“I notice,” Simon said, letting his mouth drift forward. He thought of everything that had passed over the other boy’s lips. Blood and bile and curses.
But Baz’s mouth was soft now, and he tasted of apples.
And Simon didn’t care for the moment that he was changing everything.
Cath closed her eyes and felt Levi’s chin track the back of her collar.
“Keep reading,” he whispered.
“I can’t,” she said, “it’s over.”
“It’s over?” He pulled his face away. “But what happens? Do they fight the other rabbits now? Are they together? Does Simon break up with Agatha?”
“That’s up to you. It doesn’t say.”
“But you could say. You wrote it.”
“I wrote it two years ago,” Cath said. “I don’t know what I was thinking then. Especially about that last paragraph. It’s pretty weak.”
“I liked the whole thing,” Levi said. “I liked ‘the thirst of the ancients.’”
“Yeah, that was an okay line.…”
“Read something else,” he whispered, kissing the skin below her ear.
Cath took a deep breath. “What?”
“Anything. More fanfiction, the soybean report … You’re like a tiger who loves Brahms—as long as you’re reading, you let me touch you.”
He was right: As long as she was reading, it was almost like he was touching someone else. Which was kind of messed up, now that she thought about it.…
Cath let her phone drop to the floor.
She slowly turned toward Levi, feeling her waist twist in his arms, looking up as far as his chin and shaking her head. “No,” she said. “No. I don’t want to be distracted. I want to touch you back.”
Levi’s chest rose steeply, just as she set both hands on his flannel shirt.
His eyes were wide. “Okay…”
Cath focused on her fingertips. Feeling the flannel, feeling it slide against the T-shirt he wore underneath—feeling Levi underneath that, the ridges of muscle and bone. His heart beat in the palm of Cath’s hand, right there, like her fingers could close around it.…
“I really like you,” Levi whispered.
She nodded and spread out her fingers. “I really like you, too.”
“Say it again,” he said.
She laughed. There should be a word for a laugh that ends as soon as it starts. A laugh that’s more a syllable of surprise and acknowledgment than it is anything else. Cath laughed like that, then hung her head forward, pushing her hands into his chest. “I really like you, Levi.”
She felt his hands on her waist and his mouth in her hair.
“Keep saying it,” he said.
Cath smiled. “I like you,” she said, touching her nose to his chin.
“I would’ve shaved if I’d known I was going to see you tonight.”
His chin moved when he talked. “I like you like this,” she said, letting it scrape her nose and her cheek. “I like you.”
He lifted a hand to the back of her neck and held her there. “Cath…”
She swallowed and set her lips on his chin. “Levi.”
Right about then, Cath realized just how close she was to the edge of Levi’s jaw—and remembered what she’d promised herself to do there. She closed her eyes and kissed him below his chin, behind his jaw, where he was soft and almost chubby, like a baby. He arched his neck, and it was even better than she’d hoped.
“I like you,” she said. “So much. I like you here.”
Cath brought her hands up to his neck. God, he was warm—skin so warm and thick, a heavier ply than her own. She slid her fingers into his hair, cradling the back of his head.
His hands mimicked hers, pulling her face up to his. “Cath, if I kiss you now, are you going to leap away from me?”
“No.”
“Are you going to panic?
She shook her head. “Probably no.”
He bit the side of his bottom lip, and smiled. His bowed lips didn’t quite reach the corners.
“I like you,” she whispered.
He pulled her forward.
Right. There was this. Kissing Levi.
So much better when she was awake and her mouth wasn’t muddy from reading out loud all night. She nodded and nodded and kissed him back.
When Baz and Simon kissed, Cath always made a big deal out of the moment when one of them opened his mouth. But when you’re actually kissing someone, it’s hard to keep your mouth closed. Cath’s mouth was open before Levi even got there. It was open now.
Levi’s mouth was open, too, and he kept pulling back a little like he was going to say something; then his chin would jut forward again, back into hers.
God, his chin. She wanted to make an honest woman of his chin. She wanted to lock it down.
The next time Levi pulled back, Cath went back to kissing his chin, pressing her face up under his jaw. “I just like you so much here.”
“I just like you so much,” he said, his head falling back against the couch. “Even more than that, you know?”