Page 27 of Your Kiss Is On My List

“No.” He takes in a deep sigh and I feel like jumping off a bridge—but not before I throw my arms around him and kiss those sensual lips of his. At least in my head that’s what I’d do.

“Let me guess—you want to break off our fake relationship?” He looks at me long and hard.

“I don’t want to—”

“Oh, good,” I sigh and throw my arms around him, though I hold back on the kiss, sensing that’s a step too far. “I was worried because you know I’m counting on you for…” He stiffens for a second then wraps his arms around me, returning the hug. The feeling of completion, of being home and warm and cozy and everything kittens and daisies like I’m wrapped in a bubble of joy, overwhelms me. The moan of pure contentment surprises me because it sounds a little like the other kind of moan—or so I’ve heard—and I let him go with a startle.

“This”—he waves his hand in a circle to encompass us as he pulls back— “has to stop. We can’t keep …”

“Hugging?”

He nods.

“Why not?” I know very well why not, but I want to hear him say he doesn’t want me that way, need the rejection to be stark and clear enough to cool my lady-jets because they’re steaming and ready to go right now and I feel crazy and naughty and out-of-control, which is the scariest thing in the world to be. The sigh he lets out speaks of the world pressing down on his shoulders and I squash that ever-present impulse to hug him yet again, to console him, because it’s all wrong.

“Because you’re too…” He shoves a hand through his hair and looks away and my face heats up because all the words I imagine finishing that sentence with are humiliating beyond what I’m prepared for.

“Too what? Too young? Because I’m not—”

“No, not too young. Too innocent.” Fantastic. The worst possible indictment because it’s too true.

“So what if I’m innocent? What does that have to do with a hug between friends?” I’ll make him tell me I’m undesirable even if it’s the last thing I want to hear. I need to hear it or I’ll let my true feelings have their way with me and him.

“So… I’m not innocent, Dani. And I don’t want to—”

“What? Kiss me? You’ve already done that.”

“That was more than enough,” he says.

“It was that horrible?” I hear the desperate collapse in my voice and shore up my spine, straightening and stiffening and tilting my chin up to look him in the eye. I need to face this, to deal with his true feelings, to confront the reality. But do I have the guts to tell him how I really feel in the face of his rejection?

Not if it’s going to risk losing him again.

Except this time it’s different. We’re on campus together and I’m covering the team so he can’t ghost me. I’ll have a chance to win him back, to put things right if I blow it all up now.

Shit, this is so hard, looking at him, at those sizzling eyes and that chiseled chest I want to reach out and touch. But I fist my hands and hold back. And as he stares at me, probably trying to figure out what to say, or how to break it to me gently that I’m too sisterly for him, I notice his fists bunched on his lap like he’s holding something back too. Crap.

“Your kiss was the opposite of horrible,” he says, barely audible, his jaw clenched and posture stiff. “Your kiss is one of the best things in my life.”

“Holy… shit. Trey?” I can’t believe what he’s saying. I must have heard him wrong, but I lean close and he reaches up to touch my face with a shaky hand.

“That’s the problem, doll. You’re too sexy for an innocent little girl and I don’t want to do or say the wrong thing, to take advantage—”

“Wait a minute—are you saying you’re attracted to me?” He stares at me with intense eyes holding me still so that my heart stops beating, left in suspension, waiting to be broken—or not.

He nods. “Dani, how could I not be? Have you looked in the mirror?” He half laughs.

“But looks aren’t everything, Trey. You now that. I…” I have no idea what I’m going to say.

“Only a chick would say that. Guys aren’t that complicated.”

“Are you saying… What are you saying? You’re confusing me.”

“I must have had experience with guys at NYU?” he shakes his head and I feel like I’m a lost cause. But I so much want to believe that he’s really and truly attracted to me like someone who could be his lover and not a kid next door that maybe I’ve lost my common sense.

“I have plenty of experience with guys,” I blurt, slightly exaggerating because my experience was mostly keeping them at arm’s length and it wasn’t that hard. All I had to do was tell them I’m a virgin and saving myself for my husband and that usually dampened the interest. My declaration was half true. I was—am—a virgin, but only because I’m more interested in my career and being independent than any guy I’ve met. With one exception—the guy I’m staring at right now. Maybe I have been saving myself for my future husband if Trey were that guy.

Now I’ve gone and done it—totally gone off the deep end into the opposite-of-an-independent-woman end of the pool. Shit.