Kissing Lessons Read online

  “Come on.” She gave his hands a beseeching shake, her entire body bouncing in front of him, quivering with eagerness. He fought to keep his eyes on her face and not look down. “Nolan trusts you.”

  Yeah, he trusts you not to check out his sister’s rack.

  She continued, “Just tell him Hayden is cool. You knew each other when y’all were kids, right? She told me that.” Her expression turned sly. “She even told me you were her first kiss.”

  His face went hot, which was a surprise. He was not easily embarrassed, but the idea of Emmaline talking about his first kiss felt too personal. “She told you that? You were talking about me?”

  “Yeah,” she replied slowly, uncertainly, as though picking up on his discomfort. “It was all in the name of research. We were discussing good kissing, good kissers—”

  “And I came up?” he snapped, before managing to even out his tone. “Well, then. Where did I rank?” He said it like a joke but inside he wasn’t amused.

  Her hands softened on his, her thumbs stroking in small reassuring circles. “Good,” she replied in a quiet voice, as though he needed that assurance from her. “Not that I expected any less, but Hayden vouched that you’re a good kisser, Beau.”

  His name on her lips felt like a caress. God help him, but her eyes moved to his mouth . . . and then he looked at her mouth.

  How had he never noticed the perfect shape of it before?

  Not that I expected any less.

  So, she thought about him and kissing? That was . . . interesting. And dangerous, because he shouldn’t find it so very interesting.

  They sat close. The aroma of chlorine swirled around him, a strangely heady and intoxicating scent—who knew? Maybe it just morphed into something else when it came into contact with her skin.

  The air crackled between them. One spark and they could both go up in flames. He was sure of it. It would be so easy to ignite that fire. He just needed to dip his head.

  And that would be a colossal mistake. Still, he felt his head inching down.

  Alarms bells went off in his ears.

  Abort! Abort! Abort!

  He slid his hands free from hers and stood. He rubbed his suddenly perspiring palms over his thighs.

  Emmaline blinked up at him, adjusting her position on the bed, and he wondered how all her movements had suddenly become so sinuous and so seductive to him. What was going on? Best to retreat.

  He backed away. “You and Nolan will be fine.”

  She angled her head, worry lines knitting her smooth forehead. “So you won’t talk to him?”

  “Ah. Sure.” He nodded. It was easier just to agree. “Yeah, I will.”

  She smiled. “Great. He listens to you. That will really help . . . because I’m not going to stop hanging out with Hayden.”

  Translation? She wasn’t going to stop hanging out with Hayden and learning all her tricks on how to attract guys, which he was starting to think would only translate to misery for him.

  As far as he was concerned, she didn’t need any lessons.

  Beau already found her attractive.

  Shit. This was bad. Really bad for him. The last thing he needed was for her to become more enticing.

  Then he reminded himself that what he wanted didn’t matter here. In fact, what he wanted was totally off the table. This wasn’t about him. He didn’t control Emmaline. She was her own person. She could share her lips with whomever she liked. It was none of his business, and he needed to stop thinking about her lips—stop thinking that he’d like her to share her lips with him.

  Nolan Martin was his best friend. Emmaline Martin was like a sister to him.

  He winced. Maybe if he said that enough times he would start to believe it.

  Lesson #20

  Appearances can be deceiving . . . just like reputations.

  x Nolan x

  After Emmaline stormed from the room and Beau went after her, Nolan was left to deal with the aftermath: four girls staring up at him who he had just interrupted in the middle of kissing lessons. They had been practicing on each other. At the behest of Hayden Vargas, who fancied herself some kind of guru on the matter, apparently.

  He winced. Actually, he guessed a lot of people would attest that she was an authority on the matter—if her reputation was to be believed. Not that he believed half of what people said. Or even the majority, especially now that he had spent some time with her.

  Everyone always thought he was some perfect guy, but here he was, thinking about Hayden when he had a “perfect” girlfriend. Not all reputations, good or bad, were to be believed.

  Still, when it came to his sister, he didn’t like to take chances. And he shouldn’t. The promise he’d made to his father left no room for chances.

  Of all the things he imagined taking place after dark in his house, and all the reasons he suspected Emmaline had struck up a friendship with Hayden, this had never entered his mind. Sure, he and Priscilla had been pretty intimate, but never when anyone was home. Never would he risk his sisters or mother walking in on them. It would be an embarrassing situation all around. He would spare them that.

  Never had he worried Emmaline might be the one to step out of bounds. Naively, he had thought the most illicit thing to take place in his sister’s bedroom was a game of Ouija.

  Nolan was a caretaker. That’s who he was . . . what he did. He had a duty to protect his mom, Savannah, and especially right now, Emmaline—even if that meant protecting her from herself and her bad decisions.

  His chest pinched with discomfort because Hayden was also starting to bring forth that protective urge in him. He felt this misplaced longing to look after Hayden, too—even if she wasn’t family and she seemed the complete opposite of vulnerable. Even if she didn’t want or need his help.

  She didn’t want or need his help. That’s what he needed to remember. Emmaline was his priority and she was obviously going through something.

