Page 51 of The Sun and the Moon
I whirl on her, my mouth flying open in an O as she clamps her hand over her lips and crumples, unleashing her laugh into the room and all over me. It’s sunshine, warming everything, and I have no defense against it.
She drops to the bed and falls onto her back, giving me the most insane view of her body prostrate against the white hotellinens. Her hair is coming loose from the high messy bun and streaming out in rays. She rolls onto her side, looking up at me. Her body makes a perfect hourglass shape when standing, but it’s even more aggressively clear just how scandalously flawless her shape is when she’s lying like that. Her full, natural-looking breasts peek from her shirt. Her ass spreads against the bed, her thighs pressing to touch each other.
Her eyes blink, bright with humor.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks, her expression settling, softening. I have no idea what my face is doing.
“What am I looking at you like?” Heat pools in my cheeks. It races down my spine. It gathers between my legs in a pressure I wish I could ignore.
Want is unmistakable, inconvenient. It’s making me lightheaded.
“Like you want to kiss me.” Her voice is steady. My eyes trip to her lips as if I’ll see proof of that word,kiss, floating there. “You’re looking right at my mouth.”
I blink, ready to dispute her assessment, but I can’t. Because there’s no denying it. I was looking at her mouth.
I would kiss her if she let me.
She grips me by the hand and tugs me onto the bed beside her. I let myself fall, rolling against the cool linens and ripping my baseball cap off. My hair flies out, wild around my head, and she tucks her face close to it, moving some of the tendrils.
Playing with them.
The tips of her fingers caress the dark strands, twisting the ends around her pointer finger as her eyes flutter up to me, shining with interest.
I am not someone who thrives under the weight of attention,always preferring to sink back to the edges of a room, seek the darkness outside the spotlight. But something about the way Sydney Sinclair bestows attention doesn’t make me want to shrink away.
I become a fern on the floor of a forest, stretching her fronds toward the sun.
“What if I said you were right?” I say, twisting around to prop up on my arm. So far, she and I have managed not to lie to each other. So far, we’ve been transparent. We’ve worked together. We’ve made pinky promises and landed on partnership.
I don’t want to pretend with her. A realization that terrifies me as much as it thrills me.
“Areyou saying that?” She raises her arm, curving it behind her head until she’s propped on it. I’m at a slight advantage from my more upright angle, and I feel more physically in control, even if emotionally I’m a buoy in a stormy sea.
“What if I am?” I let myself look at her. Reallylook. She doesn’t shy away from my gaze. She shifts just her face so that she’s looking up at me. Her skin is a soft golden tan, the kind you’d see on a girl in a sundress at the beginning of summer. Kissed with color and almost shimmering.
“I’d be surprised,” she says, taking her lower lip between her teeth. Small and white, straight but not perfect. One of the front teeth kicks out a tad, overlapping the smaller one behind it. “But I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought the same thing.” Her eyes trail over my face like she’s tracing an outline. “If you said that, I mean.”
I swallow a hard lump that’s formed in my throat.
“I can’t say that,” I reply, but I am desperate to inch closer.
I haven’t wanted to kiss someone in a long time—so long thatI almost forgot what the desire feels like. She rolls to her side, drawing a section of my hair between her fingers.
“Then don’t say it,” she says, eyes on my hair with a hunger. “You can justdoit.”
“I don’t know what it means if I do.”
“Does it have to mean something?” She lifts her gaze.
“The soulmate thing—”
“But neither of us believe in soulmates.” The shoulder of her sweatshirt slips down to reveal creamy tan skin and a neon-blue bra strap. Her eyes land on my lips, and my hand itches to reach for her waist, cup the small of her back, and pull her against me.
Feel the weight of her body, not just her gaze.
“We could try it,” she says, and her lip curls. She has a small, slightly pointed nose, which she scrunches as her smile spreads. “It might be fun.”
Fun.I could kiss her just for fun.
