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My heart sinks into my stomach and swims around there.

“What?” I ask, breathless.

He’s so close now that I can feel his breath on my lips. “Pull away and I’ll know,” he whispers. “And I’ll leave you alone.”

I close the gap.

Holy shit.

I’m kissing Nash Kennebeck, and the second our mouths meet, my whole body turns to fire.

I melt into it for one second too long. He tastes good, and his mouth is soft, and he’s holding me close, and I grab his face and kiss him harder. He makes a sound against my lips that travels all the way down, and the kiss turns starved. It’s the most intense kiss I’ve ever had. Every nerve I have lights up. His hand slides back into my hair and closes, and his other arm comes around my waist and hauls me against him, and I get up onto my toes and it still isn’t close enough.

He tastes like mint and something that’s just him. I bite his bottom lip, and he hums into my mouth, and then he backs me into the brick wall of the building and kisses me harder.

I’ve been kissed before. I was with a boy for three years, and I thought I knew everything there was to know about wanting somebody. I thought kissing was cute and fun and felt good, warm and familiar with someone I loved. Not one second of it was ever like this. This makes my bones shake. I can’t think. His hands, his sounds, the taste of him have me trembling. I wrap my arms around him, and his hands go to the backs of my thighs and lift me, and I get my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck without coming off his mouth for a second. He holds me up against that wall with one forearm and one hand and doesn’t strain or shift or put me down, like he could do it all night and has no plans to stop.

I get my hands in his hair. It’s softer than I expected, and when I pull it, he makes that sound again, and I feel it through the whole front of my body. He presses me into the wall, and I arch into him and bite back a cry against his mouth. This is so much more than wanting. I need him.

“Kylie,” he says against my mouth.

“Don’t stop.”

“I’m not stopping.”

“Then don’t talk—”

He laughs right into my mouth, and I feel it in my chest, and then he’s kissing me again and the laugh is gone.

At some point, he starts walking. He doesn’t put me down. He shifts me higher with both hands under my thighs and walks across the grass behind Halloran toward the path, and I keep kissing him, and he keeps kissing me back. He carries me the whole way to Corvin with his mouth on mine. He stops twice, both times because I do something to the side of his neck, and both times he says, “Fuck,” very quietly, and keeps going.

The stairwell is the worst place, because it’s the first place we’re completely alone. We barely make it past the first landing. He presses me against the wall, and I’m vibrating for him. I want him more than I’ve let myself admit.

“Kylie,” he breathes against my mouth.

I don’t stop. I flick my tongue against his, and he takes me apart for a minute and then pulls back. “Fuck.”

I unwrap my legs, but he pins me to the wall, and I feel him hard through his sweatpants. A moan gets out of me before I can stop it. He keeps pressing into me. I pull him closer with my ankles, and a door opens somewhere above us, and voices come into the stairwell. He doesn’t pull back right away, but I force my legs down.

“Nash,” I whisper, because he presses harder, and I’m still not touching the ground.

He grins down at me and lets me go.

My feet hit the step, and I hurry up the stairs. The people round the corner, unbothered by the sight of us. I walk all the way up to three and into the hallway without looking back, and I can hear Nash right behind me.

I hold out my hand for my bag, and he gives it to me. I dig out my key. When I look to my right, he’s walking to his door like what we just did was nothing, watching me walk to mine. I shut my door so fast I accidentally slam it.

Tessa looks up. “Hey.”

I’m trying so hard to hide my smile. “Hey, Tess.”

24

Act Normal

Nash

I get back to my room and can’t sit down.