  He cleared his throat awkwardly and turned his attention to the girl at the center of it all—Hayden Vargas.

  This is all her fault. The thought flew through his mind even as he knew it was unfair. He wanted to blame someone.

  When had Hayden agreed to tutor his sister? Had she agreed after he’d spent the night with her and then asked her to keep quiet about it? He knew he’d insulted her. If he could take back the words, he would, but it was done. Had Hayden leaped at the opportunity to tutor his sister knowing it would get under his skin?

  He knew he was being irrational, but Emmaline had hired her. His little sister thought she was somehow lacking and needed to engage the services of Hayden Vargas to help her be more . . . more. He didn’t even know what. Enticing? Sexy?

  This was his sister. He didn’t want people talking about her the same way they did Hayden.

  If it were left at just this—Emmaline kissing her friends in the safety of her bedroom—he wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t worry.

  But he did worry.

  Evidently this was some kind of practice run. Emmaline wanted to take her newfound kissing skills and try them out there in the world.

  Well, that scared the hell out of him. He knew how the minds of teenage guys worked. Hell, a lot of grown men weren’t any better.

  He’d heard things come out of his coaches’ mouths that would scandalize his gray-haired grandmother. His own mother would probably reconsider letting him play sports if she knew.

  He spent plenty of time in the locker room. He knew how boys could be. He knew what “boys will be boys” really meant. It was just an excuse for bad behavior, for guys to be predators, and he wanted to protect his sister from that and offer her advice and guidance, just like their dad would want.

  Not all guys were like that, of course. He knew this reaction was more to do with his own fears. Yeah, he was being overprotective, but he wanted his sister to be safe.

  “Can I speak to you? Alone?” he asked Hayden.

  She eyed him warily but nodded.

 
He turned and led her from Emmaline’s room into his bedroom across the hall. Once they were in his room, he shut the door and faced her.

  “How much?” he asked calmly, keeping a careful distance between them.

  She looked confused. “How much what?”

  “How much is my sister paying you?”

  “Oh. That.” She squared her shoulders and took her time answering, as though weighing whether or not she was about to reveal something she shouldn’t. Did she view herself as some kind of a professional? Did kissing gurus operate under a code of confidentiality? “Seventy dollars. For tonight.”

  He nodded. “Okay then. I’ll pay you a hundred dollars to walk away.”

  “Excuse me?” She uncrossed her arms.

  “Hundred dollars to forget about my sister and these lessons.”

  She shook her head. “You’re that scared of your sister coming into her own?”

  “She’s not coming into her own . . . you’re teaching her to be—”

  “To be what?” she challenged, her voice hard, angry.

  “You’re teaching her to be like you.” That was fair to say. They’d all admitted as much as that to him.

  She laughed harshly. “So you’re afraid I’m going to turn your sister into a slut.”

  It wasn’t the first time she flung that word at him, but it was still jarring. It was an ugly word and he’d never explicitly applied it to any girl. He lived among females. He had more respect for women than that, but he heard the word all the time. At school. In the locker room. At parties. He heard it and just carried on as though it didn’t matter. He was starting to realize passivity could still be part of the problem. “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “I didn’t say it. I didn’t think it.”

  She crossed her arms again and looked at him in distrust. “I know guys like you, either from school or the neighborhood or creeping around my mom . . . ‘nice guys’—they act like they’re so different, but I know what’s in their heads. And I know what’s in your head.”

  “You don’t know my mind. Maybe you’re used to that . . . to guys that think that way, but I’m not one of them.”

  She stared at him blandly, looking unimpressed.

  Sighing, he reminded himself that this wasn’t about him. He wasn’t trying to persuade Hayden Vargas to like him—and the quickest way of making her put her guard up was by insisting he “wasn’t like other guys.” Words weren’t much if actions didn’t back them up.

  Again, this wasn’t about him. This was about what was going on with Emmaline.

  He continued, “These guys you know? The ones who think some girls are sluts? Is that who you’re getting my sister ready for?” She flinched and he knew he had hit a truth even she hadn’t considered until he said the words. “Has it occurred to you that my sister flying under the radar in high school might not be a bad thing?”

  “Has it occurred to you that you should let her make her own choices, her own mistakes?”

  He scoffed. “Don’t act like you’re looking out for her interests when you’re doing this for money. Your reasons are totally selfish.”

  “And you’re not being selfish?” she charged, stabbing a finger in his direction.

  “Not in this, I’m not. I’m thinking of Emmaline.”

  “Really?” she mocked. “You haven’t considered yourself at all? You’re not embarrassed for your sister to hang out with a skank like me? That potential shame hasn’t crossed your mind? Isn’t that the same embarrassment you felt waking up at my house? Isn’t that why you asked me to keep it quiet?”

  Nolan inhaled a breath for patience. “It’s not like that. And would you stop calling yourself names and then laying them at my feet like I’ve said them?”

  She stepped closer, her voice dropping. “Do I make you uncomfortable, Nolan?”

  Yes. Yes, she did.

  “Of course not.”

  “Admit it. What bothers you so much is my reputation . . . and that I might taint your sister, and, thereby, taint you.”

