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“Stop,” I chuckled again, dipping my head, I pressed a kiss to her collarbone. “You don’t need to be nervous with me.”
“You have met you, right?”
Lifting my face, I grinned. “I am pretty awesome.”
“And vain apparently.” She rolled her eyes. “But seriously, is this okay? Because I kind of got the impression you didn’t want to—”
“Stop.” My finger on her lips cut her off. “If I didn’t want this to happen, it wouldn’t be happening.” Like I had any control over myself around her.
It should never have gotten this far… yet here we were, on the precipice of something.
Something I didn’t want to overanalyze.
“You still haven’t kissed me,” she teased, brushing her nose along my cheek, chasing it with her lips.
“Maybe I’m waiting for the right time,” I said.
“You mean until I’m eighteen?”
“Peyton, a few days isn’t going to change how I feel about you.” I gave her a pointed look, but she was staring at me with eyes brimming with confusion.
“How you feel about me?”
“You think I make a habit of bringing women back here for takeout in the middle of the afternoon?”
“You mean, you don’t?” She gave me a shy smile.
“I think you know the answer to that.”
“Maybe.” Peyton pressed her lips together. “I didn’t expect… this. I used to watch you at practice, you know. I used to joke with Lily about you… but I didn’t think… I never thought that I’d be here now.”
“That night changed things.” I realized that now.
I’d never looked twice at Peyton before that night. And I’d tried really fucking hard to forget all about her. But I knew enough about trauma to know it bonded some people. I’d been there that night. I’d watched her wade into the river. I would never forget that.
“What?” Peyton searched my eyes. When I didn’t reply, she added, “You just went rigid. What are you thinking?”
“About that night—”
“Please, can we not…? I already told you I’ll talk to someone.”
“I will never forget that night, Peyton.” I brushed the stray hairs from her face.
I didn’t know if it was the realization that if I hadn’t stumbled across her that night things could have ended very differently; the overwhelming connection I felt as she gazed at me when I dragged her from the water; or the knowledge that life was too precious, too short and expendable. But I knew if I didn’t kiss her right here, right in this very moment, I would regret it.
The second our lips touched, all the doubts melted away. We weren’t two people separated by age and society’s rules, we were two people bound by grief and trauma and a connection that couldn’t be denied.
Peyton whimpered as I slid my hand into her hair and deepened the kiss, curling my tongue around hers. “Xander,” she breathed, rolling her hips against me.
Fuck, she felt good.
Too good.
It would be so easy to lose myself in her.
She rolled her hips again, and a groan crawled up my throat. “Peyton, stop.” My hands left her hair, stilling on her hips. “We have to stop.”
But I was still kissing her, still tracing my lips over her jaw and down the slope of her neck as she rocked against me, clutching my sweater as if she didn’t want to let go.
