He looked down and then lifted up the bottom hem of his tank top to see what I was talking about. While he was inspecting the sparkly red color on it, I inspected his exposed, well-defined abs along with the trail of dark hair below his navel. When Ilooked back up at Zac, he was watching me. He’d caught me checking him out but he didn’t say anything about it and neither did I. Instead, we just stared into each other’s eyes.
“I don’t mind having your lip gloss on me,” he quietly said, but the full meaning behind his words was loud and something that I clearly understood.
“I should probably go now, Zac.”
He nodded and then stepped even closer to me, to where we were only inches apart. I could feel the heat radiating from his body and knew it had nothing to do with the temperature outside and everything to do with his attraction to me. It was as obvious as mine was to him. We’d both just been keeping it under professional wraps.
I had a choice to make right now, and that was to either walk away from this dangerously tempting situation or stay in it. What I actually needed to do was to run as fast and as far away from it as possible, but looking up at Zac, whose beautiful blue eyes were still staring straight into mine—I chose to stay. I was craving this illicit intimacy as much as he was. Although the most that we’d done was hug each other, our eyes had done so much more and they still were.
“Forgive me for what I’m about to say to you, Stevie, but I have to say it—and it’s that I wanna kiss you. I’ve wanted to so many times since we met but knew it’d be wrong if I did. Just like now.”
“Yes, it would be wrong. Just like it’d be wrong for me to kiss you back.”
“Does that mean you wanna kiss me?”
I looked down at Zac’s lips and then met his gaze again. “Yes.”
“What if we kissed each other just one time?”
“One time wouldn’t be enough for me.”
“Yeah… It wouldn’t be for me either.”
We kept staring at each other while the seconds kept ticking by, then Zac stepped the rest of the way up to me. His chest was resting against mine and I noticed our breathing was in sync. It was deep, too, and quickly growing even deeper. Something was going to have to give—then Zac leaned his head down and pressed his lips against my cheek. He held them there, and I closed my eyes while trying so hard not to turn my head and kiss his mouth. I wanted to so badly, but I couldn’t do it.
Zac slowly pulled his lips away from my cheek and as he was doing it, he stared into my eyes again. His chest was still pressed against me and his mouth was still within kissing distance from mine. I could feel his warm breath blowing against my face and it was intoxicating.Zacwas intoxicating. Everything about him was.
He looked over my face and then took two wide steps away from me. “Stevie, you really should go now, because if you keep standing here in front of me like this and keep talking to me and keep touching me and keep looking at me like you’ve been doing and are still doing, then I’m not gonna be able to stop myself from kissing you like you deserve to be kissed. So walk away from me before we both cross the line.”
“Okay. I’ll walk away from you, but before I do, I want you to know something.”
“What?”
“I’ve never done this before. I’ve never allowed myself to be in this kind of position with a man.”
“You mean amarriedman?”
“Yes.”
“I knew you hadn’t. And as a married man, I’ve never allowed myself to be in this kind of position with a woman. You are the exception to this rule of mine.”
“Why am I the exception?”
“I can’t tell you why. Nothing other than to say there’s just something about you. Something different that’s gotten underneath my skin and in the best way.”
I smiled to myself because that was exactly how I felt about Zac. He was the exception for me as well, and there was something different about him that had gotten underneathmyskin, and in the best way. Something that made me feel so alive. Something that made me feel like breaking all the moral rules.
“I’m gonna leave now,” I said, taking a step back.
“Okay.”
“Bye, Buchanan.”
“Bye, Sinclair.”
I turned around and started making my way through the trees, but then stopped and looked over my shoulder at Zac. He still had his eyes on me.
“When you get home, put some Neosporin or some kind of antibiotic ointment on all those places on your body. Even on that cut on your bottom lip,” I said.