Twice Shy, Sarah Hogle [100 books to read in a lifetime .txt] 📗

drops to his chest, which is rising and falling deeply—I try to correct the impulse, quickly raking my eyes upward, but it’s too late. My thoughts are too obvious to need words. Wesley’s eyes flash moments before the lightning strikes. A frisson of heat shoots through me as I peer into their depths, and if you were to look on at us from above I think you’d spy smoke undulating against the windows, two people inside a crystal ball with their fate sealed.

He reaches for me with both hands and slowly, carefully slides my glasses off my face. I stare as he peels up the hem of his shirt, exposing an inch of golden skin, and uses it to wipe the spots of rain off my lenses. He hands them back, skin warm against my freezing fingers.

I don’t know what compels me to do it, but I reach out, too. I touch a thumb to a raindrop sliding over the arc of his cheek, following it with my finger all the way down to his lower lip. He watches me from beneath lashes at half-mast, beautiful wide eyes going liquid black. There are dark shadows beneath them, easier to discern in the dimness of the car.

A crack of thunder splits the air; we swivel to face the windshield. Wesley swallows hard as he puts the truck in gear.

We drive.

I can feel every particle of air moving against my skin. The heavens are swirling purple and green, lifted from an illustration in a storybook, all the colors so impossibly and exaggeratedly saturated. Long grasses are blown flat by rain, a forever stretch from here to Falling Stars. Here in the enclosed cab of Wesley’s truck, dry heat gusting out of the vents, it could be the end of the world.

Wesley nudges the brakes, slowing down even though we’re nowhere near the house yet. Then we stop entirely. The look on his face drowns out all sound, din pushed beyond our bubble by magic. “That’s a lie,” he says quietly.

Blood drains from my extremities, rushing to my brain. “What’s a lie?”

He stares straight ahead, deathly pale save the bright red blooms on his cheekbones, ruddy blotches under a stubbly beard. I follow his line of sight, trying to see whatever it is that he’s seeing. Wesley’s elbow bends, white-knuckled fist easing the gearshift into park.

“Is something—?” I begin to ask, when Wesley unbuckles his seat belt without warning and gets out of the car. He’s going to run.

Oh no, he’s going to run.

But he doesn’t. He rounds the hood of the car, stride powerful, coming right for me. All of my attention telescopes down to that minute flex in his arm as he throws open the passenger door.

My jaw drops, another question forming.

He cradles my face in his hands, ever so gentle. I slacken in the fierce hold of his stare, his pupils hungry stains drinking up the iris. He is himself, endearing and unsure, but he’s also under siege by something new: steely determination. Wesley’s mentioned he often has trouble expressing himself, but mouths can speak in more ways than one. For this, all he needs is a kiss.

He answers my question with shuttering eyelids, no room to wonder anymore because this isn’t an I like you, maybe or an I’m into you, a little kiss. It’s a force that cuts me off at the knees, stealing the breath from my throat like pulling rope, both of us tangled and tethered to each other as we pitch over the cliff’s edge.

He jams the button on my seat belt to release me, bringing me to him. I snatch him closer, too, greedy. My arms slide around his neck as though they belong there, slick with rain. I smile dreamily against his mouth, face upturned, mist in my hair.

“I’m sorry,” he pants when we break. “I had to . . . I had to—”

I don’t let him finish, not done falling yet.

I drag him back for more. Wesley goes rigid, then every part of him loosens, a small sigh escaping like a candle blown out. He wants and I want, no chance of miscommunication. Kissing him, I feel powerful. In command, even as I fumble and paw. There’s no such thing as a missed mark, only shifting ones.

At long last, I get to do what I’ve so badly wanted for weeks, plunging my fingers into his hair. Thanks to rain, the strands are more slippery than supple, fresh water lifting the strong scent of his shampoo. His mouth is pure satin everywhere except a crescent of tougher skin where his top teeth have dug into his bottom lip for years. Anxiety. Nerves. Self-punishing, but so painfully sweet with me.

We break to readjust, trying out new rhythms. While I sense his self-consciousness, perhaps comparing this kiss to what he thinks it should be, I wish he could know how much I love what it is. It doesn’t matter how much pressure he applies, what angles we meet each other at, or his level of confidence. It matters that he gives himself at all.

I want everything, I want all of him, I want to familiarize myself down to every freckle and fine line.

His kiss is the Fourth of July, a Southern summer night. Cicadas and the tongues of smoke off a burning firework—hiss, pop. Hot. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple and oh, he’s good with his hands. Firm, reverent hands, one sliding along my scalp to cup the back of my head, the other undecided between jaw, waist, hip. He feels better than I ever dreamed, and I’ve done quite a lot of dreaming.

He leans back slightly, brows drawn together in mingled desire and trepidation, still not quite sure if he’s doing the right thing. “More,” I murmur into his ear. Wesley shivers, but that crease between his eyes disappears and he switches our positions, him on the seat, pulling me onto his lap. I have to tilt my head so that I don’t bump