The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [101]
That brought her back to reality, the realization of how she better not drop that camera. A silly excuse to distract oneself, but nevertheless, it worked.
More than a little embarrassed, she lifted herself from her view atop Andrew’s shoulder only to discover the delightful embarrassment she beheld from within his own eyes as she faced him yet again, yet again merely inches away. Before he felt safe to release her, she detected that he was trembling. She’d always found this sort of vulnerability attractive in a man. It was an honest reaction to the suggestions of intimacy, it showed that true feelings stirred from within, for when has anyone ever heard of a man who purposely trembled in the arms of a woman to impress her?
On second thought, maybe it was she who was doing the trembling.
Remember your Nikkon, Mel. Politely put it in your purse, compose yourself, bid him farewell, and leave.
Andrew prepared himself for a kiss, for they together were in the position to do so, their predicament calling for it, the sudden closeness, the mutual attraction, the unspoken fascination for one another, and in downright spiteful defiance of the unwonted conditions of how all this came to be. Though from the unexpected immediacy of it all, he’d be damned if he was to be the first to act upon it. And he’d be damned to be the one to take advantage.
Just in case he was reading her wrong.
He had no desire to be the one to dare and he did not want to be the one to be said ‘no’ to if he did dare.
He felt himself trembling.
And he was embarrassed and nervous and....
Melony withdrew, took a deep breath to calm herself, stood reserved upon her feet, and in a millisecond it was as though nothing between them had happened at all. She went for her purse upon the black leather recliner and inserted her camera inside. She lifted her purse, readying to bid Andrew farewell.
“You should really stay for just a little while longer, let me fix you some coffee. You shouldn’t go like this. You don’t have to up and go right away...Mel...,” Andrew told her, concerned, though self-conscious of his pleas.
Melony set her purse down upon the recliner and sighed, indecisive if but for the moment. Then she lifted her purse once again, shouldering it. This time, Andrew sighed.
“It’s getting late, I’m sorry,” Melony told him, summoning the sort of blind determination the intoxicated often get when they truly want to ditch the scene but know damn well it’s inadvisable to drive. And part of her didn’t want to ditch the scene, anyway. “I’m fine, really. And I’ll be seeing you again. Soon. I promise. Thank you for a wonderful evening, Andrew. You were very understanding.”
“Didn’t you just tell me that I got you drunk? Come on, stay just a half hour, at least for some coffee....” Andrew was pleading again, and aware of this as he was suddenly, he began to adjust to the idea that he might as well let her go. Though he sincerely didn’t want to. “Oh, all right. I’m just....”
She was suddenly kissing him.
I’m just...confused..., Andrew was about to say, but Melony cut him off by lunging forward, and at first he prepared to catch her for fear she was falling out of drunkenness.
But instead she kissed him. Upon his lips and fully, savoring the eternity she’d created of it in a moment’s time, feeding the unspoken desire for passion, all the while fueling it by dismissing the dangers of doing so.
How she longed to dismiss those dangers still and keep kissing him.
She let go of him, and he appeared to her as though he hadn’t noticed that he had been held by her at all, just kissed by her; his face was arched forward, his eyes shut...he presented the appearance of being enraptured, until his eyes flickered wide like window shutters snapped open and he did it so convincingly that it was almost not comical.
She backed away from him and observed him curiously, and the fact that she’d actually made the move to kiss him did not overwhelm her until she turned for the front door.
Then she stopped in her tracks. She turned back to him,