Page 65 of Hired By the Enemy
“I was hoping to show you that, but it looks like you’ve already found it.” A voice comes from behind me.
I whirl around.
Matthew is standing behind me with a cautious expression.
“So it turns out you’re what I want the most out of everything,” he says, and I can see that he’s shaking.
Oh my god. My chest feels like it’s going to burst with all the emotions swelling inside.
I do the only thing I can.
I step forward and kiss him.
His lips are cold under mine, but so, so, right.
When I pull back, Matthew is breathless, his eyes wide, face flushed.
“You’re what I most want too,” I whisper.
He swallows hard, reaching up a gloved hand to touch the side of my face. I lean into it, and for a few seconds, we just stand there, the rest of the world ceasing to exist.
“I missed you,” he says.
“I missed you more.”
“Are you trying to one-up me on this?”
“Always.” My voice comes out husky.
“So we’re doing this?” he says, his blue eyes not leaving mine. “You and me, boyfriends?”
“Definitely,” I say.
“Building a future together?” he asks.
I can’t help the grin overtaking my face. Matthew and I taking on the world together? I can’t think of anything better.
“Absolutely,” I reply.
He smiles, and I need to kiss his smile like I need to breathe, so we’re kissing again, a perfect, tender kiss that shimmers with all the emotions swirling between us.
When we finally pull apart, he looks dazed, kiss-drunk.
But Matthew’s dazed look is nothing compared to when I glance around and see that our little display of PDA has attracted a lot of attention. Nearly all the movement around the tree has stopped. People are frozen in place, staring at us.
Matthew’s mother’s jaw is wide open as she stares at us. Then she’s moving toward us like she needs a closer view of what’s actually happening.
“Uh…when did this happen?” she asks when she reaches us.
“Recently,” Matthew says. It appears he can’t stop smiling.
I wrap an arm around his waist, and he leans into me.
His mom’s gaze flits between us. “It might have been a bit easier on the rest of us if you’d figured it out earlier,” she says finally.
I’ve never been more in awe of the speed of small-town gossip than I am tonight. News that Matthew and I were spotted kissing travels faster among the people we went to high school with than Roadrunner on steroids.
And it appears many people feel the need to come verify the news with their own eyes.
