His eyes light up. It’s a crime that I’ve never noticed how lovely they are. “And? How did it feel?”
“Terrifying. Fantastic,” I say. But I’m not done apologizing yet. I haven’t been fully honest with him tonight. Every time I said something wrong, I was trying to stick to a plan that no longer feels like mine. I wonder how it would feel to let go of that completely. “Neil. I keep saying these horrible things to you, these things I don’t mean. Not just what I said about your dad, either. Like when you asked me to sign your yearbook. It’s like my natural instinct is to fight with you, and I’m trying really hard to override it, but I’ve messed up a few times. And I’m so sorry.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “My instinct is to brush it off and tell you it’s fine, but… thank you for saying that.”
“What I said in the library, when we were dancing…” When I exhale, it’s shaky. The way he spilled his heart on my yearbook page, he might be braver than I’ve ever been. He makes me want to try harder. “I wasn’t imagining anyone else.”
This drags a smile out of him. “Yeah?” he says, and I nod.
“I really did have fun with you today.” Slowly, I inch closer to him, watching his face carefully. His brows twitch, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s swaying slightly in my direction. One and a half more steps and we’d be chest to chest, hip to hip.
“Was that so hard to admit?” he asks, his smile deepening into a smirk.
I am in love with you, Rowan Roth.
I fist a hand in my hair and let out a strangled, frustrated sound. “God, you are so infuriating.” It doesn’t come out cruel, though. Teasing, maybe, but not cruel.
“But you like it.” It’s possibly the boldest thing he’s said all day, and when he takes a step forward, I can feel the heat radiating off him. No wonder he was fine parting with his hoodie—the boy is a human sauna. “You like being infuriated. By me.”
I do. I like it so much.
My breath hitches. He must be able to hear it, because one side of his mouth slants up, and he runs his hand along the railing until it almost but not quite touches mine. There’s so little space between our bodies now. His scent is earthy and heady, making me ache for something I didn’t know I wanted.
The fantasy: that my perfect high school boyfriend would be the epitome of romance.
The reality: Neil McNair has been here all along.
“Passive voice?” I challenge, sounding much huskier than I’m used to hearing. “Westview taught you better than that.”
It doesn’t make him laugh the way I hoped. Instead, he gives me this look that’s half amused and half serious, one that turns me electric. His gaze is steady, and I have a view of the gorgeous angles of his throat as he swallows hard.
“No,” he says, so close to me that I can almost hear his heart beat in time with mine. “You did.”
And that’s what pushes me over the edge. Before I can overthink it, before I spend forever dreaming up the perfect moment, I lunge forward, pinning him against the railing and covering his mouth with mine.
HOWL STANDINGS
TOP 5
Neil McNair: 14
Rowan Roth: 14
Brady Becker: 14
Mara Pompetti: 13
Carolyn Gao: 10
PLAYERS REMAINING: 11
ARE WE CLOSE TO A WINNER? HURRY AND GOOD LUCK!
1:21 a.m.
NEIL MCNAIR IS kissing me back. There’s no hesitation, not like when we hugged earlier with shy, uncertain limbs. This time, he lets himself fall.
His lips press hard against mine as I wrap my arms around his neck, sinking into him. It’s a fast, desperate kind of kiss, and God, he feels good. His hands get lost in my hair, and that plus his mouth plus this sound he makes deep in his throat turn my blood to fire. I part my lips, tasting a lingering sweetness from the cinnamon roll we shared. My imagination wouldn’t have been able to do him justice.
When he smiles against my mouth, I can feel it.
“Rowan?” he says as he pulls back, his voice a mix of surprise and awe. He’s breathing hard. His eyes are beautiful and heavy-lidded, those long lashes fluttering against the lenses of his glasses. Maybe it’s drowsiness, or maybe he’s just as drunk on this feeling as I am. “What’s… happening?”
“I’m kissing you.” I move one hand from the collar of his shirt to the back of his neck and into his hair. I want to burn every texture into my fingertips. “Should I stop?”
He skates his thumb along my cheekbone. Despite how light his touch is, I feel like I might detonate. “No. Absolutely not,” he says. He traces my nose. My lips. “I just wanted to make sure—I don’t know. That you realized it’s me.”
The uncertainty in his voice unstitches me. All the books in the world couldn’t have prepared me for this moment. There aren’t enough words.
“That’s the best part,” I tell him.
No, this is the best part: when we lean in again and it turns wilder. With one hand in my hair and one on my hip, he spins us so I’m pressed against the railing. Our mouths clash together, teeth and tongues arguing with each other. Trying to win whatever new competition this is. I run my hands over his chest, up the arms I’ve been staring at all day, overwhelmed by how much of him I want to touch. I underline and then scribble over that dorky Latin phrase with my fingertips. He’s so solid beneath my palms, and I can’t help gripping the fabric of his T-shirt a little.
His hands find their way back to my hair. And his lips, beckoning, taunting, daring me. Because fuck, Neil is hot. It’s absurd, and it’s true.
“You like my hair,” I tease between kisses.
“God. So much. It’s fucking phenomenal hair.”
Now I’m even more certain why I couldn’t picture him kissing anyone else: because it was always supposed to be like this. With us.
He keeps me pinned to the railing, kissing my jaw, my neck, beneath my ear. I shiver when he lingers there.
“Is this okay?” he asks against my skin.
“Yes,” I say, and he stamps my collarbone with his mouth. I’m addicted to the way he asks me that. How he wants to be sure.
This has to be the earth-shattering feeling he was talking about. This: his hands sliding down the sides of my body. This: his teeth grazing my clavicle. And this: the way, when he moves back to my lips, he kisses like I’m alternately something he can’t get enough of and something he wants to savor. Fast, then slow. I love it all.
Since we’re the same height, our bodies line up perfectly, and—oh. The proof of how much he’s enjoying this makes me feverish. I rock my hips against his because the pressure feels amazing, and the way he groans when I do this sounds amazing too.
I drop my hands lower, to his belt. My fingertips graze the soft skin of his stomach, and he lets out a quiet, involuntary laugh. Ticklish. Distantly, I’m aware that we’re in public. That we have to stop before we go too far. But I’ve never felt this wanted, and it’s an intoxicating, powerful feeling. I’ve never lost myself in someone like this.
With every molecule in my body, I force myself to pull away.
“That was… wow,” I say, breathless.