The Secret (North Woods University 3)

“You don’t want me kissing anyone else, do you?” My nose brushes against hers and the sharp intake of breath doesn’t miss its mark. It ripples through me like an earthquake.

“I… I didn’t like her kissing you. She’s vile and mean…you are too good for someone like that…” Her voice trails off, but she’s not fooling me with that line of bullshit. Holly is all those things and more, but I don’t for one second believe that’s why she doesn’t want me kissing her. No, her reasoning is so much deeper.

“Tell me the real reason you didn’t like her kissing me.” She wants me and that confession, that admission though not complete outright makes it feel like a firework is going off in my chest.

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what I want, because it can never happen, not now, not tomorrow, not ever. A dream is all it will ever be.”

“Why? Why do you think that?”

“I’m broken, Clark,” she whispers softly. She lifts her hand, placing it against my chest, right over my thundering heartbeat. “You can’t fix me, there is no cure. I’ll be like this forever.”

Anger whips through me, she thinks so down about herself, that no one will want her because of her past, but she’s wrong, so very wrong, because I want her… I want her bad.

“You’re not broken Em, you might be hurt, torn, bleeding, shattered into a million pieces but you’re not broken, because you can heal… you will heal and then you will be whole again. They might have plucked your petals, but you’ll bloom again, and when you do, you’ll be the biggest, brightest, most pretty flower ever.”

“I don’t know how to be whole again.” I’ll be forever rotten.

“We’ll figure it out, together. Always together Em, you and me.” My hand trembles and I want to touch her, to trace the lines of her face, to feel her soft skin beneath my fingertips.

“Why, why…didn’t you want to kiss her?” Emerson asks shyly.

“Because there is someone better, prettier, that I want to kiss.” Only then as I’m speaking does she look up at me. Her gaze locks on mine and this weird feeling washes over me. Like I can see right into her soul and she can see right back into mine. I’ve never felt this way before, not with anyone. “I wanted to kiss you… I want to kiss you now, if you’ll let me?”

It takes her about two seconds to answer, but it feels like were suspended for a lifetime in waiting. Her pink lips part and her mouth opens the long awaiting answer is music to my ears.

“Okay.” The word passes her lips with a breathlessness that I can feel in my own chest.

Every fiber of my being tells me to grab her and crush my lips to hers, pulling her body against mine and never let her go, but I know I can’t. I have to be gentle with her. Go at her pace, as slow as I can, even if it’s going to kill me. She’s fragile like glass and I won’t break her any more. No, I’ll be the one that finds all her broken pieces and pieces her back together again.

Ever so slowly, I close the distance between us, tilting my head and slanting my lips against hers. At first touch she gasps, my lips barely grazing hers, the kiss as soft as a feather. The air around us becomes heated, sizzling, and zinging, and when I feel her hands on my chest, her tiny nails digging into the fabric of my shirt, I can’t deny myself.

Cupping her cheek with one hand, I deepen the kiss, and this is the kiss we should’ve had, not the one that we had this morning, but this one, where it feels like thunder and lightning are colliding. She consumes me, and I breathe her, inhaling her essence, needing more of her. I can feel my restraint wearing, my need for her amplifying by ten with every press of my lips against hers. Forcing myself to pull away before I do something I shouldn’t, I rested my forehead against her. We’re both panting, our breaths mingling between us.

“I… I think we should go to bed. I don’t want to scare you, but I’m no saint, Em, and I want you right now.”

“Okay,” she pants, her cheeks red, her pink lips swollen. I don’t want to let her go, but I have to. I fucking have to.

“Thank you, for the kiss though. It’s the best one I’ve ever gotten.”

I give her a head nod, words refusing to pass my lips. She slips out from underneath my braced arm and walks away slowly. When I hear the sound of her door clicking open and then closed, I press my clammy forehead to the wall.