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“It’s not daft when you looked so frightened.”
“I looked frightened because I was being gawked at.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah. I forgot about that.”
“Plus, I haven’t been kissed in a while.”
He paused to take that in. “Well, how long is a while, exactly?”
“Too long for me to tell a footballer about.”
“Now hang on, this footballer hasn’t had a go in ages.”
“Yeah, and unless by ages you mean five years…”
She knew as soon as she said it that she shouldn’t have. Though in her defense, it had seemed like a good way to really drive home that he wasn’t repulsive. And in a way that kept her safe.
She just hadn’t seen the way it wouldn’t help at all.
Until his eyebrows hit his hairline.
“Five fucking years?” he cried. “Oh my Christ, I’m kissing someone whose virginity has probably started to somehow grow back. Give it another week and I’ll be deflowering you, this is a nightmare. I’m never gonna be able to do this now.”
He was being daft, though. He had to know he was being daft.
And if he didn’t she was going to tell him.“Of course you are, because virginity is just a load of made-up cobblers.”
“Yeah, I know it is. But having someone you don’t like thatway being your first proper snog in half a decade isn’t. You should be getting it from someone you’re wild for, at the very least. Someone you really want to do this to you.”
“I don’t have to really want it. I just have to convince you I do.”
“Oh, and you think you’re gonna be able to achieve that, do you?”
It was the scoff in his voice that made her say it. “Of course I am,” she said.
And once she’d gone with it, there was no way to take it back. She didn’twantto take it back, if she was being honest. She wanted him to know that this wasn’t some awful, unpleasant thing for her. And doubly so, when they playacted her saying goodbye to him on her doorstep a moment later.
Because when he turned to face her, he just looked so… pained.
Like he was foisting something awful on her.
He was the Beast of Bodmin, forcing a kiss virgin into a snog.
Even though nothing could have been further from the truth. She didn’t feel forced at all, and he didn’t look like a beast to her, and oh god, she regretted writing that daft tweet. She hadn’t even meant it then. She’d just wanted Connie not to fall for horrible footballers who did things like spike her drinks, even though the truth was: she’d always felt that he seemed like one of the good ones. Hewasone of the good ones. And that was why she took hold of his lapels, and yanked him all the way down, until he was within easy kissing distance.
Then she just did it. She pressed her mouth to his, good and firm. And not even in a closed and mealy sort of way, either. No, she did it with her lips parted. So he could get a little bit of heat and slickness, so he could know she meant business.
And it worked. It proved her point.
Because he made a sound into her mouth. He let out a little astonished grunt—like he couldn’t believe she’d done this. Though she didn’t really get a chance to savor the victory. It tookhim all of ten seconds to recover from the shock of her hands in his hair and her mouth all hot on his. And the moment he did, he didn’t react with disgust or horror or anything of the kind.
Instead, the light seemed to shift in his eyes.
They went funny. They went sort of foggy.
And the lids dropped so low she could hardly see the black beyond. Almost like he was drifting off to sleep, she thought—only she knew he wasn’t doing anything of the kind. It was obvious he wasn’t because he made another sound. A thicker, heavier, oddly helpless sound, which seemed to reverberate through her.
Then suddenly he was pressing back against her.
