by Piper Lawson
“It was a family decision.” His eyes implored me to understand. But he wasn’t taking himself too seriously either, and the glint in his gaze suggested—what, that he was actually having fun?
“A family decision to get her away from you and your badass moves?”
“You’re an ego crusher, Lex.” He feigned hurt.
“I’m sure you can take it.”
“Uh-huh. Listen. Guys are more delicate than you think. But between you and me, because I never really had a girlfriend, I’m a little light on all the … sex-adjacent stuff.” He gestured dismissively with one hand. “All those early teen years of truth or dare, making out in the back of the car, groping on the couch?” I nodded like I knew what he was talking about. Though Jake and I’d done some of that, I wouldn’t have characterized it as a life phase.
“Never happened to me.” Dylan put his hands on my knees and inclined his head toward me. His dark eyes were earnest and self-mocking. “I will deny it if this ever leaves the room, but my cumulative sexual experience totals about the length of an episode of Breaking Bad.”
His admission shocked me. First, it was because I didn’t know how he’d managed to escape female attention for that long. Second, I had no idea why he was telling me this. I forced my mind back to the conversation at hand. Which might not have been the best idea after all.
“Before you start worrying about me dying alone, two girls have asked me out since I got here.” Apparently girls at our school were smarter than East Coast and high school girls. “So as of now I have two dates and zero moves. I’ve spent so much time with guys and books I hardly know what to do with girls. Who aren’t, you know, my friends or sisters.” Dylan ran a hand through his dark hair, shoved it out of his face.
“Or your sisters’ friends.” It seemed funny at the time.
“Exactly.” The dimple had returned, next to a self-deprecating smile.
This was where things went hazy. All I knew was that it was a pretty messed up night. It pissed me off that guys like Jake would be making out with evil coeds at their ex-girlfriend’s party. It also pissed me off that guys like Dylan, who were basically decent, were left out in the proverbial cold. I needed to do some karmic realigning.
And how exactly are you going to fix this? The teeny, tiny sane part of me asked from a faraway place. I shushed her. Me and the Cap made a good team.
“I am a woman of science,” I began, “and as such, believe an objective test is in order.”
Dylan raised his brows skeptically. He evidently didn’t know where this was going.
That made two of us.
“In English, Yoda.”
I ignored the age barb and instead stretched up and squared my shoulders, my chin jutting out. “Kiss me.”
What the hell did I just say? I was a girl who rolled my clothes for optimal packing and alphabetized my books, for starters. Asking for any kind of bodily contact with my best friend’s little brother, no matter what the circumstances, was completely off script.
Dylan was evidently as floored as I was by my proposal. In fact, he looked at me like I’d grown a second head. Which seemed like an overreaction. I was pretty sure I wasn’t that hideous to look at.
“Listen, Lex,” he began as he started to get up, “I appreciate the effort to make up for my recently lackluster social life, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. For one, you’ve been drinking.”
The problem was that while alcohol changed me in some ways, like losing the filter, it didn’t in others. When I got an idea in my head I was just as tenacious as usual.
“And you haven’t?”
“No.”
My hands grabbed Dylan’s arms—whoa, muscles—before he could rise and pulled him back down. “I’m not drunk.”
He looked skeptical but didn’t try to get up again right away.
“I’m not,” I insisted. “Try me.”
“Twelve times eighteen.”
“Two hundred and sixteen.” My response was a bit slow but I knew it was correct.
“The capital of South Africa.”
“Pretoria.” Faster this time.
“First Democratic president of the United States.” Dylan had leaned in and narrowed his eyes, sensing he had it in the bag. Dig deep, Lex.
“Andrew Jackson.” I put my elbows on my knees and rested my chin on my fists. “Serving from 1829 from 1837.” I smiled sweetly. “Any more? I could do this all night.”
Dylan looked at me with admiration and something I probably could’ve identified had I been completely sober. While I appreciated the win, it wasn’t clear where that left us. As he opened his mouth to no doubt cite one of a thousand possible reasons this shouldn’t happen, I pre-empted him, channeling my brief tenth grade stint on the debate team.
