Page 101 of Only Ever You

Worries of regretting this tomorrow didn’t even cross her mind.

Knuckles slowly swept across her jaw, and her lashes fluttered at the soft feather of Bash’s skin, before he opened his palm to cradle her head, tracing his gaze across every line and corner of her face.

Faye didn’t breathe – shecouldn’t. Delirious and terrified of how things might change. Tilting herself into Bash’s palm as she swayed.

The waiting wound her longing up in knots that could undo with just one more light touch.

And then he lowered.

Faye’s heart stuttered as Bash’s warm lips met hers, her eyes slamming shut. There was a good chance that the aching muscle beneath her breast might have stopped entirely as she sucked in a breath.

The flash of delight through her body was as if she’d never been kissed.

She grabbed Bash’s waist like he was time itself running away as he pressed his lips firmly to hers.Finally. Yearningly. Yearsafter they’d met. Faye couldn’t help but stumble into him for more and tangle her fingers in the fabric under her hands.

Bash’s lips parted hers, and the lingering scent of whisky on his tongue turned to taste on Faye’s. Every nerve in her body set aflame as he held her tightly.

Her hand slid up his back, finding dips and grooves, until she clutched at his shoulder for dear life, scrunching his shirt for the sake of holding herself up.

This didn’t feel like pity at all for her naïve experience of this tradition.

This wasa kiss.

Mistletoe forgotten.

A decade of keeping her craving for him in check and Bash released it all with one simple request.

Faye’s stomach dipped with the feeling of completeness – because this was everything good she’d wished for for eleven years. Wrapped in one another, this devouring kiss made up for lost time.

Her body was hot from head to toe, taken out of her thoughts and reacting to every trace of Bash’s purposeful touch. Even the tips of her ears were on fire.

His fingertips dragged through her hair with an almost possessive grip, and she couldn’t be blamed for what happened next.

Disorientated by how quickly the singular first press of Bash’s mouth had turned to another and another, Faye’s hips moved and sought contact with the furnace-like body pressed against her – all hard planes burning through the thinness of his pyjamas.

Their breathless sounds echoed the silent hallway until it was impossible to tell whose was whose.

Bash’s palm that gripped her waist slid to her lower back and—holy doughnuts …Faye’d known his hands were big, but when they held her dizzying head and spread against her spine, fingers sneaking beneath her top as he pulled her flush against him, those hands felt huge.

And they weren’t the only thing that did.

Faye never knew how much her body could ache without pain, but with want. Withdesire. Her shorts were too thin and she felt … things. One thing inparticular that pressed hard, hot, and heavily against her stomach.

All of Faye fizzled with awareness as every inch of their bodies clumsily bumped.

A groan slipped from her lips and Bash responded by fisting the waistband of her shorts.Tight.It wasn’t the first time she’d felt his reaction to her proximity against her, but this wasn’t just an accident. Her imagination couldn’t lie. He washardbecause of this and surely that meant he wanted her upstairs and undressed, too?

His mouth thoroughly ruined her for one more moment before Bash groaned. The vibration ricocheted all through her chest to Faye’s unsteady legs, while her head spun as he drew back and slowly ended this … whatever this was, with the parting of their lips.

“No, don’t stop”screamed right from the core of her heart that he didn’t know belonged to him.

Millimetres apart, Bash roughand raggedly exhaled. Every one of those breaths hit Faye’s bruise-bitten lips as he kept her close, barely an inch between their rising chests. Their hips still stayed joined as though he didn’t want to sever that point of contact between them too. Faye didn’t want that hot and strained point of him to leave her, either.

The twinkling lights and scent of spruce inched their ways back into her light-headed awareness.

No kiss had ever left her like this before. She couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes, not just yet. Not whilst she still had the pure, innate taste of Bash on her lips and heard her own heart drum warnings like crazy in her ears.

“Was that traditional enough for you?” Bash rasped.

---