Spellbound - Cara Lynn Shultz [65]
I nodded—a little breathlessly, I might add—and he pulled me nearer still, holding me tightly against his body. I looked up at his playful smile, yearning for his lips to do something other than smile at me.
Brendan kept playing with my hair, and finally said, “I’d like to know what you’re doing tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’m busy,” I said flippantly, trying to calm my own nerves with stupid jokes. Brendan just gave me a squeeze around my waist and raised one dark eyebrow.
“I mean, I’m busy…with you,” I said softly, feeling a little shy all of a sudden.
“See, Emma,” Brendan whispered, “I told you I could be a good boy.” He ran his hand through my hair, drawing me in more tightly as he lowered his face. The moment his mouth touched mine, warmth spread from my lips, through my limbs and settled in my chest, where my heart fluttered almost painfully. Brendan kissed me tenderly at first, cradling my face with his hand the way he had on the rocks earlier. I slid my hands up his strong chest and clasped them around his neck, pulling him closer to me. With that, Brendan’s kiss became more urgent.
I tilted my head, parting my lips and allowing him to kiss me more deeply. I’d daydreamed about kissing Brendan plenty of times, but nothing could have prepared me for the overwhelming intensity of this embrace. It was unlike any kiss I’d ever had before. The way his mouth moved against mine, the way his right arm stayed wrapped around me, holding me against him while he raked his other hand through my hair…it overloaded my senses and felt natural at the same time—like this was where I was supposed to be. When Brendan eventually pulled himself away, he looked more reluctant than I was to end the moment. I was thrilled to see that he seemed just as dazed as I was.
He put his forehead against mine, and we both just breathed in for a second. I could smell that same clean-laundry scent. Brendan pulled his lips up and tenderly kissed me on the forehead. My fingers, still intertwined around his neck, toyed with the ink-black hair at the nape of his neck; it was as soft as I’d imagined.
“That feels amazing,” Brendan breathed, bending his head to my neck, where he kissed my jaw softly before whispering in my ear, “I’ll see you tomorrow—I’ll text you my address. Come over as early as you can.”
With a final playful nibble under my earlobe, Brendan ducked out of the doorway. I smiled and mouthed, “Bye,” before walking—or should I say, floating—the few feet to the awning of my aunt’s building. I ignored the doorman’s knowing look and glanced back at Brendan, who was standing nearby to make sure I had made it into the building safely. I smiled again at Brendan—and scowled at the doorman—and went upstairs.
I’d seen movies where a girl shuts her front door and leans against it, grinning from the fresh imprint of a great first kiss. I always thought it was some standard movie schlock. I never thought I’d actually do it.
I shut my aunt’s door and leaned against it, squeezing my eyes closed and grinning. I even sighed happily.
“Good night?” My aunt padded into the living room from the kitchen, in her pink chenille robe and matching slippers.
“Yes, Aunt Christine.” I grinned.
“I assume, a boy?”
“Yes, Aunt Christine,” I said again, smiling.
“He must be some boy,” she mused, sitting down on the couch with a dog-eared Ellery Queen paperback. “I looked like that the first time your uncle George kissed me.” My hand flew to my mouth and I realized my lip gloss was a little smeared. She pursed her lips as if she were about to lecture me, but then I saw her eyes flicker to the photo of her and Uncle George on vacation in Dublin, their last trip before he died.
“It was opening night, at the party afterward,” she said of their first meeting, when she was a dancer on Broadway and he was a big-time producer. “We were inseparable and married six months later.”
“Uncle George was really something,