  “No,” he said calmly, holding his ground as she eased up to him, her body brushing his.

  He jerked back a step.

  She angled her head sharply, her expression equal parts curious and cunning, with a face free of makeup. This close, he could see a faint smudge of mascara edging her top and bottom lashes, the only remnant after her time spent in the pool. It made her look human. Vulnerable. Somewhat at odds with the tough energy she exuded. She inched much too close to him.

  He took another step back.

  Hayden smiled widely. “Are you afraid of me, Nolan Martin?”

  He scoffed. “Of course not.” His voice was firm, but alarm bells started going off in his brain. He was afraid of something. Maybe himself?

  Why was she standing so close to him?

  “You don’t like my influence on your sister . . .” She flattened a hand on his chest and he felt her touch like a brand. “What about my influence on you?”

  He backed up another step and collided with his desk.

  He must look a coward, backpedaling from someone he outweighed by fifty pounds at least.

  She followed with one more step, closing in, her hand still on his chest, directly over his heart. Her gaze dropped to where they were connected, and then back up to his face. “Your heart is racing. Why is that?”

  “What are you doing?” he rasped.

  “Just wondering if this is even about your sister and me at all. Wondering if it’s about you and me?”

  You and me.

  No such combination existed. There was only Nolan and Priscilla. Ask anyone.

  He inhaled and tasted that indefinable other that was quintessentially Hayden. Until that moment he didn’t realize he knew her scent. He didn’t realize he had marked it and cataloged it in his head as Hayden Vargas.

  Her upturned face was so close, and he had to face the truth.

  It wasn’t that he couldn’t move away.

  He just didn’t want to.

  Lesson #21

  Save face-holding for serious intimacy. Not for a casual make-out.

  x Hayden x

  What am I doing? Hayden inched her face a little higher. A little closer. Nolan was tall, but she wasn’t a short girl. She used to bemoan that fact. Not a year of school went by that a basketball coach didn’t sniff around all five feet nine inches of her hopefully. Laughable, really. Even if she wanted to play sports, being involved in extracurricular activities required a level of support from parents that she just didn’t have. Plus, she needed to work, which didn’t leave much time for sports.

  It was almost as if Hayden were floating outside of her body. She’d wanted to prove a point, teach him a lesson of his own. But without conscious thought, she had closed the last bit of distance separating her from Nolan and brushed her mouth over his, testing him, soft as a brushstroke. Testing herself, too, she supposed.

  He held himself still, and that was different. She usually didn’t need to coax a guy into kissing her. His lips quivered under hers, but otherwise they didn’t move. He didn’t kiss her back. He didn’t grab her or crush his mouth to hers or jump on her like some overeager puppy.

  She pulled back, staring at him in awe. And perhaps a little bit of confusion, but whether it was at him or herself, she couldn’t decide.

  His liquid-dark eyes glittered in the shadows of the room as she assessed him. He really had the deepest, most beautiful eyes. She wondered what was going on behind them. What was he thinking?

  She shifted her fingers on his solid chest. His heartbeat was still going mad against her palm. He was affected, and that gave her a small thrill . . . made her feel powerful—as seductive as his sister thought her to be.

  Despite Hayden’s bold words, she always thought he failed to see her, or he looked through her blindly. Or around her. Or over her. Never really her. Never Hayden. Just the myth of her. What people said about her.

  Nolan wasn
’t moving away though. Of course, she had backed him into his desk, but a big guy like him could stop her or pull away.

  She knew it was madness, but she moved her face closer again, stopping just shy of kissing him. “Is this okay?” she whispered. She’d been around a lot of people in her life who were takers. They took and never asked. She would not be one of them.

  A ragged breath escaped him. “Yeah.”

  She pressed her mouth to his almost tentatively.

  She had started all this as a way to rattle him, to push him just a little for judging her, but now it felt like something else. Something bigger. Something she was doing to herself—her own torment. Because if he rejected her . . . spurned her, well, it wouldn’t feel great.

  Nolan’s previous restraint cracked, just a fissure, as he bent his head a fraction, making it so she didn’t have to stretch up on her toes to reach him.

  His lips were warm and dry and perfectly soft. Who knew a guy’s mouth could be this soft? This gentle?

  Hayden deepened the kiss, unconsciously adding her other hand to his chest. He brought up his own to cover hers to anchor them, his palms completely swallowing her hands as he kissed her back, slowly at first but then with increasing pressure.

  Ah, hell. He was into it. Into her . . . and she reveled in it, feeling as though she had won something.

  His lips, the warm clasp of his palms on the back of her hands, the strength and solidness of him against her—it all went straight to her head in a way that she never experienced before. And she was used to kissing guys.

  But this felt different.

  Despite the rumors of her wild ways, she had only ever been drunk once. When she was fourteen, her mother had a bunch of her questionable friends over for a New Year’s party. They had all enjoyed pumping Hayden with alcohol and sitting back to watch her antics. Like she was some little circus monkey performing tricks for them. They’d laughed and encouraged her, applauding.

  She remembered their laughter when she fell down the front porch steps and bloodied her nose on the concrete. They had thought that was uproariously funny.