“When did what start?” I say.
Creases rise from the insides of his brows. “The dizziness.”
It takes a second to remember what he’s talking about. “Oh. Just while we were dancing. I already feel a lot better.”
He studies me for a long moment, then nods and backs out of the parking space. We drive in silence for several minutes, winding down the curve of the peninsula toward town, and I keep my eyes fixed out the window on the moon, watching it sparkle and vanish behind the tree line before popping back into view.
The truck slows, drifting toward the dirt shoulder, and I face the windshield, expecting to find a deer blocking our way, but the road is empty, still.
Miles puts the truck into park. “Will you tell me what’s going on, Daphne?” he asks in a gravel.
“Nothing,” I say.
“It’s not nothing,” he says. “Did something happen? With Peter?”
“No,” I insist.
“You can tell me,” he says.
But I can’t. That claustrophobic feeling is back, embarrassment and want mixed together. I push open the truck door and stumble into the dark.
Miles climbs out too. “Where are you going?”
“I just need some air.” It’s the simplest version of the truth.
He rounds the hood of the car to stand in front of me. “Did I do something?”
“No.” I’ve never been a good liar.
“Daphne,” he says gently. “Please just tell me what I did.”
And despite every intention of keeping all these feelings a secret until the end of the summer, I blurt, “You kissed me.”
His brow shoots up. “I thought that was what you wanted. I thought that’s what we were doing.”
“No, I know.” I step back, my spine meeting the side of the bench seat. “We were. I just—it’s different now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to play that game anymore,” I say. “I don’t want you to say things you don’t mean and do things you don’t want to do. It’s confusing.”
“Who says I did anything I don’t want to do?” he asks.
“You did,” I fire back. “You’re the one who told me you don’t want anything to happen between us—”
“I never said that,” he argues, stepping closer.
“—and I don’t want to be a prop to make your ex jealous, and I know I started it—”
“You’re not a prop,” he says, looking hurt.
“That’s exactly what I just was,” I counter. “You only want to kiss me when they’re there to see it. And I know I started it, but things are different now.”
Miles’s gaze drops on a hoarse laugh, a shake of his head. He steps in closer, our hips brushing.
Then he looks back up, takes my face in both hands, and kisses me again.
Rough, deep, messy, breathless.
With no one to see it.
Nothing to stop us.
His hips pin mine back to the side of the passenger seat. His hands move around to my back, spreading out over my bare spine, our chests pressing together, his heat cutting through the cold night. “I want to kiss you,” he murmurs, drawing back a mere inch, “every time you take a sip of something and make that sound.”
I pull him back to me, that sound slipping from my mouth into his. My hands climb into his hair. His scrape down over my sides, his thigh pushing in between mine. “I want to kiss you every time I walk past your bedroom and hear your laugh through the door,” he says, and his hands steal beneath the hem of my dress, all the way up to cradle my hips, my skin prickling like every cell wants to be a little bit closer to him.
I untuck his shirt from his waistband. My hands skim up over his back, greedily touching every warm curve I can get to.
“I want to kiss you every time I hear the shower turn on and know that you’re in there,” he rasps.
I touch his stomach, his chest, the muscles tightening as my fingertips brush over them, and he takes hold of my hips, lifting me up into the truck.
“I want to kiss you all the time, Daphne,” he says. “Sometimes it’s just easier to find an excuse.”
I pull him closer by the belt loops, his hands grazing over my thighs as he pushes in between them. The curves of our bodies melt together. His parted lips run along my neckline. I scoot deeper into the truck, drawing him in after me, then climbing across his lap.
His hands trace down my sides, his eyes dark. “Daphne,” he says, a throaty rumble.
