The kiss starts off slow, but as soon as I’m holding onto her and she’s pulled up against me, I hear her moan into my mouth, and the sound goes right to my nether regions. With a boldness I absolutely expected just by looking at her, she holds my face in place so she can kiss me harder, deeper, until I’m kissing her right back.
Making out with a stranger in the middle of a busy pizza shop, tightening my arms around her because the feel of her soft, curvy body pressed against mine makes my head spin, and I like it.
Wondering if I’ve been a bad kisser all my life, because nothing has ever felt this amazing.
Or maybe I’ve just been kissing the wrong people. The taste of her, the smell of her, the way her lips move against mine… it makes my heart beat faster and a beast inside me roar, and I seriously contemplate bending her over the closest table. Which is definitely not the way a gentleman should behave, especially in public.
The kiss ends just as quickly and shockingly as it began. She jerks her mouth away from mine, panting hard and looking up at me with the same what just happened here? expression that’s probably on my own face. My eyes drop right down to her lips, and when her tongue darts out to wet them, some sort of sound comes out of me that resembles a growl. I don’t even know what is happening to me right now. I feel like I was just hit by a truck. My brain is definitely not firing on all cylinders while neither one of us moves, her hands still pressed against my cheeks and my arms still wrapped around her.
Lips, tongue, kiss, hot, more…
Random words are flashing through my head while the room feels like it’s tilting, which just makes me tighten my arms around her, like I never want to let her go.
Because I don’t.
Yes, I do! This is nuts! Let go of this complete stranger, you weirdo!
The crowd that’s gathered around us is cheering even louder now. Before I can catch my bearings or my breath, the two of us finally stumble apart when people start pushing us toward the counter.
“Fresh pizza on the house for the happy couple! Congratulations, you two!” The owner leans over the counter with a huge smile on his face when we get there, handing me a large box of pizza, while his staff on either side of him whistle and clap. When I make no move to take it, because what the heck, the woman who’s the cause of all this chaos quickly grabs it out of his hands. She gives him a gushing smile and many words of polite thanks, but not one curse word or complaint about how long she’s been waiting or how many people she wants to kill. Wrapping her hand around my arm and snuggling against my side, she turns and moves us back through the crowd. They all part for us while they continue to clap, cheer, and pat us on the backs as we go, while my… fiancée eats it right up.
“Thank you so much!”
“You’re too kind!”
“It was a total surprise! Isn’t he the best?”
“I’m the luckiest girl in the world!”
My brain fires back up long enough to bend down and grab my bowling ball bag when I walk by it, while I stupidly smile and nod in a daze at all the congratulations we receive, like a man who really did just propose to someone in the middle of a crowded pizza place.
I’ve clearly now entered the Twilight Zone, and I let this woman lead me out of Giovanni’s and out onto the sidewalk without saying a word. Because I can still feel her body pressed up against mine and the way her lips moved against mine. I can still taste her, and smell her, and hear her moaning and panting, and the probability that I passed out from heat exhaustion, hit my head, and all this is just a dream where I didn’t really just have the best kiss of my life is…
A really big freaking number that I can’t even calculate, because I can’t math, which definitely means this algebra teacher is broken!
It’s not until the horn for the ferry blasts through the air that I wake up. I blink a few times as I look down at her when she drops her hand from my arm and spins to stand in front of me on the sidewalk.
“You’re a nut job,” I finally mutter, even though I feel like the crazy one right now when I can still feel her and taste her, and I want more.
She just laughs at me as she pushes the box of pizza against my chest. I quickly grab it before it falls when she lets go, my heavy bowling bag hanging down by my side in my other hand.
“Yeah, well, this nut job just got us a free large pizza without having to wait in line for another hour.”
With the pizza box held in my hand in front of me, she flips open the lid until it smacks me in the face. Grabbing two slices from inside and piling them on top of each other, she pulls the lid closed again.
“You’re welcome. See you later, nerd.”
She smiles at me before taking a big bite out of her double-stacked pizza, and then she turns and leaves me by the ferry dock to head into town.
Chapter 2
Danica
“I feel like I was just mom-bombed.”
Me: Are you really sure this is okay? My brother can be annoying and pushy. You wouldn’t be the first person who wanted to murder him because of it.
Ryan: LOL it’s fine, I swear! I’ve never actually had a roommate before though, so are YOU sure?
Leaning my back against the wall of the elevator as it slowly makes its decent to the lobby, I look up from my phone and sigh as I stare at my reflection in the doors. With my jet-black hair and bright-red tips, full sleeve of tattoos, and nose ring, it will probably be a miracle if Ryan doesn’t take one look at me and then slam his door in my face. He’s friends with Tristan, which immediately puts a black mark on his record. I’m sure they share the same judgmental, selfish, douchebag brain.
Am I sure about moving in with a complete stranger?
Although I guess technically Ryan Hutton isn’t really a stranger. Tristan said I met him before. Too bad I remember nothing about it. It happened the one and only time we went to visit him in college when I was fifteen, because our dad had just made a hefty donation to the school. He only showed his face so everyone could kiss his ass. I spent my life being completely numb. Constantly told what to do, where to go, what to wear, who to be friends with, who to date, and how to behave. I was a puppet, created in my mother’s quiet, dutiful image, and my time was mostly spent feeling nothing and not giving a shit about anything. It’s no wonder I don’t remember much about that time.
I do know I’m annoyed as hell that my idiot brother blackmailed me into staying with this guy, even though the idea of my father actually coming out here to drag me back home once he finds out where I am is laughable. He’d have to actually give a shit about me first for that to happen. And it’s definitely suspicious that Tristan even offered to help me with something for the first time in his life.
But it’s costing me a small fortune staying at the Summersweet Island Hotel during their busy tourist season until a cottage becomes available for me to rent. I sent Ryan a text last night when Tristan gave me his phone number and address, and Ryan reassured me it’s fine for me to move in. Regardless, I had to ask him again today, after he had more time to think it over. I still feel like I’m imposing. Especially now that I know the guy has never had a roommate before, and this was sprung on him at the last minute.
But I’m out of options and almost out of money, so I really can’t be picky if I want it to work out here. I’ve only spent a few days on Summersweet Island, but I already know this is the place I want to stay for a while. I’ve spent my time since I “blew up my life”—according to my family—trying to find a place where I fit in. A small-town island in the middle of nowhere, where everybody seems to know each other, doesn’t exactly scream open-minded and welcoming to a new person, but I just felt… different as soon as I got off the ferry. Lighter, happier, not so full of anger and resentment.