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but heard Holden’s footfalls following. Warning bells clanged in my head but were drowned in the thrashing beat of my heart that felt as if it were trying to break free of its prison like it had at the pool. Only this time, I was stone cold sober. No excuses.
I pushed open the door next to the auditorium—a back area of the band room that was for instrument storage. Huge basses loomed in the dimness, and drums of all sizes and styles lined the walls.
Holden followed me in and shut the door behind him. “Hello, friend.”
“I put in my college applications,” I said as he approached me in the darkness. “I’m going away to Texas or maybe Alabama this summer.”
“Establishing the rules, are you?” he drawled, though his voice was thick and tinged with nerves.
I swallowed hard. “Nothing’s changed. Nothing can change.”
“I told you,” Holden said, in front of me now. “I’ll never ask you for anything. I don’t have anything to give. Except this.”
I wanted to tell him that wasn’t true, that I was the one who had nothing to offer. I shouldn’t have led us here. I should walk out, but his goddamn voice, the scent of him, his presence was overwhelming. My hands itched to touch him, to grab him and…
Kiss him?
My first kiss with a guy. It seemed as if I’d been waiting a lifetime for it and yet the moment was rushing at me like a speeding train.
“Stop thinking, River,” Holden whispered. “We’re here. Right now.” He leaned in. “What are you going to do?”
Chapter Eleven
River answered my question by taking hold of the front of my coat and hauling me to him.
Our faces were inches apart, our bodies lined up against one another—hard and tense. We hovered in the moment, heat and electricity crackling between us as my eyes drank him in with desperate thirst. Jesus, his lips were parted, taunting me. I waited for his kiss—his first real kiss. Now that the moment had come, I was desperate for it.
With a sound that was half groan, half grunt, River pulled me tighter to him. Possessively. As if making me his. Then he crushed his mouth to mine.
I thought I was ready.
I’d been kissed a hundred times—wet, mindless mashing of mouths meant to lead to something else. River’s kiss ignited like a flare of light and heat in some cold place in me. His mouth was hard on mine, demanding, but infused with a strange softness that I felt everywhere. I felt him in his kiss, along every cell and sinew in my body that threatened to go limp in his arms.
This is my first kiss too…
River’s tongue was hot and soft but insistent, tasting every corner of my mouth. One of his large hands slipped around my waist and the other over my shoulder, keeping us tight to one another, molding us so that there was no separation. No him and me. Just us.
My head fell back under the onslaught of sensation and emotion, my jaw going slack, letting him take my mouth. River grunted at the surrender and invaded harder. Deeper. Burning with lust but fueled by something more. He grasped and gripped and mauled me and yet I was perfectly safe. Floating in a heated bliss. My broken mind went silent, all thought and memory erased until there was nothing left in the world but him.
Warmth seeped into my bones slowly like syrup—River’s kiss an infusion that brought me back to myself. My mouth fought back against his invasion, sucking and biting, my tongue sliding against his, tasting every inch of him. My hands grasped and roamed over his shoulders, then my fingers sunk into the thick, silken hair at the back of his head.
His warmth became mine, and my coat was suddenly too heavy. There was too much clothing between us. We kissed for delirious minutes that felt like hours, and then River slowed down. His mouth grew soft, soothing the bites and stubble burn. His tongue tasted gently, his lips sucked softly, and then he pulled away.
We stared at each other, my glazed eyes focusing slowly, my breath returning as if I hadn’t breathed once. Hadn’t needed to. River stared, slightly shell-shocked at what he’d done. A small, disbelieving smile touched his lips that were still wet with our kiss. His eyes held mine intently, and there was no regret. Only a quiet exhilaration. Some part of him that had been lost was now restored.
While I was breaking apart.
I shoved out of the protective circle of River’s arms and fell back against a bank of storage lockers with a hollow clang. My pulse pounded. I could feel him all over me—in my mouth and lungs and heart—his kiss a resuscitation.
He pulled me out of the lake and breathed life into me…
Uncertainty flashed over his eyes. “Did I…do something wrong?”
I shook my head mutely, the warmth—his warmth—still flowing through my veins. How could I explain it had never been like that? That it wasn’t supposed to be like that?
No one had ever kissed me like it meant something.
Wordlessly, I fumbled for the door and pushed into the too-bright daylight. The talent show was getting out and I was swept up in a sea of students leaving the auditorium. Too many bodies, too much mindless chatter assaulted my brain. I broke away from the crowd and leaned heavily against a wall, reaching for my flask.
