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I held back a grin at the unexpected kiss. I could sell this. I ran my hand up his chest and wove my fingers into his hair, pulling him in closer. His tongue swiped over my lips, teasing them open. Before he could, I dipped my tongue into his mouth, expecting a muffled laugh or a surprised gasp. Instead, he moaned, a light, barely audible groan that shot a bolt of lust through me and made me realize this wasn’t a kiss for show.
His hand rubbed the small of my back, easing me closer. My eyes fluttered closed, body relaxing, melting into his as the kiss deepened into something new, something unexpected, something way too close to actual lust.
I pulled away, exhaling quick gasps, my face burning.
“Isn’t that just the sweetest?” Robin looked at risk of melting into the floor herself. “Childhood sweethearts!”
I kept my eyes off Ben, unsure what had just happened.
It wasn’t like we’d never kissed. We shared our first kiss in his parent’s basement when we were in middle school. A drunken kiss at a high school party. Even an exploratory kiss five years ago when we were both single that had resulted in us collapsing in a laughing fit on the floor.
This didn’t feel weird. Well, not that type of weird, anyway. The kiss felt charged, electric, and entirely repeatable.
I kept my focus on Jared and Robin, though I wanted to drag Ben off to ask what the hell that was. I couldn’t do that. Not now.
I took a deep breath, plastering a smile on my face. “So, how did you two meet?”
“Friends,” Robin said, just as Jared said, “Tinder.”
“You’re not supposed to tell people that!” Her eyes widened.
“I thought I could say Tinder, I just couldn’t tell them you said you just wanted a one-night stand.”
They began a friendly squabble, but all I could feel was my heart pounding in my chest and the pressure of Ben’s hand on the small of my back.
CHAPTER10
Ben
After three drinks,the dining room doors opened for dinner. Thea had a death grip on her drink, her shoulders tense and her eyes anywhere but on me.
The kiss surprised her, too.
Fair.
We parted with Jared and Robin on the way to our table, a cozy booth overlooking the mountain. We sat far enough away from the other couples not to have our conversation interrupted by anyone besides the server who explained the menu and left us with our drinks.
“You good?” I asked, eyeing Thea warily. “Are we good?”
“Yeah.” She shook her head and smiled at me, meeting my eyes for the first time since the kiss. “That was weird, right? The kiss?”
I laughed. “Um, not weird…”
“Hot?”
My body relaxed at her confession. “Yeah, sort of hot.”
At least we felt the same way about the kiss. The unexpectedly passionate kiss that had left me completely off balance.
“Probably a one off, right?” Her eyebrows furrowed as she tore her gaze away. She unfurled the folded white napkin on the dinner plate and set it on her lap, spending way too much time flattening it out.
“Sure, probably,” I lied. The kiss certainly hadn’t felt like a once off. The kiss had felt shockingly right. Perfect. “I guess I channeled Chase a little too hard.”
“Chase never kissed me like that,” Thea said, her voice so low I strained to hear her.
“He didn’t?”
“Did Emily kiss you…?”
