I wanted to memorize everything about this moment, kissing her in this place, but her mouth is all I can think about. Her intoxicating softness, her taste, the way she seems to draw me deeper. I can’t get enough. I can’t stop.
She’s the one who pulls away, her hands gripping my shoulders tightly. “Can we get arrested for lewd kissing in public?”
A gruff laugh comes out of me. “I don’t think so? And you think this is lewd? You haven’t seen anything yet.” I slide my palms down her back, grip her hips, and arch against her, so she can feel what she does to me.
She gasps and hides her face against my neck, saying my name like it’s a protest, and I chuckle.
This is the right time, so I say it.
“I really like you, Anna.”
“I like you, too,” she says, and there’s a weight to her words that tells me she means it.
“I don’t want this to be our last night together,” I confess. “I want to keep seeing you after this. Instead of trying to have a one-night stand … why don’t we just date and see where things go?” I ask, having difficulty hearing my voice over the loud crashing of my heart.
She draws in a sharp breath and steps away from me. “Does that mean you want to be my boyfriend?”
“We don’t need to put labels on things if it makes you uncomfortable.” But I’m not sure if I’m saying that for me or for her. If we’re in a committed relationship, I have to be up front with her about things, and that isn’t easy, even though she’s been open with me about her own issues. I want to be her rock, someone she’s not afraid to depend on. I need her to see me as whole.
“My boyfriend and I …” She frowns and brushes the hair away from her face with an impatient swipe of her hand. “He wanted us to be in an open relationship. I should have told you earlier, but I didn’t know that we would—that you would—that I—” She gives up trying to explain.
It takes me a moment to understand what she’s saying, but then a weird mixture of feelings boils inside me. I was wrong. She wasn’t trying to get over someone. She just wanted to try something new. Because her shitty boyfriend was. It stings that she didn’t tell me, but I get why she didn’t. We were never supposed to be anything.
“Are you angry?” she asks.
Hell if I know the answer to that, so I ask the only question that really matters right now: “Do you still want to be with him?”
She worries her bottom lip and then shakes her head slowly but decisively. “I don’t.”
My heart jumps. My hands ache to touch her, but I keep them down at my sides. “Do you want—”
“I want to be with you,” she says, holding my gaze in a way she rarely has before.
I take a step toward her. “How long have you guys been … doing this?”
“Basically since you and I met. It’s surprisingly easy to be apart,” she says. “For the record, there’s only been you.”
I have to smile at that. I’m the only one she hid from in the bathroom.
“Since we’re being honest with each other …” Nausea washes over me, and I exhale through my mouth, trying to breathe it away.
She watches me with a frown, waiting for me to speak.
“I didn’t have some kind of injury before. I was sick.” My nausea increases until I’m almost dizzy, and I force the ugly words out. “I had testicular cancer, and they had to remove one. Some people would say I’m only half the—”
She presses her fingers to my lips to silence the rest of my words. “Don’t say that.”
I’m not done. There’s more to drag into the open. But my eyes are watery, and there’s a fist lodged in my throat. No matter how many times I swallow, it refuses to go away. I don’t want to be like this in front of her. I want to be the person she thought I was, a confident motherfucker who wouldn’t give a shit about any of this. But I do give a shit. I want to be enough—for her, for me, for the people in my life.
She touches my face like I did to her earlier, her eyes creased with concern. “Does it hurt?”
“Not at all. I’ve been healed and cancer-free for a while now.”
A brilliant smile stretches across her face. “That’s the best news.”
“Not quite the best news. I don’t look the way I should down there. It’s not—”
She breaks into laughter, surprising me. Honestly, it burns a little.