“Love at first sight doesn’t exist,” she said.
Her response surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. I grinned down at her. God, I loved talking to this girl. “You’re an odd duck, you know that, right?”
She took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “I know that’s the nicest way of putting it I’ve ever heard—especially from you.”
I winced. “You’re really not going to let me live down my past behavior, are you?”
She turned to me with a serious expression. “Only if you insist on bringing up my social oddities.”
I blinked at her. “Social oddity. Is that what you think you are?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so.” She shrugged. “I’m okay with that.”
“You seem to hold a grudge toward me and the others for thinking the same thing, so I’d suggest that perhaps you’re not as okay with it as you think you are.”
Damn. For a guy who was looking to get some action, I was doing a bang-up job over here. So far I’d managed to offend her and now I was challenging her on it. I loved to get under her skin and I couldn’t seem to stop.
I saw a flicker of a smile and felt a surge of triumph in response.
Maybe my instincts were right with her, even if they seemed counterintuitive. I mean, she clearly liked engaging in these little battles so maybe I was onto something here.
Sure enough, I could practically feel a spark between us as she turned to face me fully. “You proudly admit that you’re a star athlete, right?”
“Right.”
One side of her lips hitched up in an almost smile. “But you didn’t love hearing me call you a dumb jock, correct?”
I stopped. The words made me stiffen. Yeah, I got her point. Still, she spelled it out for me. “I am happy with who I am, Luke, but that doesn’t mean I like the way other people see me.”
I nodded. “Yeah, okay. I get that.”
We walked in silence until we reached the setting for a bonfire that Maya and her mom must have built earlier in the day. No one else was on the beach and the setting was too perfect.
“Here, let me help you with that,” I said. We got the fire underway with a surprising ease between us, given the fact that we’d just touched on some sensitive topics. But Maya, unsurprisingly, didn’t seem to hold on to those emotions, and I was too busy trying to figure out how to pitch my proposal.
She crouched in front of the newly flickering flames as she added another log. When she came to stand, dusting off her palms on her jeans, I was standing right next to her. So close we were practically touching.
This was it. My heart raced at the feel of her so close, at the scent of her shampoo mixed in with the smoke and the salty breeze. God, I wanted to kiss this girl more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
She tilted her head up and her dark eyes met mine, so dark and so mysterious. There were emotions there, I was sure of it, but they were unreadable. Unfathomable.
I needed to kiss her. But my conscience wouldn’t let me. Not until I’d been straight with her about what this was. Or rather, what it wasn’t.
“Maya, I—”
She stopped me with a kiss. I stood there frozen as her lips crashed against mine, her hands on my chest as she balanced on her tiptoes. Fire shot through me at the feel of her warm, soft lips against mine and my shock was replaced by desire so hot and fierce it put our bonfire to shame.
I pulled her close, my arms wrapping around her waist and crushing her to me as I took over the kiss, slanting my mouth over hers so I could claim her the way I’d been dying to since…oh hell, it felt like since forever, but that couldn’t be true.
She moaned into my mouth and no win had ever felt this satisfying. No race had ever made my heart pound so fiercely. No touch had ever felt so right.
My tongue teased hers as I held her so tight her feet dangled above the sand. Her soft curves molded to me like she was made to be in my arms. Like all these years of working out had been to sculpt my body to meet hers, just like this.
I could have stayed like that for hours…I could have kissed her for the rest of my life and been happy as hell.
But that, of course, wasn’t in the cards. Thank God for my loud little brothers because I heard them coming long before the whole crew reached the beach. Maya heard them too and she bolted out of my arms, backing away so quickly I was worried she’d backpedal all the way to the ocean.
I started to go after her. Not to kiss her—much as I might want to, there was a time and a place and this was neither. Not when our families were about to descend at any moment for some Christmas cheer.
“We need to talk,” I started. But then I heard my voice and I stopped. Ah hell, when did I become the needy chick? Honestly that’s how I’d sounded. And that’s how my inner voice sounded, which was even more disturbing. What did this mean? Where was this going?
What the hell had that kiss done to me?
My brothers’ voices drew closer and I made myself stop advancing on Maya. If I got any closer, I’d kiss her again. I wouldn’t be able to help it. That kiss had done something to me. I felt winded, like I’d just finished a race. My heart was pounding in my ears. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she tasted, the way she felt in my arms…
She nodded as she kept backing up so the fire was now between us. “We’ll talk,” she said, shoving her hands into the oversized sweatshirt she’d thrown over her T-shirt. An oversized sweatshirt that should not be sexy on anyone, least of all her petite little frame. How she managed to pull it off I’d never know. All I knew was, staring at her through the flickering flames of a burgeoning bonfire, she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
“We’ll talk later,” she said just as my brothers bounded over a small sand dune and careened toward us, wide-eyed and talking a mile a minute.
The whole concept of a fire on a beach was extraordinary to them on the best of days, but on Christmas Eve and with s’mores involved?
