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Kye took her down the hallway that led to the pastor’s office. It was dark there, but Kye didn’t flip on a light switch. He didn’t stop until they’d nearly reached the pastor’s door, until the two of them were swallowed up in the shadows. People coming and going from the reception wouldn’t be able to see them down here. Elsie’s heart beat faster, although what she expected to happen, she couldn’t say.
Kye still kept hold of her hand. In fact, he took hold of her other hand too. His eyes looked darker here in the shadows, coal-black almost. “Back when you were eighteen,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, “you were feeling overly emotional about me rescuing you, and you did something you regretted. You kissed me.”
Elsie shifted away from him. “Yeah, I remember. I was there.”
“Don’t interrupt. Apparently, you’ve been so embarrassed by my reaction to that kiss, you haven’t been able to be around me for the last three years.”
“Maybe I just stopped liking you,” she said.
He took a step toward her, closing the gap between them. A hint of a smile played on his lips. “You’re interrupting again.”
“Sorry.”
“So, I have no choice but to remedy the situation, to equalize our positions.” He leaned over and his lips came down on hers.
For a moment she stood there so shocked, she was incapable of reacting. He let go of her hands and put one of his hands on her back and the other on her neck. The feel of his fingers against her nape sent a shiver tingling down her spine.
Nearly as quickly as he’d kissed her, he let her go. “Now we’re even.” He stepped away from her. “You kissed me. I kissed you. So you don’t have to feel awkward about it anymore.”
She stared at him, stunned and sputtering. “What do you…? Why would you…?” He had given her a pity kiss, and in his mind that made things even? Her indignation grew, snapping her restraint like a dry twig. “Do you think this is some sort of math equation and if you add the same variable to both sides, the answer is kept in cosmic balance?”
He sighed, and when he spoke his voice was soft, a whisper almost. “No, you’re definitely more complicated than a math problem, or I would’ve figured out how to make things right between us a long time ago.”
The hurt of the past years welled up inside of her. It was as though she was back in the nurse’s office at the Mathematics Decathlon, back feeling the blazing pain of rejection again. “This doesn’t make us even. I idolized you for ten years, and you rebuffed me like my attentions were an insult, like I wasn’t worthy of your time. You acted like I was some sort of teenage skank trying to get you fired. One conciliatory kiss on your part doesn’t equalize things.”
“Okay then,” he said, “I’m willing to do more.”
She should’ve expected what happened next, should’ve moved away. She didn’t, though. She thought he’d give her a longer apology. Instead, he stepped forward and kissed her again. This time his momentum ended up backing her into the wall. It wasn’t a quick kiss like the last time. It turned from gentle to insistent in seconds. He wanted this, she realized, wanted to hold her and press his lips to hers. This wasn’t just about evening the score so she could get over the bad ending to their first kiss.
It didn’t matter what he wanted anymore, though. It wasn’t his choice now. She wasn’t a groupie he could kiss whenever the mood struck him.
Elsie put her hands on his chest to push him away, but then somehow ended up grabbing his shirt front and holding onto him instead. Kye had not only awakened the rejection she’d felt years ago, he’d awakened the desire too. That part of her seemed to have a mind of its own. It wanted this too. She let his mouth move against hers, answered his kiss, and melted into his arms.
He ran his hand down her back and pulled her closer. He was apparently more than willing to try to give her a kiss equal to ten years of longing, and he was doing a good job of it. Everything else seemed to melt away: the hallway, the music filtering out of the reception, the chill in the air. There was only the warmth of Kye’s arms around her, his lips caressing hers, teasing a response from her. Or maybe just making a point about his power over her.
Finally, she pushed him away. By that point, her heart was knocking against her chest in a frantic rhythm. This was absolute madness. She’d gone from the girl who’d had a foolish crush on Kye to the woman who was willing to make out with him outside the pastor’s office—which had to be some sort of sin in and of itself.
“This is your way of fixing things between us?” She took a deep breath and smoothed down her hair in the places where Kye had been running his fingers through it. “Now I’m not supposed to feel embarrassed when we run into each other?”
“You never needed to feel embarrassed.” He was near enough to her that he didn’t have to step closer to put his hands on her shoulders. She hadn’t realized how tense her muscles were until he gently massaged them. “You were eighteen and vulnerable. I knew that. It would’ve been wrong for me to respond to you, even if I wasn’t your teacher. The fact that I was your teacher made the idea unthinkable.” He kept massaging her shoulders, kneading away the tension there.
She supposed she should’ve always known that Kye wouldn’t respond to that first kiss. But still, it had hurt to be unloved, unwanted by the guy she’d loved so desperately. Now with his hands making ripples of pleasure across her shoulders, with the taste of his lips still on hers—raspberry sherbet punch—all her anger at the event drained away. Instead, she knew she had to be honest. “I didn’t kiss you just because you saved me. You sent me away at the dance, so I went with that Bono guy to make you jealous.”
Kye’s fingers froze on her shoulders. “You…you what?” His voice rose, incredulous. “That was a stupid thing to do.”
“I know. I realized that pretty quickly.”
Kye went back to massaging her shoulders. “You didn’t need to do it. I was jealous before you ever left with him.”
Elsie cocked her head, checked his eyes to see if he was teasing her. The amusement that played at the corners of his mouth so often was absent now. He meant it.
Kye pressed his fingers into the tight muscles along the bottom of her neck. “You were smart, beautiful, and could discuss any subject and make it seem interesting.” His hands moved up her neck, caressing the skin there. “And every day you sat in my class and stared up at me adoringly. You’ll never know how hard it was for me to push you away when you kissed me. It made me feel like some sort of predator. I had to make frequent calls to Carson to remind myself that he would tear out my entrails if I so much as touched you.”
Elsie felt her heart lift, saw the memories of that time in a new light. He hadn’t thought she was a pathetic groupie. And judging by the way his hands were massaging her neck, he didn’t want to let her go.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me after I graduated?”
“You were still so young.” One hand left her neck and went to her face. His thumb traced the curve of her jaw. “I figured you would go to college, grow up some, and realize you could do better than me.”
