thought I’d mention it.”
He was talking so fast that Mia couldn’t get a word in edgewise, but she ended up smiling. Something about Asher always made her feel better, and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but him just being there had already made her stop crying.
She sat up and wiped her eyes, feeling suddenly giddy. The answer was right there, on the tip of her tongue, and she sort of couldn’t believe that she was about to say what she was about to say.
“Yes. Yes. I want to go with you.”
Asher’s eyes went so wide as he looked at her. “You… are you sure? You can’t really… It wouldn’t be like a vacation or anything. You could probably come back here eventually, but you couldn’t go back and forth. You’d… you’d have to choose a place.”
And even with that stipulation, she still wanted to go.
“I don’t care. I don’t need to come back here. I want to go with you.”
The brilliant gold of Asher’s eyes was even brighter as he looked at her, and before she really knew what was happening, he had tightened his fingers in her hair and was pulling her forward into a kiss.
Chapter 8: Heat
Asher had never really kissed a girl that he wanted to kiss like this before. He felt like a child, trying to figure out where to put his hands, and eventually he settled on placing them at Mia’s waist, fingers digging in just a little.
It was still early in the day, but he felt like so much had happened, and he wasn’t really sure how to process it all. All he knew was that he was kissing Mia, and while she wasn’t kissing him back with the same enthusiasm, she’d hadn’t slapped him or pushed him away yet, so maybe that boded well for how this might go.
By the time he needed to breathe, Mia was pulling away, and there was a light in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“Don’t do that,” she said, and her voice sounded unsteady.
“...what?”
“Don’t… you can’t just kiss women out of the blue like that. I mean. Some of them might not want to be kissed, you know. It’s polite to ask, especially if you’ve never kissed that woman before and aren’t dating her. Or… or whatever.”
Asher blinked. She wasn’t saying for him not to kiss her, just to ask first? “I’m sorry,” he replied, licking his lips and thrilling at the fact that he could still taste her there.
“It’s okay. Just. You know. Wait for me to give you permission before you kiss me.” The room was quiet and then Mia smirked. “This is me giving you permission.”
It took him a second to work out what she was saying, but when he did, he grinned at her. One of his hands came up to cup the back of her neck, and with a hum of contentment, he pulled her closer once again, going slower this time.
Kissing was somewhat instinctive, and that was good for him. He knew how to follow his instincts. Asher leaned into her, letting his lips move with hers, in no hurry.
She was kissing back this time, and it sent heat shooting through him. Her kisses were just like the rest of her, bold and beautiful, and Asher didn’t want to stop. He wanted to touch her and make her feel good, but he wasn’t going to push for that. Not now. Kissing was more than enough, and he let himself sink into it.
When she panted for breath and broke away, he watched her with wide eyes.
“I didn’t expect you to be so good at that,” she murmured, licking her own lips, and Asher smiled at her in return.
“Hidden talent, maybe?”
She grinned brightly and pulled him down until they were both lying on the bed, him on top of her. Her hips bucked up, and she rubbed against him a bit, making him gasp softly.
“You… do you…” The words were somehow stuck in his throat, and he couldn’t push them out for fear of what would happen if he was interpreting this wrong. They were so close right now, and the last thing he wanted to do was ruin it by jumping the gun.
But Mia was wonderful, amazing, and a million other
The Science of Leonardo: Inside the Mind of the Great Genius of the Renaissance