Okay. Maybe tea for two.
I put the kettle on and shivered, huddling closer to the flame. When I heard the back steps creak and the kitchen door click, I knew my fate was sealed—whatever was about to happen would mark me for life.
Shivers danced up and down my spine, and the back of my neck felt strangely vulnerable as I fixated on the blue flame.
“Hey, Crosby,” Weston whispered. I’d never felt so alive just from the sound of my name. “I hope I didn’t ruin your party. I don’t know what got into me. But I know I don’t want you to go so far away and be mad at me all the way from Italy.”
I wasn’t angry. I turned around to tell him as much, but when our gazes met, thoughts stopped forming in my brain. I was so lost in his gaze, it felt like my feet no longer touched the ground. His eyes were dark and brooding, but the energy that flickered there was for me.
I wanted to tell Weston to wait for me, that I would hurry and grow up, catch up with him as fast as I could. I wouldn’t act like a kid sister anymore, I’d be a respectable grown-up—a woman who could take care of his needs. But I was dumbstruck by the silent exchange between us. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it began or when things between us finally changed. I already wasn’t a pain in his ass—or the little sister he’d never had.
“Tell me to stop,” he said as he walked over to me. But I could stop our chemistry about as well as I could stop the world from turning.
West stepped in close, put one hand on my waist and the other on the counter. His body was so synched with mine that I could feel the hum of energy that flowed through it. Energy that wrapped around me and snuck its way into my body, igniting a fire that had been waiting patiently for the strike of a match.
“I can’t,” I whispered. I flung my arms around Weston’s strong neck. I felt his hard form press into mine. I felt his heartbeat through his Henley shirt as it lay over mine.
“Crosby, you’re leaving tomorrow,” he said. Weston caressed my jaw, then his hands found the sensitive back of my neck. He cradled my head and I closed my eyes.
One. Kiss. Goodbye. Please.
My belly swam with nerves, and I felt dizzy from the onslaught of emotion. His weight pressed into me was the most heavenly sensation, like being trapped in a comforting way, without an exit. I didn’t want one. If I could live in that safe embrace forever, I would choose it over everything.
“You’ll meet someone else. You’ll forget about me,” he whispered, lips grazing my hairline. He brushed his delectable mouth across my forehead, and goose bumps rose in a massive army along my flesh.
“I’ll wait for you,” I whispered. I meant it as much as I’d meant anything. There could be no other—Weston was it for me. No man would ever compare to how he enchanted me.
Then he crushed his lips to mine as he cradled my head. Shock jolted my system like a panic attack. I’d never felt more alive in my life. His tongue swept between my lips, and my knees nearly gave out. But Weston embraced me, he held me up even as he invaded me. His kiss stole the air right out of my chest. There was no other point of focus than his luscious mouth and how it depleted me, stole my air, heart, and mind, until I was nothing but a puddle of need. I’d never been so close to a man before, never had my mouth touched another’s, but if this was deflowering, it felt beautiful—like a rite of passage reserved for just the two of us.
“Crosby,” he said, coming up for air. He gathered my hair in his fist and crushed me to his chest. I clung to his biceps, my heart stumbling along, my head trying not to lose consciousness and faint at his feet. I wanted more, his body, muscles—all of it under my fingertips. I wanted the hardness I could feel against my leg in my hands too. I wanted him to consume me, to take and take until there was nothing left—completely deplete me until I was filled up with him.
But Weston was conflicted, and as he held me close and rocked me, his guilt was a presence in the room. Maybe, to him, it felt like betrayal. Asa was a brother to him and I was off-limits, and maybe that was what made our kiss an intoxicating mixture of the comfortable and the forbidden.
We stayed locked in an embrace, my cheek against his chest, moving up and down with his breath, until the first golden light of dawn spilled through the windows.