Page 92 of The Quit List
“You don’t need to change a damn thing,” I practically growl. “Any guy would be lucky to even get the chance to kiss you, just the way you already are.”
“So, why not kiss me and show me what I should look for in a kiss?”
Lord, give me strength.
My eyes travel over Holly’s face—the set of her jaw, her brown eyes that sparkle orange in the firelight, her lips that are parted. She seems determined, seems set on what she wants.
She doesn’t look like a woman who’s bluffing.
“I can tell you what you’re looking for,” I reply, resisting every natural instinct in me to show her. “You want to find a man who kisses you like he’s going to move heaven and earth for you. Bring down the sun, moon and stars. You deserve to be kissed like that, and you shouldn't settle for less.”
Holly looks at me, her face a question mark, and I worry I’ve said the wrong thing for a moment, until she suddenly smiles and says, “Have you ever kissed anyone like that?”
Her question catches me off guard.
“No,” I admit.
But a minute ago, I was sure thinking about it.
“And you think it would be like that for us?” The heated look in her eyes is doing things to me that it really shouldn’t.
I can’t help but reach out and put my hands on her arms, and she shudders as I hold her in place like I’m simultaneously trying to pull her towards me and keep her just out of reach.
“Damn right it would,” I reply. Because if I know one thing for sure right now, it’s exactly that. That if I kissed her, I’d be all in. I’d be unable to kiss her as just her so-called “dating coach,” an experiment, a practice run. “Like I said, I’d do it properly.”
Her breath hitches at my words, goes ragged, and her dark eyes are burning in the light of the fire in a way that’s almost my undoing. I’m still hanging on—barely—by the last shred of self-control that I have.
I’ve spent most of my adult life avoiding situations like this. Avoiding feelings like this. I grew up with such a twisted idea of what love looks like—that it hurts, no matter if you stay or leave. There’s no winning.
And right now, look where developing feelings has led me: because all I want to do is kiss her, and I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
“Then it’s what I want,” she says decisively. “I want you to show me what a proper kiss can be like. How it feels to be with a man, like you say.”
Well, I’ll be damned.
32
HOLLY
“I… can’t.”
His eyes are full of longing, his voice gruff, and his hands are searing my skin. The entire world is spinning and all I can see is Jax. The anchor at the center of it all, grounding me. Holding me steady with that gaze of his, carefully trained on my face in a way that suggests blinking would unravel this spell.
If I’m fire, he’s gasoline. And the blaze of heat and color that lights up my darkness is simultaneously casting new shadows.
He’s everything I thought I didn’t want and everything I’m desperate for, all at once. My longing for him has become physical, almost primal, a need coiled deep in my belly so tightly that it’s making me crazy. Never have I ever wanted someone so badly.
Never have I ever been more petrified of stepping out of my comfort zone.
But if something doesn’t happen right here, right now, I’m gonna lose my damned mind.
“Why not?” I demand.
“Because I… just, no. Okay? I can’t.” As he says this, his hands tighten on my hips.
“But you want to,” I challenge.
His eyes lift heavenward, like he’s exasperated, but I don’t miss the flicker of something that looks akin to lust.