“Dylan, listen,” I started matter-of-factly. “First, it’s one little kiss. We’re both grown-ups. No big deal. Second, there’s nothing here.” I gestured to the air between us. “We’re practically family, minus the ick factor. Given circumstances that were admittedly beyond your control you are in desperate need of an unbiased third-party opinion.” He opened his mouth to talk and I clapped my hand over it. His mouth was warm under my fingers, but I ignored the feeling. “Third, I have no stake in this, so can be completely honest. If you suck, I’ll tell you.” That sounded way less harsh in my head. But if there were rules for what I was suggesting, I hadn’t the slightest idea what they were.
I dropped my hand from his startled face. Dylan Cameron probably wasn’t used to being told to shut up.
But I was getting impatient. Life had been playing roulette with my emotions all night, and I was sick of being on the receiving end of whatever was handed down to me. I wanted to decide something for a change. The exasperation lit a fire under me and I threw up my hands, literally. “Oh come on, Cameron, it’s one stupid kiss. To cap off one stupid, heinous night. What are you so afraid of?”
Not one of my finest debating moments. But something sparked and the caramel fired in the depths of his eyes. My words had landed—evidently the boy couldn’t resist a challenge. I had this.
“One kiss?” he asked warily. I nodded. Dylan’s eyes scanned my face, though I hadn’t the first idea what he was looking for. “Fine.” The word sounded tight, like he wasn’t entirely convinced, but at least he’d said it. I wanted to crow in victory.
Because of the way we were sitting, our faces were only inches apart to begin with. Looking over the planes of his face, obscenely long eyelashes hooding chocolate eyes, his full lips parted, awareness suddenly ran through me. It felt like we’d gotten closer together though I was pretty sure neither of us had moved.
Suddenly I was less sure of myself. The kiss had seemed harmless enough when I proposed it. Now, with Dylan looming larger than life in front of me with broad shoulders and tanned skin and unreadable eyes, things weren’t so black and white anymore.
Dylan inclined his body toward me slowly. He paused with his lips a couple of inches from mine. Through partly lowered lashes I could see the skepticism etched on his defined features. What the hell was he waiting for?
Impatient to get it done—I needed to get studying if I was going to salvage anything of this bizarre evening—I closed the space between us until we were breathing the same air, a millimeter apart. He had no out. The smallest twitch would bring us into contact. Dylan smelled like mint and something else, something headier. Based on the challenge in his eyes earlier, I was willing to bet he wouldn’t back out now.
He didn’t.
The light touch of his lips was fleeting on mine. I’d intended only to assess, but my eyes fluttered closed at the first touch. His mouth was just the right mix of hard and soft. A tingling lasted for seconds after his lips left mine, then faded into nothing at all.
I felt strangely exposed until Dylan’s mouth came back. This time it was firmer, lingering. His lips brushed. And they clung. My eyebrows rose in surprise as little sparks ignited in my brain, pinpricks rising
along my arms. Warning bells went off somewhere in the recesses of my mind. Dylan’s mouth moved over mine, still slowly, but more purposeful by the second.
The kiss was deceivingly casual, like Dylan himself—smooth on the surface with an edge just underneath. It struck me suddenly that he was right: I didn’t know him at all, and it might be more than a little bit dangerous to assume I did.
His lips slanted over mine, coaxing, asking for things that couldn’t be put into words. It felt like he wanted my permission to explore, to savor. I wanted to let him do that and more. The realization shook me. I sucked in a breath, consciously willing my hands to stay at my sides.
After a moment, or five, he pulled back.
Well damn. It was going to take me a moment to regroup—from his kiss and from my reaction to it. I blinked, trying to focus on the denim of his jeans until my eyes uncrossed enough to meet his gaze. Our knees were still touching.
Whoever had told him he didn’t have any moves was flat out wrong. Part of me wanted to see his eyes. I didn’t trust myself to look up quite yet, though I could feel his eyes on me.
