Page 74 of Lessons in Forgiving
“Ay dios mío, Henry,” I groaned lightly, teasingly. I lost the seatbelt and turned toward him. “Stop being a dickhead and start being happy for Athalia! She’s in love with the guy!”
Henry, naturally, did not share that sentiment. His hand curled around the hood of the car, resting his head against it and almost level with mine. “Who are you calling a dickhead, missy?” He challenged, an amused glare in his eyes. “Can’t possibly be me, right?”
“And what if it is?”
We’d been joking a minute ago, but the spring breeze had blown something else between us. A gust of tension, air filled with possibilities and bad ideas. Him, closer to me.
I didn’t imagine the way he filled the distance, did I? The way he leaned further into the car, leaving less space between us.
“I haven’t come up with a punishment yet,” he said.
“No?” I wasn’t quite sure what came over me when I added, “Do let me know once you have.”
It’s not something that would’ve come out of my mouth if I had anything to do with it. It was another one of those autopilot moments. Where I just said what I wanted to say, not what I should.
Maybe that we’d agreed to stay away from each other made it harder—made me want to be closer to him, instead.
Something in his expression darkened, the teasing lines of his smile disappearing slowly. His brows drew together like he was about to kick into autopilot, too. The way we had in New York,where he told me he still thought about how I felt. Where he confessed I made him nervous, then almost kissed me.
This felt similar. Only that I wasn’t thinking about why we should be reasonable anymore. That instead, all I wanted to scream at him wasKiss me.What’s the big deal?
We’d done it before. About a thousand times. We’d done so much more than share a harmless kiss in this car; there was no way one more could hurt.
Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!
My gaze fell to his lips approximately every .5 seconds. I couldn’t help it. Whenever it jumped back to his eyes, hoping I might manage to keep it up, he was still looking at me. His attention wasn’t wavering, wasn’t flickering between my lips and eyes wildly. It was fixed on the latter.
Like he was about to discover a new shade of brown in them. Honestly, I think they might just look dark, now that the sun had set. Just one shade of dark.
“Paula,” he rasped. And the string between us was about to snap again.Iwas about to snap again. I could feel it, the same way I could feel the rough sound of his voice in the pit of my stomach. The way I could feel his breath on my cheeks spreading warmth in them. The way I could feel him all over, when he wasn’t touching any of me.
Perhaps it was like phantom pain. When you still felt your leg even after it had been brutally severed from the rest of your body.
And perhaps that’s why I felt the ghost of his lingering kisses, his hands on my body, his fingers between my thighs—even if he wasn’t touching me. Even if he hadn’t since he’d been severed from the rest of my life.
“What?” When I finally answered, I couldn’t get it to be above a whisper. My tongue flicked across my lips, and the motion drew his eyes to them for the first time.
He swallowed thickly, and looked back at me. “Please don’t make me kiss you.”
“Why?”
“Because I won’t be able to stop,” he said. “Because I won’t want to.”
I thought I might be seeing stars when I felt him draw closer, felt myself inch toward him, too.
“You—” I began, but my lips moved, and they brushed his and it was a little too much, I thought, so unprepared. My breath stuttered in my throat, and Henry’s forehead fell to mine, bringing some distance between our lips.
Just enough for them not to touch when I said, “You managed before. You were so… reasonable that night.”
He’d been the one to draw away in the hotel. I didn’t think I could have.
“And it almost killed me, Paula.”
My head shook against his. Maybe to clear my thoughts, maybe because I had hoped the movement would accidentally let my lips brush his again. They didn’t, and when disappointment settled in my stomach, I thought,fuck it.
Let that string between us snap.
Fuck reasons. Fuck Breakups. Just for today—for now.
