Page 68 of The Goat in the Bedroom
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
“Oh,” I said brilliantly.
“Yeah,” he agreed, his hands still in my hair.
“That was...” Not very practice-like. Better do it again to make sure. “Kiss me again.”
“Thank god,” he breathed, and pulled me back in.
This time was slower, deeper. His hands were everywhere, my hair, my back, pulling me closer, and I let myself melt into him completely.
When we broke apart again, I was fully in his lap, my arms around his neck, his forehead pressed against mine.
“So,” I said, trying to catch my breath, “I think I know how to kiss now.”
Well, I knew how to kiss Gryff. My best friend. My roommate. And I think I just changed everything.
PRACTICE MAKES HELL
GRYFF
Artie was still in my lap, her lips swollen from kissing, her hands tangled in my hair, and I was having the kind of out-of-body experience usually reserved for near-death situations or really good drugs.
We'd just kissed. Really kissed. Not accidentally, not almost, but full-on, tongue-involved, hands-everywhere kissed. And it had been perfect. So perfect that my brain was short-circuiting trying to process how kissing my best friend had felt more right than anything I'd ever done in my life.
“We should do that again,” Artie said, her voice breathy. She looked at me, her eyes flicking back and forth between mine as if she was studying me, waiting for me to say or do something.
“Yeah, we should.” What else could I possibly say. Yes, please?
For a half a millisecond, I thought I saw disappointment flash through her eyes.
“For practice.”
Right. Practice. The word was like ice water on my internal celebration. Shit. That's why she was disappointed. She thought I was telling her she needed more practice. Fuck.
She shifted slightly in my lap, and I had to bite back a groan. “I think I'm getting the hang of it. The kissing thing. You're a really good teacher.”
Teacher. Friend. Practice partner. Not boyfriend, not the love of her life, not the person she actually wanted to be kissing.
But then she was kissing me again, and I couldn't make myself care about the logic. Her mouth was soft and demanding, and she made these little sounds that were going to haunt my dreams forever. I pulled her closer, one hand sliding up her back, the other cradling her face like she was something precious.
When we broke apart this time, we were both breathing hard.
“Maybe I should try this with Tyson too?” she asked, and the words hit like a physical blow. “Now that I know what good kissing feels like.”
I was dying. Actually dying. My heart was being ripped out of my chest and tap-danced on, and I had to sit here and smile about it.
“That's... that's great,” I said, proud that my voice didn't crack. “He'll definitely appreciate your... technique.”
“You think so?” She climbed off my lap, and the loss of contact felt like losing a limb. “I mean, that wasn't too much, was it? The kissing? I don't want to seem too eager.”
“It was perfect.” The words came out too honest, too raw. I cleared my throat. “I mean, you did perfect. Any guy would be lucky to be kissed like that.”
She beamed at me, and I wanted to scream. How could she not see it? How could she not feel what I was feeling? That kiss had been everything, intimate and desperate and real. But to her, it was just practice for another man.
The next week was torture. Pure, exquisite torture.
We kept having “practice sessions” that were slowly killing me. Each one got more intense. More hands, more touching,more of those little sounds she made that were definitely going to send me to an early grave. And every single time, just when I thought maybe she was feeling it too, she'd pull back and say something about how this was really helping her confidence with Tyson.
