Page 66 of The Sun and the Moon
“I don’t.” I shake my head, tears threatening. “And that’s what always sucked about being her daughter.” It’s like a weight lifts from my chest as I say the words out loud. “She was like the sun, and I lived my life like the phases of the moon.” Sydney’s face twitches, a wash of some intense emotion brightening her eyes. “When she shined her light on me, I was full. Illuminated.Making big waves. But that wasn’t all the time, and eventually I got sick of the dark side.”
Sydney’s hands drop to mine. I don’t pull from her grip.
“But that’s not true now,” she says, her eyes serious. Her soft pink lips turn down. “And maybe it’s not the only thing that’s changed.”
The planes of her face take in all the light from the fire.
“You think they’re really in love,” I say softly, looking deep into her gaze.
“I think I don’t want to waste what little time I get with you trying to figure it out.”
She’s pinned me with her eyes. I am lost, swimming in the sea of their blue. Drifting. Content. Until my brain catches up, alerting my body to the warning bells of what she’s just said.
The no-strings kiss.
The comfort her presence brings even though she’s little more than a perfect stranger.
“What are you saying?” I need her to spell it out. As much as I have conditioned myself to fight any and all influence of Moira in my life, the urge to know Sydney better is a powerful magnet to the hardened metal heart in my chest.
“I like you, Cadence,” she says. Deliberate and pointed. She reaches up slowly, easing her fingers toward the wild tendrils of my hair. When I don’t pull away, look away, her mouth curves, and her fingers twist into the strands. She tangles them up until she reaches the nape of my neck, her thumb brushing my jaw where the tender skin behind my ear is taut across the bone.
With control she tips my chin up so my lips angle toward her.
“I want to kiss you again.” Her breath bursts over my lips. They tingle, tantalized by the sensation.
“Kiss me.” The words are barely more than a breath.
Her lips capture mine.
It’s not a hostile takeover. They open slightly, pillow softly, before I feel her tongue slip between my lips, and I release a moan as they open to welcome her in. I am a willing captive to her mouth, losing myself to the sensations that spark all over my body. The heat pooling between my legs. The tweak of my nipples. Her fingers brush the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck, sending shiversdown, down, down.
I don’t think about how quickly and ferociously I reach out to grip her waist. I just do it. Tugging her toward me. My palm snakes up the curve, and the other slides down to where a single fingertip slips between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her jeans to graze smooth, warm skin.
A giggle rumbles in her throat.
Our lips break contact and my eyes open.
“Fuck, you can kiss,” she says. My lip gloss glistens on her lower lip. Her pupils are dilated, fixed on my mouth. There is a hunger I recognize in her expression. Like a wolf on a hunt in the wild. It is anything but feral; rather, it is the gaze of a creature who understands they are a predator tasked with great power.
She could devour me whole, and I wouldn’t want her to stop.
“Our room is just over there,” I say, because though I am desperate to see where this goes, I am not exhibitionist enough for a full-on make-out session in such a public place. I low-key fear that Moira and Rick will walk through here on their way to drop Chicken off in our room and we’ll be tooinvolvedto notice.
She runs her hand down the length of my arm, making me wish I were wearing a tank top just so I could feel her skin on my skin. Her fingers lock with mine. Perfectly, they fit together.Easily, our palms connect. Standing first, I tug her up, and she lets her body collide with mine. I am intoxicated by the feeling of her soft curves melding against mine. Her breasts soften against me, her thigh presses to the space between my legs.
I nearly buckle at the fresh contact, but fortunately she doesn’t maintain it for long. Without breaking her hold on my hand, she pulls away, leading me off toward our room. We abandon our cocktails, happy to be intoxicated with each other it seems.
If I let myself think too hard about what this means for me, I will crumble.
I don’t want to crumble. Like her, I know I don’t want to waste whatever time we have together. Because even without the breakup scheme factoring in, there is a clear ticking clock on this connection.
No matter what happens this weekend, I return to Acadia and a job that I love. A life I’ve built slowly, meticulously, all by myself.
A lonely life, sure.
But a life I can control without tarot predictions or the helpful hand of fate.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
