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The grip on my lungs loosens, and I release a breath. “Had,” I whisper. “I had a boyfriend.”
“Had?” Dash raises his eyebrows. “As in past tense?”
“I broke up with him after we got back from Memphis.” G-Lo’s words rattle around in my brain, urging me to make the first move, but my limbs won’t cooperate. “Did I tell you he blew off my mom’s funeral?”
“Dick move.” His mouth curves into a sly smile as he gravitates toward me and cups my jaw in his warm palm.
The sky explodes with color again, but the spectacular pyrotechnics are no match for the sparks flying between us. The whole damn world could burn down around us, and I wouldn’t notice.
He tilts up my face, and our gazes collide.
“What are you waiting for?” My breath stills, and my pulse quickens.
He drops his gaze to my lips and his eyes darken, sending my stomach into a free fall.
“Just kiss me already.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” He dips his head and presses his warm lips to mine.
Our mouths fit together like missing puzzle pieces, and my heart explodes at the first touch. Achingly slow and soft, each featherlight brush of his lips is like gasoline to a flame, sending a ripple of need racing through me and liquefying my insides.
I curl my fingers in the front of his shirt, drawing him closer and clinging to him like a raft in the middle of the ocean. He tastes of powdered sugar and sweet pastry, and I can’t get enough of him.
The sound of his groan vibrates through me until I feel it everywhere at once.
Stars explode behind my lids as he angles my face for better access, parting my lips with his velvet tongue and kissing me as if the whole world really were coming down around us. As if nothing and nobody else matters but his hot mouth against mine.
Flushed and out of breath, Dash breaks the kiss and falls back against the soft grass, bringing me with him. “I’ve wanted to do that since Memphis.”
18
Oh! You Pretty Things
With the last bang still reverberating through the air and the last plume of smoke still dissipating in the night sky, we say our goodbyes to New Jersey.
As we wander back to the car, Dash takes every opportunity to touch me—from stealing kisses under the moonlight to hooking his pinkie with mine and resting his chin on my shoulder while we gaze at the city lights. And every touch makes my heart soar and my pulse race.
Just before midnight, with the Tesla’s battery dipping into the red, Dash pulls into the circular drive of a towering yellow-brick building. A small army dressed in crisp tan-and-black uniforms scurries between the line of expensive cars and shiny carts stacked with designer luggage.
“This is it.” Dash unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out of the car.
He walks around to my side and opens my door, then waits patiently for me to join him on the sidewalk.
Like Jack standing at the bottom of the beanstalk, I gaze up at the ornate facade jutting into the sky, and my insides curl into a ball. “You live in a hotel?”
Dash takes my tote and slings it over his shoulder as if he’s done it a hundred times before. “I don’t live here, my dad does. When he’s in the city, anyway. And the upper floors are apartments.”
“Will, uh, anyone be home?” Heat blooms across my cheeks. A sleepover in the front seat of his Tesla is one thing. A sleepover in his father’s fancy New York apartment is something else entirely.
“Shouldn’t be.” He takes my hand and squeezes. “As far as I know, Dad’s in Washington, which means his wife is with him . . . or in Paris, shopping.”
“Paris?”
“She’s . . .” He trails off as he turns to whisper a few words to the valet. “Let’s not talk about her.”
The uniformed man scurries to the back of the car, unloads our bags from the trunk, and places them on a shiny brass luggage rack. As he darts toward the building with our luggage, another man hops into Dash’s seat and drives off with the Tesla.
I follow the taillights until they disappear into the night. “You sure we didn’t just get carjacked?”
