It Had to Be You, Georgia Clark [phonics reader TXT] 📗

but my family are currently spying on us from the front of the restaurant. I said don’t look!” he said, as Darlene went to swivel around. “We’ve been having an argument about me deciding to come clean about our relationship. And about the fact that I only just broke up with Lauren. Who didn’t mean anything to me,” he added quickly as she pulled back an inch. “I promise.” Tentatively, he skimmed his fingers down her arm. Like a boyfriend would. Affectionate. Loving. “Now, you’ve forgiven me, and I think we should kiss.”

“Now? Here?”

“Well, we are in love, right? Just a little makeup kiss. Are you okay with that?”

Zach’s proximity was having the oddest effect. She was trying to stay alert and rational, but her bones felt like butter left in the sun. Focus! This is just acting. This is not real. “Fine.”

“Bang on.” His smile was surprised and just a little bit wicked. There was still a foot of air between them. “Come closer.”

She moved a half step forward.

“Closer.”

She couldn’t make her feet move. This was Zach: the bane of her existence, the most annoying person in the world. But he was, objectively, attractive. And she was pretty sure he felt the same way about her. She inched toward him, until they were almost touching.

“Put your arms around me.”

She put her hands on his hips, middle-school-dance style.

He tried not to laugh. “C’mon, Mitchell. Pretend I’m someone you actually like.”

After a long moment of hesitation, Darlene circled her arms around his neck. Their bodies pressed against each other. Zach’s hands dropped to her lower back, sliding against the slinky material of her dress. A bright wave of heat shimmied up and down her entire body. None of this was permitted. None of this should be happening. And that excited her.

“Ready?” His voice was husky.

Darlene tilted her face up to him. Her heart was beating so ferociously there was a good chance it’d burst out of her chest. “Yes.”

Slowly, inch by inch, Zach lowered his mouth onto hers. At first, Darlene kept her lips shut, unable to relax and stop thinking: Zach is kissing me, Zach, Zach Livingstone, right now, in the middle of the street! But Zach persisted. His mouth moved over hers, kissing her top lip, her bottom lip, her top lip again, his lips warm and confident against hers.

She couldn’t fight it anymore.

A barrier inside her broke. She opened her mouth and started kissing Zach back. Really kissing him back.

And that’s when things got kind of nuts.

Her fingers dug into his hair, his stupid flop of perfect hair. It was just as soft and thick as she always thought it’d be, which made her feel angry and turned on in equal measure. She fisted the strands and tugged, wanting him to feel it. He let out a groan of pleasure, pulling back to flash her a look of surprise. Not kissing was way worse than kissing. Annoyed, she dropped her hands to his shirt collar and yanked him to her, kissing him hard. He kissed her back deeply. His hands were on her back, pulling her body onto his. The feeling of the power in his hands, those hands that could pick up any instrument and make it sing, made her blood run white-hot. She pressed her teeth onto his bottom lip, sucking and biting down. Zach mumbled something like, “Jesus,” and she said something like, “Shut up,” opening her mouth wider. Zach groaned low in his throat, squeezing her ass. The feeling of his hands on her butt and the moan in his voice unlocked something even wilder in her. She backed them up against a brick wall. Their kiss turned desperate. His hands cupped her jaw, her hips, the back of her head, hot muscle pushing against her rhythmically. She couldn’t get enough, would never get enough. She needed more, more of his mouth, his body, his hair, his hands, which were everywhere, sending waves of pleasure everywhere, all crashing cymbals and crazed piano held together by the throb throb throb of a low, insistent bass, that was getting louder, and faster, reaching a peak—

A car alarm sounded, close, noisy. It jerked Darlene out of her body. Back into her head.

She froze.

He froze.

She was back, in the West Village, on Waverly Place, her arms around Zach. Zach. She inhaled hard and pushed him off her.

He almost fell over. “Um, wow. That was…” He looked absolutely stupefied. “Who are you, and what have you done with Darlene Mitchell?”

She couldn’t answer. Could not speak, think, process at all. She was a blank sheet of music. An empty stage.

What the hell had she just done.… with Zach?

Zach adjusted something in his pants—she would not think about that, no she would not—and looked over his shoulder. “And I guess we had a bit of an audience.”

Only now did Darlene remember that the Livingstone family had witnessed the entire make-out. Crowded at the restaurant entrance, Mark’s eyes were slit with suspicion while his mother looked somewhere between stunned and scandalized. Imogene looked genuinely amazed.

Darlene stared back, feeling caught out. She spent so much of her life listening to her father lecture her about how she presented herself. Darlene knew respectability politics were bullshit, but she did like to be in control. Unless she was kissing Zach, apparently. Which was only for money: a lot of money. It didn’t matter what his family thought: she was the one getting the upper hand in this situation. She’d negotiated the terms, she’d only do what she wanted to. She was playing him. Darlene ignored the wild thrum under her skin and took another step back, away. “I’m getting a cab. Go finish loading the rest of the gear.”

First base only. She would never kiss him like that ever again.

23

Zia flopped onto Darlene’s couch, limbs aching. She’d intended to simply drop off the leftovers from Clay’s photo shoot to Layla but had somehow gotten roped into cleaning the bathroom, then cooking