I was pretty sure they wouldn’t sleep for a week they were so excited.
Their presence, followed shortly by our mothers’ meant that I couldn’t ask the embarrassingly needy questions that were threatening to spill out. When could we talk? Did she feel it to?
Was she just as affected by that kiss as I was?
Unsurprisingly, it was hard to tell with Maya. I mean, I’d felt her response in my arms. I was almost positive she’d been just as consumed as I’d been.
And that’s how it felt. I’d been consumed by that kiss.
But now I could only watch her from afar as she interacted with my family. As she and her mom led us through their traditional Christmas Eve.
There was nothing “traditional” about it—but I was starting to see why my mom had thought that might be a good thing. Nothing could put our family back together again. Nothing could make it suck any less that we were going to Skype my dad tomorrow morning while we opened presents rather than have him there helping to open packages and adding his color commentary in the form of dad jokes.
But if we’d stayed home we would have felt his absence more keenly. An attempt to have a normal Christmas with all the same traditions but without a key player would have been just plain depressing.
At the very least my brothers were entertained. Between Christmas carols led loudly by Lila, the novelty of feeding the fire, and chasing constellations using an app on Maya’s phone, they were too entertained to stop and dwell on what night it was and how different things were from every other year.
It wasn’t just my brothers who were distracted. My mom was smiling—genuinely smiling—for the first time in a long time. It wasn’t that weird manic smile, but the real deal as she watched my brothers run and shout as they followed Maya with her magic star app.
Distracted didn’t even begin to cover my state of being. I got just as swept up in the novelty of it all. I’d been tasked with roasting hot dogs and then with helping my brothers with their s’mores. I’d sat next to Maya wh
ile we ate and listened to her sing along—off key, I might add.
So yeah, I was distracted all right. And mainly the distraction came in the form of a deceptively seductive and dangerously sweet girl who I’d formerly thought was a nerd.
Well, I still thought she was a big dork, but now I knew better. That awkward, uptight, ice queen image was her defense against being different at Briarwood.
The more I got to know her outside of those halls, the clearer it was that I’d read her all wrong. She wasn’t an ice queen, she just hid her emotions. That kiss was living proof that she wasn’t uptight, she was just inexperienced, around guys and around people. Yes, she was different, and there was no doubt she was a bit socially awkward. But that was a result of her intelligence. She processed the world differently than anyone I’d ever met. The way she saw the world around her was unique…fascinating.
Oh hell, she was fascinating.
And she’d kissed me.
I was still trying to wrap my head around that. Maya Rivero had kissed me. She’d beaten me to it. But why? And what did she want from this?
I’d find out. We’d talk. That’s what I told myself all evening. But it wasn’t until late that night that we got our chance. My brothers were yawning and the moms gathered up their stuff and herded them back toward the hotel.
“You coming?” Maya’s mom asked.
Maya was sitting next to me on a picnic blanket and she shifted, about to stand, but I put a hand on her back and she froze at the gentle contact.
“In a minute,” I said. “We’ll be up soon.”
Her mom smiled before turning back to follow the others up. “Don’t stay up too late.”
Maya didn’t respond and she didn’t move, not even after they were gone and we were alone in front of rapidly smoldering embers. When I shifted so I could face her I saw that she had that closed off look on her face and her shoulders were hunched in like she was cold…or scared.
I wrapped an arm around her in case she was cold—she stiffened at my touch.
We sat there in heavy, tense silence as I tried to figure out if I should pull away or if that would just make this worse.
The tense silence grew awkward so I cleared my throat. I decided to be brutally honest. She liked that sort of thing. “Is it weird that I’m touching you?”
She shook her head. “No.” And then, “Well, maybe.”
I dropped my arm and she shivered. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be weird, it’s just…this is new for me.”
“I figured.” Me too. For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to say that. One of us had to at least act like they knew what they were doing. And I’d hooked up with girls, plenty of girls.
I’d just never felt like this.
She rubbed her palms on her jeans before turning to face me. “I know you’re used to the whole hooking up without a relationship thing, but I’ve never kissed anyone but my boyfriend before.”
I stared at her, unable to look away from her beautiful, serious, clear, honest expression, which was cast in flickering shadows thanks to the flames.
She licked her lips and clasped her hands together in her lap. “But I’ve been thinking over what you said about how you handle your…er, your needs.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or groan at that. My needs? She made it sound like some sort of vitamin deficiency and not desire. I couldn’t bring myself to stop her, though. As always, Maya Rivero fascinated me.
“And?” I prompted. I couldn’t resist.
She drew in a deep breath. “And I see the logic of it. Particularly as it pertains to you and me.”
I stared some more. Because really, what was I supposed to say to that? I thought I knew where she was going with this and it felt like the world’s slowest sucker punch.
“I think I can speak for both of us when I say that there is an attraction here.” She gestured between the two of us as if there might be some doubt as to whom she was referring.
“This is true,” I said. Understatement of the century, but it was true. I’d never felt a spark like that in my life.
