Shut Up and Kiss Me (Happy Endings 2)

Nolan swings his legs out of bed, and we take our spots in front of the double sinks, smiling big and crazy so our pink peels can crack.

I laugh. He laughs. We are so fine.

As he scrubs off his mask, I do the same.

When I’m done, I pat my face with a towel and return to the bed. Nolan follows me there and sets a hand on his cheek. “Do I look fabulous?”

“So fierce,” I agree, then we settle in and pick a show to chill out to—That’s What She Said. Quirky rom coms are my jam. His too.

He scoots a little closer to me, maybe to see the screen better. As he inches over, the space between us halves. Wait, quarters. It’s the size of one banana.

You could fit a banana between us. That’s all that separates me from the man in this bed.

What if we closed the distance the rest of the way?

His clean scent fills my head, making me wonder about those what-ifs.

Nolan straightens his shoulders and stares at my face. “Hold on.”

I hit pause on the show, but not my imagination. “What is it?” I ask, breathy at the way his eyes study me so intensely.

“You have a spot here you missed.” He tugs his bathrobe cuff down closer to his wrist, which loosens the belt tie a notch, then raises his arm and scrubs at my cheek with the cloth.

“Almost gone,” he says, then wets the tip of his finger and dusts it along my jawline.

Goose bumps sweep up my skin.

Nolan rubs a little more, stroking my jaw. My breath catches. I swallow around the knot of longing, trying desperately to hide my arousal.

From the slide of his finger on my face.

From the nearness of his lips.

From the warmth of his touch.

From that exposed skin as my eyes drift down to the V of his chest. I want to put my mouth on his skin, want to bite him and kiss away the ache.

Screw face masks. Forget robes.

I wave the white flag.

“Almost gone,” he whispers, brushing my face, stirring up years of unchecked emotions, lust, desire.

I am overcome.

Lifting my hand, I touch his chest, my palm against his skin igniting a flare of heat in my belly. Slowly, because this is a turning point, I look up, unsure what I’ll see but certain what I want.

I search his face for an answer to my first move. Those hazel eyes shimmer with need.

“Can I kiss you?” Nolan asks.

“Do it. Please,” I whisper.

And he RSVPs tonight.

8

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Nolan

* * *

There’s this idea about certain moments in life. That we don’t have any choice sometimes. That some sort of cosmic force compels us into action. People often use this idea of “it just happened” to justify why they do something in the heat of the moment.

It’s the idea of temporary insanity. Or a temporary explosion of lust. But at the end of the day or at the start of the night, a choice is just that.

A choice.

You make it, and sometimes you do it with no regard for the consequences.

That’s me right now.

My hand cups Emerson’s jaw, and I’m fully aware of the what-could-go-wrongs, the what-may-implodes.

I just don’t give a shit. My want is stronger. I want to kiss her more than I want all the other things in my life.

So, I kiss her.

It’s quiet in the room, with only the ambient noise of a hotel. The low hum of air conditioning. The faint honks from traffic down below. And the thump, thump, thump of desire pounding through my body as I take her mouth with mine.

We kiss with the growing urgency of a first kiss. True, it’s not our first. But it’s our only kiss like this.

In bed.

With nothing to hold us back.

Lips slide. Breath mingles. Hands get in on the action. With my thumb, I trace lines along her cheek and chin, mapping the shape of her face with my fingers. I let my senses flood with the taste and feel of Emerson, like I’m savoring a glass of wine, its flavors filling my mind.

The faint hint of cinnamon from her toothpaste. The lingering scent of grapefruit from that face mask. Her clean, showery smell.

Most of all, the taste of her hunger.

It radiates off her.

It comes in the soft murmurs she makes. In the pressure of her lips. In the eager exploration of her tongue as she kicks the kiss up a notch, deepening it, like she wants to know exactly what this kiss could be.

It’s a whole-body kiss, one I feel in my shoulders, in my stomach, in my fucking balls.

I want to remember every second of this. I want to recall this intoxicating kiss the next day and the next and the next.

But all moments break apart, a kaleidoscope shifting into another scene.

I pay a visit to her neck, kissing down, down, down to the hollow of her throat, where I press an open-mouthed caress to her soft skin, then a lick.