoring feeling and lower both hands to my sides. Billy turns to his side and juts out his elbow. “Allow me to walk you home.”

Too surprised by the sudden shift in him and flabbergasted by his suggestion, I wordlessly press off the wall and loop my hand through the crook of his arm. It’s only a few steps, and I’ve walked this direction a million times in three years. I’m perfectly safe in Blue Ridge, and I don’t need an escort, so I’m stumped as to why I’m playing along with him.

We haven’t gone two feet before Billy mutters, “Fuck it. I’m no gentleman.” I’m pressed back to the wall with his hands on either side of my head, and his mouth crashes into mine.

His lips are soft but demanding, tugging and teasing mine as he moves my head the slightest bit to deepen his attention. His tongue licks the seam of mine, and I open without thought, drawing him into me. Billy’s body returns to pressing me to the wall, but there’s no threat or menace like earlier, and my thoughts drift again. If he’d only lower his hips a bit, my legs could spread, and his thick thigh could press right there…but I’m distracted by his mouth on mine.

I’m kissing Billy Harrington.

The thought makes my heart race and my stomach triple flip.

Good God can Billy Harrington kiss, and he’s kissing me.

My mind slowly catches up to reality.

I’m kissing Billy Harrington!

What the hell am I doing?

I use all my strength to push on Billy’s shoulders, forcing him off me.

“What were you thinking?” I snap, as I realize a moment too late what he was doing.

Billy Harrington was kissing me.

“I was…”

“Kissing me,” I clarify, only my tongue hangs out of my mouth, and it sounds like I’ve said icking e. The back of my hand dramatically swipes across my lips as if to scrub off the kiss. He’d just kissed Kristy Moseley with those lips of his. Those delicious, devious, sensuous lips. I stick out my tongue and swipe down the length several times with my index finger, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing.

Oh my God, he kissed me after kissing her.

And I let him.

“What are you doing?” he groans, and my eyes leap to his, which are full of puzzling hesitation.

“You just kissed me after kissing Kristy.” I drag my knuckles over my lips again, disgusted with myself for giving in to the tender yet demanding direction of his mouth on mine.

His eyes widen in horror and then narrow to slits.

“That’s what you think?” he questions, his voice gravelly and low. “Jesus, Roxanne, you can be such a…” He stops himself and scrubs a hand down his face, resting his palm under his chin against his throat. My eyes leap to the scruff on his jaw. The same soft scruff my fingers long to touch. The same soft scruff that just tickled my chin.

He says nothing else but turns on his heels and begins to cross the street, jaywalking on the diagonal to reach the other side. My heart hammers in my chest, and my hands lower to press into the brick at my back, steadying me.

He kissed Kristy Moseley before me, right?

I watch his retreat, my shoulders slowly lowering, and my stomach settling from all the double backhand springs inside.

I watch as Billy spits into the street before reaching the curb, lifting his hand to his face, and dramatically swiping at his mouth, then flicking his wrist as if to rid his palm of something sticky and gross.