“Well.” Was that my voice? I cleared my throat. “That was—”
My words were cut off as I felt fingertips on the back of my neck, searing my skin as he pulled my mouth back to his. That’s when Dylan Cameron really kissed me.
The heat of his mouth crushing down on mine was like a drug. Dylan’s thumb stroked the length of my jaw and when his tongue slipped out to part my lips I opened, half from surprise and half instinctively. Suddenly shocks were going straight down my spine. Warming me in other places. I felt completely helpless to resist him or what was growing between us.
He tasted like sin. The ridiculous thought drifted through my suddenly hazy brain. Dylan’s mouth on mine was raw. He moved with a conviction that did strange things to my brain and my body. He was unpracticed, but the way I reacted to him couldn’t have been more perfect if he’d kissed a thousand girls. This was definitely not part of the plan.
Dylan explored my mouth with his bold tongue. Every other thought was forgotten except for the feeling of him overwhelming me. His fingers were on the back of my neck, caressing and then tightening to pull me closer. It was like his mouth was trying to bypass my brain and speak directly to my body. Like it knew there was something between us and was asking, is this what you wanted?
Until now I’d been on the receiving end but couldn’t be still anymore. His mouth had lit me on fire and my reaction was completely unpredictable.
My hand reached up of its own accord, sliding up his muscular chest and around his neck until my fingers fisted themselves in his hair. I used the leverage to hold him to me harder as my mouth started moving under his. Dragged, slid. A breath hitched.
His teeth grazed my lower lip and a bolt of hot lust shot through me. I heard a low moan and didn’t know if it was me or him, but it was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard.
Dylan rose up onto his knees and his other arm reached around my back to haul me closer. The strength that pulled me against him definitely did not belong to a kid, and the move brought the front of my body flush with his. His fingers fisted in my loose hair and he pulled down, forcing my head back more and opening my mouth under his. My blood was thrumming in my veins and I could feel my heartbeat every second, everywhere. The heat in my stomach, and lower, was driving me crazy and I arched my body toward him. If this was a game I wasn’t sure if we were winning or losing anymore. My brain had left the equation long ago and the only thing I knew with certainty was that I needed to feel more of him against me. Harder. Closer. His chest pressed against my breasts, his hips fitted against mine, and … oh God.
This was spiraling out of control. I was practically climbing my best friend’s little brother, who happened to be in the process of turning me inside out with his mouth and hands. On my bed. This had to stop.
My eyes opened a crack and it brought me back to reality. Summoning willpower I didn’t know I had, my hands pushed Dylan back harder than I’d intended. He let go of me instantly. I could hear our breathing, shallow and mismatched in contrast to the steady beat from downstairs.
It took seconds for my vision to refocus. When it did, I could see Dylan had turned to sit on the side of the bed with his feet on the floor. He was slightly hunched, gaze on the floor, eyes dark and a little stormy. Welcome to the club.
A tiny part of my libido wanted to celebrate that I’d made a dent in Dylan Cameron’s too-cool-for-school exterior. Too bad doing it had almost killed me.
Dylan’s composure came back before mine. He turned his head to meet my gaze. “Well,” he asked in a coarse voice, “scientific enough for you?”
I cleared my throat. “That was …” Hot as hell? The dumbest thing I’ve done in recent memory? “You definitely have the right … foundations.” My gaze fell to the bed at the intensity of his stare.
“Foundations?” His voice caught on the word and I couldn’t tell whether he was going to laugh or groan.
I coughed. Smooth. “Yes.” Forced my eyes back to his.
Dylan’s eyes were still cloudy, but his voice had leveled. “Well, thank you for the advice. And the experiment.” He looked like he wanted to say more but got up. He paused at the doorway. “It was good catching up, Lex. Happy birthday.” Then he left.
Studying was forgotten. I had a hard time getting to sleep. For the first time in months it wasn’t Jake I was thinking of. When I finally stopped tossing and turning, I dreamed of dark hair and dark eyes.
Hell. This was not how I’d intended to start the school year.
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