Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 77936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“I’ll tell you when it happens,” I said lightly. And it would happen. Somewhere not here. Someone not Colt. A brick hit the bottom of my stomach, a sick weight. I shifted against the truck bed.
“You’ve never…?” Colt returned to his side, peering down at me like I was some sort of scientific oddity being shown in Mr. Humpert’s biology class.
“Around here?” I scoffed. “Who do you think I’m kissing, Colt?”
“Dunno.” He continued to stare at me, dark eyes way too intense and me way too buzzed for this conversation. “But you’ve wanted to, right?”
Only every damn minute. Especially this one as I watched him take another pull from the bottle of Jack.
“You’re past tipsy now.” I grabbed the bottle from him, took my own sip. My throat burned and my lips tingled. And the iron lock I kept on certain topics around Colt loosened. “When you want to kiss someone, you think about them all the time. How they smell. How they talk. Their laugh. Their hands—”
Colt made a skeptical noise. “Their hands?”
“Yeah, Colt. Hands are sexy. Deal.” I made a dismissive gesture before flopping back down in the truck bed, head heavy and lips apparently not done yapping. “Anyway, you just want to be near them all the time, even if you can’t touch. Maybe you start to want them so much your stomach hurts.”
“And then what?” Colt loomed over me, eyes as wide as if I’d handed him one of the gold nuggets these hills had failed to yield for centuries.
“What do you mean?”
“And then you kiss them?” Colt’s face, those big eyes, angular nose, and most especially, those wide lips hovered inches from me. Far, far too close.
“What are you on, Colt?” I couldn’t sit fully up because then our faces would bump. Couldn’t gracefully duck under him either, so I settled for glaring up at him.
“Sometimes my stomach hurts around you.” He spoke slowly like he was reasoning something out. “And you smell good. Always. I hate it when you miss school or aren’t around. Never thought about your hands, but you’ve got nice eyes.”
“Colt.” I put a hand over my eyes like that might help me forget that my best friend thought I had nice eyes and smelled good. “Save the sweet talk for Betsey. I’m begging you.”
“I wanna know what it’s like.” Colt’s voice was husky and demanding.
“You? Want me? To kiss you?” I put a question mark on each phrase.
“I think so.” He nodded solemnly, forearms going a little wobbly as he continued to hold himself over me.
“Kinda need you to know so, Colt.” I gave a pained groan. If nothing else, I was going to die by erection soon, if not by my own stupid nobility. “No maybe.”
“That’s my whole problem. I don’t know.” Colt sounded mournful, eyes shiny under all the stars. “I don’t know anything. Not for certain.”
Seeing as how I’d known girls weren’t it for me since forever, I didn’t have the most sympathy for Colt’s uncertainty. I took a deep breath and let it go slowly. Colt—my best friend—was hurting. Confused. Seeking answers. Answers I could potentially give. My stomach clenched.
“Are you gonna hate me in the morning?” I asked warily.
“I could never hate you, Mav. Ever.” Colt had the earnestness only the tipsy could manage. “If I don’t like it, I’ll say. Simple as that. But then I’ll know what kissing feels like.”
“Not sure I like being your experiment.”
“You don’t want me to be your first.” Colt sounded utterly dejected, a sadness I hadn’t heard from him before. “I get it—”
I cut him off by stretching upward enough to clamp my mouth on his. Your first. As soon as he’d said it, a fire had been lit in me. Spontaneous combustion. Colt Jennings could be my first kiss. I could be his. And it wasn’t the prettiest kiss. We bumped noses. One of us said ow. Might have been me.
But then Colt shifted. Maybe his arms got tired, but his body was more solidly against mine. His mouth softened. Mine did too. I tried again, a little pressure, tried to make it like the kisses I’d seen on TV, sweet, slow. The tip of my tongue darted out to trace his lower lip.
“Oh.” Colt made a dazed sound, gazing down at me through glassy eyes.
“How was that?” I asked, tone guarded.
“Good.” Colt sounded all thoughtful, almost academic. “Real good. Kissing is weird when you stop and think about it, like lips and tongues and shit, but the doing… The doing is real nice.”
“Nice.” I had never been more turned on in my entire life. Spontaneous eruption might be even more likely than combustion at this point. “I’m over here harder than a fence post, and you’re going on about nice.”
“Kiss me again,” Colt demanded. “This time for real.”