She nodded, smoothing her jeans once more. “And I think your idea of how to handle attraction without involving emotions holds merit. Perhaps I’ve gone about this all wrong by kissing you before we spoke, but I thought—”
I grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her against me, covering her mouth with mine. I needed to feel her again, and I didn’t want to hear what she was about to say.
The hypocrisy of my response didn’t escape me. This was my modus operandi, as she put it. I was the one renowned for hooking up with girls and leaving emotions at the door. But I’d felt gutted hearing Maya explain it in those terms, breaking down that kiss into some sort of lab experiment. Talking about the desire between us as though it were data for a drug trial.
Maybe it was just chemistry between us, but I’d started to think that this was more.
I’d thought she’d felt that it was more too.
After her initial shock, she leaned into the kiss. Her arms circled my neck and she kissed me back eagerly, holding nothing back.
In that moment it was impossible to believe that I’d once thought Maya to be cold and reserved, emotionless and an android.
There was nothing mechanical about her response. She was so very human, so vulnerable and soft. So unique and warm.
She pulled back slightly, her breath coming in short gasps. “Shouldn’t we talk about this? Set the parameters or—”
I kissed her again. Not so much because I didn’t want to hear her talk this time, but because I didn’t want to think about my response.
Yes, we probably should spell out the details, so no one got hurt. I should make it clear that this was just a fling, that we’d go our separate ways as soon as we got back to reality.
But Maya had already spelled that out—or she’d been about to when I cut her off.
I should be pleased. That’s the thought that ran through my head as I pulled her against me once more. I should have been ecstatic. She was offering me a guilt-free, no-strings-attached hookup. That was what I always wanted from girls. It was what I wanted with Maya…
Wasn’t it?
Her lips parted sweetly beneath mine and I stopped thinking all together.
There would be time to sort out these new, wayward emotions. We had time to get to know each other better. To talk about what this was between us.
For now?
Well, for now I’d just enjoy the hell out of this perfect Christmas gift.
Chapter Nine
Maya
Christmas day was normally a lovely day. Not exciting in the sense of tons of Christmas presents under a tree—my mom didn’t believe in lots of presents. She valued the thought behind a present over the commercial value. I understood it, and enjoyed the fact that we didn’t conform to the norm in that sense. I was even totally okay with the fact that we didn’t have a tree at all this year because I’d donated ours to the Perona boys.
I didn’t regret that for a heartbeat. Those kids needed it more than I did.
My mom and I followed our yearly tradition of Mexican hot chocolate with way too much whipped cream for breakfast followed by an exchange of our presents, followed by Back to the Future. Patty had returned our movie stash last night while Luke and I had still been out on the beach, kissing as if the world were about to end.
But I wouldn’t think about that this morning.
A Christmas Story would come next, and then maybe one more from our stash depending how lazy we were feeling. After that it would be a lazy beach day, weather permitting, or a lazy day of walking through town.
No matter what, Christmas day was lazy. That was the Rivero way.
Which was why it was so weird that I was so restless. Today was not a day for restlessness—every other day of the year, it seemed, I was on edge—overanalyzing and over thinking pretty much everything. That was true for every day but Christmas.
But not today. Not this Chri
stmas.
And I blamed Luke.
I watched Marty McFly hop on his makeshift skateboard and stuck some popcorn in my mouth.
I’d done it. After battling a crazy wave of nerves, I’d ripped off the Band-Aid, so to speak, and I’d kissed Luke. I’d made the first move and then, when the time came, I’d had “the talk.” Or at least, I’d tried to have the talk.
Luke had other ideas.
It wasn’t like I was complaining. Making out on the beach under the stars was way better than talking. Besides, I was pretty sure I’d made my point.
Still, I wished we’d been a little clearer on defining how exactly this was supposed to work. I was treading into whole new territory here. I hadn’t even been this nervous about starting up an honest to goodness relationship with Brandon. But then again, that had been simple to define. We liked each other, we enjoyed one another’s company, and so we were dating.
The first two held true for me and Luke, but the last? That’s where it got fuzzy.
I didn’t do fuzzy.
And then there was the fact that his kisses were unlike anything I’d experienced before. That also threw my world for a loop. Literally. His touch made my world spin like I was losing balance. His kisses made my mind just…shut off, which was something it had never done before, outside of sleep.
I toyed with my bowl of popcorn. Yeah, the physical effect definitely had a lot to do with this new restlessness, the uneasy feeling that things were still unsettled.
Maybe it was because without clear-cut definitions, I had no idea how I was supposed to behave around him. Were we friends now? I mean, I’d thought perhaps we were heading toward friendship—albeit an untraditional one—but now throwing kisses into the mix confused things.
Were we friends with benefits or just two acquaintances with a penchant for touching?
For example, was I supposed to go over there and wish him a Merry Christmas or would that be weird? Would I have done that yesterday before we’d kissed? Probably not. So I assume it wasn’t expected now.
The Holiday Kiss (Briarwood High Book 4) Page 10