Page 96 of Betting on the Best Friend
The reaction when our lips touch burns every cogent thought out of my head. Where we are, why we’re doing this.
I’m breathing her in through every pore. I can’t hear anything over the rush of blood in my ears except the hitch of her breath, her lips parting beneath mine. I take the invitation and deepen the kiss. She lets go of a belt loop to tangle her fingers in the hair at my nape. I can’t tell if she’s using the leverage to pull herself up or press me closer, but yes, this—this I want. Her, I want.
The taste of her is a revelation and no surprise at all. Complex honey. Rich sweetness I want to explore forever in this silk glide.
She gives a tiny gasp, and I start to draw back, but her hand in my hair tightens to keep me close. She makes a sound of distressuntil I take the kiss deep again, and she rewards me with the soft moan she saves for expensive chocolate.
Her other hand slides up to my chest and presses as she pivots us until my back is against the end of the shelves. I give a split second of thanks for the height of her heels that made it possible.
I drag my lips from hers but only to murmur, “More,” as I brush them against the soft skin of her cheek. Her hand trails from my hair to my face, framing it to encourage the exploration with her palm against my jaw, her thumb pressing lightly beneath my cheekbone in a silent command to keep going.
She arches into me, and it causes her to take a small step backward for balance, but I’ve got her. I won’t let her fall.
“So this is why you broke up with me.”
Ruby gasps at the sound of Niles’s voice. I let her go as she spins to face him.
He looks like the guy who gets to tell his doctor “I told you so” because he’s right about being sick with something bad.
I feel sick too as the full weight of what I’ve done looms over me, and I can sense the force of the crash that will come.
I kissed Ruby. I kissed her, and I will never stop paying for it.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ruby
Charlie is kissing me.
Charlie. Is. Kissing. Me.
I have only that coherent thought, and then no thoughts at all.
My stomach gives a wild swoop, and I reach up to anchor myself, holding him to me with a hand tangled through his hair while the world spins. This is a grown-folk kiss, a never-do-this-in-the-library kiss, the kind of kiss that gets Madison and Oliver booted from the condo when they forget themselves.
This is hungry and delicious. I gasp, barely able to handle my new biological superpower: I can detect bitter, sour, salt, sweet, umami . . . and Charlie, a taste unlike anything else.
When he starts to pull away, I panic at being cut off from it, holding him in place until he gives me more instead of withdrawing.
Sensations overload my nerve endings and synapses; it’s too much to make sense of, but I need more, and I back him against the bookcase like I can somehow merge all our molecules to get the fullest dose of him.
He makes a ragged demand of “more.” His nose brushes against my cheek, his lips exploring. Yes. This. All of this. More.
I arch to offer access to my neck.
Charlie.
I’d begun to suspect . . . I’d meant to tell him . . .
Charlie.
I’ll tell him, I need to tell him . . .
“So this is why you broke up with me.”
A voice cuts through the haze like a foghorn, and I whirl around to face him.
“Niles?” My brain is not switching gears. He may as well have spoken through a mouthful of bean mush.
