Faking Christmas(86)

Smoldering air crackled between us as the loud bustle of the students in the hallway dulled to white noise. My heart raced underneath my skin, pounding into my ears as I locked onto his gaze. Ever so slowly, his face began to crack. A tiny smile at first, at the corner of his mouth, growing wider by the second. I tried my best to hold mine back, but my strength didn’t last for long. Or at all. I didn’t want it to. I was done holding back. This whole week, I had been terrified of this moment, of coming back and discovering that nothing had really changed. But now I knew. Our time here would be different because we were now different.

Ever so slowly, Miles closed his door behind him and began walking toward me. I straightened and took a few steps back, suddenly feeling nervous. His grin grew even wider as he stepped through my threshold. I drank him in. He had traded his flannel shirt for a polo and khakis. He was missing his gray beanie, but otherwise, I found him and the twinkle in his eyes completely unchanged.

He closed my door with a thud. Like usual, my room felt smaller with him inside, but that could have been the way he kept stepping closer to me until he had me nearly trapped against the wall. He wasn’t touching me, but he was close enough that I could feel the heat.

“Hey there, Spanks.” His voice was soft and gravelly and brought out every last goosebump on my skin. “Nice shirt.” And then my emotions completely overwhelmed me. I burst out laughing and immediately covered my face with my hands. This wasn’t real. No way could he be real.

His body pressed into mine as he gently removed my hands from my face.

“No hiding your smiles. I work too hard for those,” he said, cupping my cheeks gently in his hands.

I bit my lip, staring up at him, trying to suppress the sunbeams wanting to burst free. I thought about playing hard to get, but realized I was done with the games. “I missed you so much.”

A grin split across his face as he moved in closer, his mouth dropping down to hover over mine. “Good. Are we done with the not-kissing thing? And not seeing each other? That was a stupid idea. I just about had to tie myself to my desk today to keep from bursting in here. Nothing’s changed for me.”

“Same.”

This time, his smile molded into mine as he pressed my body into the wall with his own and proceeded to make up for every day we’d been apart. I was consumed by him and his overwhelming presence in front of me. His arms pulled me close, and his fingers messed up my hair. He drew heated kisses all down my jawline and cheeks before I clasped his neck and brought his mouth back to my lips. When I felt myself almost on the verge of losing control, I pulled away from him and took a deep breath, trying to think of something to calm our nerves.

“You’re going to have to find a different name than Spanks. Especially at school.”

He seemed affronted. “I will not. That’s my favorite memory.”

I leaned in closer. “Your favorite?”

“Well, one of them.”

Then, we were kissing again. My plan didn’t work. To an outsider, I was sure we really were disgusting in that twitter-pated, obsessed-with-each-other, cheesy-grin stage, but I didn’t care. What a difference a couple of weeks could make.

I pulled away from him, wiping my lips, my chest heaving. “I gave back the edits for ‘The Mating Habits of the Dung Beetle.’”

“How’d it turn out? Was there anything good?”

“If I tell you, you can never go back to a time where you didn’t know.”

“Good point.”

He moved to kiss me again before I stopped him. “And for your information, Harvey paid me for a job well done.”

He reared his head back, looking at me in surprise. “Really? That’s good. If you’re interested, I made a couple of adjustments to my next book. I wondered if you’d be willing to go over it for me?”

“Well, I’m charging for my services now, so you’d better be prepared to pay up.”

He pulled me in closer, his hands roaming my back while his lips hovered tantalizingly close to my own. “Are you open to alternative forms of payment?”

I smiled and pretended to think. “I could probably be persuaded.”

“I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“Okay.” I leaned back into him, fully intent on resuming our makeout session.

“Down, Spanks. I’ve got to show you something.”

“What?”

He lifted his arm. I looked up to see him holding a tiny, green, parasitic plant above us. “Thought I’d give you a chance to remedy the whole mistletoe debacle.”

A smile bit my lips. “There was no debacle. It counted.”

“It didn’t.”

“Well, either way, we lost the bingo game. It doesn’t matter if we finish or not.”

“Not technically, but…” He held out a card in front of my face.

“The bingo card?” I laughed.

“I know how much you love to cross something off your list.”

I was almost to his lips. “I do love a good checkmark. But I don’t plan to ever be finished with you.”

“Prove it.”

So, I did. Under the mistletoe in my classroom next to his, I gave him my lips and my heart. The moment was ripe for the picking, and I was finally ready to live it.

He pulled back from our kiss and grinned at me as his fingers found the light switch.