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I felt myself shudder in his arms. It was the “what if” that terrified me.
With him, with Leander.What ifthis,what ifthat, but they were looking at me all wrong, more focused on what they thought I could be and not what I wasn’t.
I wasn’t a mermaid. Even with magic, even if I wished with every bit of strength I had in me, I couldn’t make them happy.
“I—I just…”
The arm I was clinging to moved, drawing up to my chin. Our connected fingers brushed along my jaw, easing my hair out of my face. He shifted against me like he was uncomfortable—or rather, like he was worried about my comfort.
“Sorry,” he said, a shy smile setting off his blushing cheeks. “All I can think about is kissing you.”
He wanted tokissme?
Kai leaned in before I could react, his forehead suddenly barely a hair from mine. Lean muscles peeked out from under the crisp collar of his button down, and it was an unexpected lure. His neck was close enough I could breathe in his scent—the soft vanilla of hotel soap mingling with a playful swirl of warm cinnamon—and it nearly disarmed me as much as his smile first had.
It was energy and comfort and everything that was Kai.
I took in a slow breath, letting it fill me.
There was also something familiar in that breath. Atemptation. Like one of Gram’s pies hot from the oven, the most delicious aroma of apples and spice steaming up from a woven lattice crust, begging for me to sneak a slice.
I licked my lips despite the clear note of danger singing in my mind.
Sure, I could let him kiss me. I might even enjoy it. But would a sweet taste be worth the risk of getting burned?
And no one ever really snuck a slice of pie—not really. There was always a wedge gone that was easily spotted as soon as the next person entered the room.
Leander would take one look at us and know. And what would he think? He hated Kai. Though with how I’d just dismissed both their declarations, did it even matter? I’d made it clear that neither of them had any claim over me. And yet—
As if to answer my mind’s struggle, Kai’s lips parted in the barest ghost of a whisper. “Just once…”
The vulnerability in that one wish nearly broke me. Like he was a drowning man bargaining for his very next breath.
Kai pressed his eyes shut, and the cool skin of his forehead landed against mine, our joined bodies rocking with each slow wave that swelled over our shoulders.
Just once…
But would once really be enough?
Could one kiss give him—giveme—some sort of closure or revelation? To learn if there truly was some spark, some magical bond,between us?
He might have been desperate for it, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
What if we kissed and there wasn’t any magic?
What if there was?
Kai inhaled slowly, and it was like he was breathing me in, too. A smile crept up the corner of his mouth as he held in that breath. Gleaming white teeth tips flashed.
My neck prickled at the memory of those teeth, their points raking down my neck, over my shoulder. It had been strange and unexpected, sure, but I couldn’t deny I’d enjoyed it.
“Mouthy,” he’d called himself.
Looking at his passionate smile now, the rows of teeth hiding behind his sweeping lips, I wanted nothing more than to learn for myself what “mouthy” could mean.
The hand on my back tightened when Kai finally exhaled, and I immediately knew what he had decided.
Justonce.
