Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 105667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
But then, just as quickly as it began, the phone starts buzzing again, jerking us both back to reality.
Saint pulls away from me, his breath heavy as he presses his forehead to mine. I gasp for air, my chest rising and falling as I try to catch my breath.
No kiss has ever left me this breathless, this affected.
When I open my eyes, I see that his are still closed, as if he’s trying to hold on to the moment for just a little longer.
Did I really just allow that to happen?
I’m awful.
The phone keeps buzzing, an insistent reminder of the reality we’re trying to ignore.
And then Saint releases me and grabs his phone, his expression unreadable, and without another word, he walks to the door.
The door slams behind him, and I stand here, feeling the weight of the silence in the cabin. He filled me with so many emotions in that brief moment, only to rip them away just as quickly. Now, all I’m left with is this aching feeling in my chest—an emptiness I wasn’t expecting.
I ache for more of that kiss. More of his flirtation. More of that triumphant feeling.
I hear the gravel crunch beneath his tires as he pulls away from the house, and even after he’s been gone for several minutes, I’m still standing in the same spot, touching my lips with my fingertips, trying to process everything that just happened.
The reaction that surprises me the most right now is my smile. If I were to have written Reya and Cam’s first kiss last night, I never would have thought she would smile after he left the way he did.
But I’m smiling. Despite the guilt I feel for the betrayal, I’m somehow smiling because it doesn’t feel like I’ve done anything wrong. It’s research. Right?
Without thinking, I walk straight to my computer and open it. For the second night in a row, I sit down and immediately begin typing.
I am never telling a soul about that kiss.
Chapter Seven
I just told Mari about the kiss.
I didn’t mean to. But she showed up here unannounced wearing floral overalls. And she’s been drinking a mimosa from a YETI cup, so she seems harmless and bored.
She came for a visit just as I was needing a breather from the most recent all-nighter I pulled, so we came out here to the front porch to sit on the patio furniture, and the conversation just ended up here. Right here, with me saying “It was just a kiss,” and her just staring at me in amusement.
“Oh, my,” she says.
“I know,” I say.
I can’t believe I caved that easily. To her, not to the kiss. But she was being nosy, asking me about seeing a mysterious black car in my driveway two days ago. I explained to her that it was the detective, and he had stopped by to take a statement. But when I was telling her, I don’t know what happened. I just couldn’t hide it. I was blushing, I couldn’t stop smiling.
I became a flailing idiot.
Then, out of nowhere, she accused me of sleeping with him. “You’re porking the porker!” she said.
I became defensive, but instead of making a full denial, I said something like “No, I’m not! I swear, it didn’t go that far! It was just a kiss.”
That’s when she said, “Oh, my.”
And I responded with “I know.”
And now here we are. Staring at each other.
She sips from her YETI cup, a long, constant sip. “Well. Good for you. I’ve been married to Louie since I was seventeen. It wasn’t until I was in my fifties that I realized my lips had never touched another man’s and likely never would at that point because I was in my fifties and Louie was healthy as an ox. And to be honest, it made me kind of sad. Because what if Louie is a terrible kisser? What if we aren’t even doing it right? How would we know when we’ve only experienced each other?”
She’s staring off into the distance, focused on nothing in particular.
“Now my youth is gone, and the thought of Louie putting his tongue in my mouth makes me want to walk right out there to the spot where that young man ended his life the other night and do the same exact thing.”
“Jesus, Mari.”
“Have zero regrets, Petra. Kiss all the men. And the women, too, while you’re at it. Because there are some of us in the world who never got to do any of those fun things.”
Her YETI is empty now. She’s trying desperately to get the last drop to empty onto her tongue.
“At least you and Louie have had a long marriage. Not a lot of people get that.”
She waves me off with a flippant hand. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Wouldn’t change a thing, blah blah blah.”