“I don’t want to go,” I tell him.
“We’ll be back in a few hours. But I’m pretty sure I should shower before then.” He touches his thumb to my cheek, and it comes away teal. “Probably you too.”
“Should we leave them a note or something?”
He hands me one of the paintbrushes, this one tinged with dark purple at the tip. “Sign it. That’s enough of a note.”
I didn’t sign the one I painted in the gym, but I take the paintbrush and swirl my name into the bottom right of the painting, where one of the fierce snakes writhes. “How’s that?”
“Perfect,” he says, his gaze locked on mine.
My breath catches. “Thank you for helping me.”
“No, thank you for letting me be part of this. I went to college with legends in the business world, and I’ve still never seen anything close to this.”
“Careful, or I’ll start to think you’re complaining about capitalism.”
He gives me the slow smile. “Never.”
It’s devastating, that smile and that ambition. Devastating the way I can’t seem to look away from him, not even when he touches my cheek again. This time he isn’t wiping away paint. He cups my face and holds me still. His head lowers in slow degrees, giving me time to stop him.
My body is incapable of moving right now. Even my lungs are frozen, my throat locked tight. Only my heart beats hard enough to hear. It pulses in my lips, waiting, waiting for him.
I spent a good part of the past four hours painting lips that are the focal point of this piece—lips that are full of feminine beauty and eternal regret, of desire and revenge. I’ve worked through the meaning of every rise, every indent, translated the shadows, but now that I look at Christopher’s lips, with their masculine utility, I don’t know what any of it means. There’s a secret code written all over his skin, the message plain if only I could read it.
His mouth meets mine, and for a moment the warmth stuns me. I can only stand there under the gentle press of him, feeling the heat spread through my face and down my neck. Down my stomach and into my legs.
He touches his tongue against the seam of my lips—a question. And I open my mouth in answer, letting him sweep inside with sleep-drunk desire. We shouldn’t be doing this. There are so many reasons why this is wrong, but his hands on my waist feel impossibly right.
A sound comes from me, a moan that would embarrass me if I were thinking. I’m only feeling. Only falling and letting him catch me, as if we’re meant to do that forever.
His tongue slides against mine, and it’s so intimate I have to gasp. The rush of cool air in my mouth, when he had been so hot, wakes me from the strange slumber. I look into eyes dark and heavy-lidded and more shocked than my own.
He takes a step back, letting his hands fall away. “Shit,” he says softly.
I haven’t kissed very many boys in my life, not enough to hear all the things they might say after they do it, but this response seems particularly disheartening. As does the way he can’t seem to look me in the eyes. “Shit?”
His throat works. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Why not? That’s what I want to ask. Something to soothe this tangle of hurt and hunger inside me. Instead I say, “Is this because Medusa’s watching? She’s actually not as innocent as she looks.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t.”
My laugh sounds a little maniacal. “It’s kind of weird that she looks innocent at all, right? That’s not what people usually say, like, ‘oh, she has that girl-next-door look with the snake hair.’ But there’s definitely something innocent about her.”
“Harper.”
“She’s not shocked because you kissed her.”
“You,” he says gently. “I kissed you.”
“And then you said shit, which I feel like I should tell you, in case you didn’t already know, is not the best thing for a girl’s self-esteem, mythic
al creature or otherwise.”
“I’m not sorry I kissed you.”
“Then why did you stop?”