His eyes flicked over her shoulder, and his lips curved up in a knowing grin.
“Wills.” He stepped closer, his arms circling her waist. “Were you feeling nostalgic last night?” He nuzzled his scruffy face against her neck, sparking a rippling effect of shivers and heat.
She touched her forehead to his shoulder, sheepishly answering, “Maybe.”
He pressed a kiss to her neck, took her face between both his hands, and put his warm, moist lips on hers, kissing her as he smiled.
“I love that,” he whispered. “Don’t be embarrassed about drooling over your man.”
She laughed and crossed the room to pick up the yearbook. “I wasn’t drooling. I was cursing.” She reached for it, and he grabbed her by the waist from behind and sank down to the couch, bringing her onto his lap.
“Cursing? That doesn’t sound like a girl who’s in love.” He reached for the yearbook, and she pulled it away.
“Remember, this was last night, when your confession came on the heels of the most incredible sex I’ve ever had. So there was all this lust and confusion tangled up with the other stuff.”
“Go on.” He nipped at her lips. “I’m liking the ‘most incredible sex’ part.”
She laughed again, and couldn’t remember ever having as many happy moments with any man as she’d had in the last two days with Zane. Despite the turmoil, he was, bar none, the man who made her heart sing.
“It sounds exactly like a girl who is madly in love but has tried to ignore her feelings for so long it’s clawing at every inch of her soul to be set free.” She snuggled against his chest and draped an arm over his shoulder, speaking softer. “And then she remembered the pain of the past, and it chained that love to the wall, leaving the lovesick girl in a constant battle of wanting the infuriating man and being afraid of the emotions he incited.”
He brushed her hair away from her face and kissed her again, dipping into her mouth like a flower blooms, gentle yet certain of its ability to consume the sun’s rays. The yearbook fell from her fingers as he took the kiss deeper. She loved the way his kisses forced her to abandon all thought and become one with him. He knew when to be rough, when to be tender, and not a single second of their kisses felt forced or practiced. These kisses were beautifully real, making them that much sweeter.
“Baby,” he breathed, gathering her hair over one shoulder. “When you want to curse me, do it to my face. We’re feeling, Wills, and I’m not going to let either of us screw this up by keeping secrets about anything.”
How did he know exactly what she needed to hear?
“I want to know when I piss you off so I can fix it or argue about it, and I want to know when I turn you on.” He pulled the neckline of her shirt down and kissed the center of her breastbone. Her body pulsed with desire. “I want to strip away all the bullshit and get to the bottom of who we are. The good, the bad, and the frustrating.”
She couldn’t breathe. She felt like she was standing outside her body, watching a movie she’d wished for forever.
“And you’re looking at me like you’re not sure if I’m acting or not.” He picked up the yearbook and sighed. “I don’t blame you. Sometimes I have a hard time distinguishing between the two.”
He pulled her closer.
“I actually wasn’t thinking that I don’t believe you. I was thinking that you knew exactly what I needed to hear. But the fact that you can’t distinguish between real and fiction is a little scary.”
“No, it’s not, baby. It would be if I wasn’t aware of it.” He flipped through the yearbook to the drama club picture. “Do you know why I became an actor?”
“You said you loved everything about it, and you couldn’t wait to get to Hollywood, to live a bigger, better life.” She gazed down at the picture of the boy she’d fallen so hard for. It seemed strange to admit to herself now, but his senior year had been the year she’d dreaded the most. She’d expected to see less of him as he matured toward manhood while she was still finding her footing in that space between awkward and confident. But that hadn’t happened. Even though Zane had been the varsity football team captain, mentoring junior varsity players, with cheerleaders fawning all over him, he still took the time to talk to her after football games, if only for a minute. He’d flash a smile and say something like, Glad you made it. She hadn’t thought about those times in years, but now she remembered how he’d look in her direction between plays, and for a beat the rest of the kids had faded away. Had she always romanticized their friendship?
“That’s what I told everyone,” Zane said, pulling her from her memories. “But do you want to know the rest of the story?” He flipped through the yearbook to the picture of the football team.
“Of course.”
His eyes remained trained on the photograph. He and Ben stood in the back of the picture, both of them tall and dark, their faces masks of cool confidence that boys of almost eighteen possessed.
“Growing up, I always felt like I was putting on an act, you know? Trying to fit in and make up for the things I lacked.”
“Everyone does. That’s part of figuring out who you are.”
He lifted his eyes to hers. “You didn’t. You’ve always been real.”
“Only because I sucked at faking it.” She thought about that for a minute, and she realized that wasn’t exactly true. “Actually, I didn’t really suck at it, so I haven’t always been real.” She flipped through the yearbook until she reached her class picture and pointed to the picture of herself. She’d always worn her hair long, but she’d had bangs back then. “That girl had been crushing on you for years, and I did a pretty good job of keeping that to myself.”
He laughed. “No, you didn’t.”
“What? Yes, I definitely did.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “You had no idea.”
“No?” An amused smile lifted his lips.
“Oh my God. Piper was right.” She covered her face with her hands. “How embarrassing!”
“Why? I was totally into you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“Wills, are you kidding me? Do you know what kind of torture it was when you tutored me? Have you ever tried to concentrate with a raging hard-on?”
She gasped, laughing. “You did not have a raging hard-on! Please don’t tell me Piper was right about that, too. She said you were really good at math and just trying to hook up with me.”
“I did, too. Every damn time. But your sister is wrong. I sucked at math, geography, history, and English, which was another reason I felt like I needed to pretend to be something I wasn’t.” He closed the yearbook and set it on the coffee table. “But she was right about my being into you. I was definitely crushing on you.”
“Holy shit, Z. You’ve just turned my entire world upside down. All those years I got excited when you’d talk to me, or look at me, or . . .”
“Or throw every football with the hopes that you’d be impressed?”