Free Keep You by Lauren Gilley Page A

cookies?”
                  There was a teasing, almost knowing edge to his voice and she could feel herself blush furiously, glad it was too dark for him to see. “Actually, I…” she couldn’t make herself finish, embarrassed beyond belief.
                  “What?” he prodded gently. There was a silver flash – the meager light hitting his tongue ring.
                  A shiver traced down her spine. Jo couldn’t believe he was being so patient with her, that he was smiling at her in the dark car rather than ordering her out. “I…” She wet her lips and felt herself leaning toward him, her hand braced on the wide bench seat between them.  “I was just curious why…”
                  “Why I kissed you?” he finished, and her pulse leapt into double time.
                  “Yeah.” Her voice had become ridiculously breathy. She couldn’t seem to draw enough air into her lungs.
                  “Because I’ve lost my damn mind,” he said, and then she realized he must have been leaning toward her because their faces were closer together now. She could see one of his bright blue eyes clearly, glowing in the dash lights, the profile of his nose and jaw, the corner of his mouth, curled up with a smile.
                  “Joey, we…”
                  “Shouldn’t do this?” she guessed, hating it but knowing it was true.
                  His face, the half she could see, seemed to harden at her words, his lips drawing into a tight, flat line. “No.” She didn’t see his hand, but jumped when she felt it sliding into the hair above her left ear, felt his fingers burrow through her tumbled mass of dark blonde locks until he cradled the side of her head, his thumb tracing the chalk smudge on her cheek like it had before. He might as well have had electrical currents surging through his fingertips for the sensation he created on the surface of her skin. Jo closed her eyes.
                  “We shouldn’t,” he said, the words brushing across her face, and then he kissed her.
                  His lips landed lightly on hers. Brushed back and forth. Testing. Asking. Jo thought her heart might come up her throat if it beat any harder. She was stiff, rigid, shocked, and knew that, though she felt plugged into an electrical outlet, this wasn’t a real kiss, not really. Just a tease.
                  A sudden disappointment pierced her excitement. “Tam,” she whispered, breathless, as he pulled back a fraction. “Please don’t kiss me out of pity. If you don’t - ”
                  She hadn’t felt his fingers slide into her front belt loop, but he pulled her forward so quickly she fell against him with a gasp. The hand in her hair slid around to the nape of her neck, his fingers curling tightly. His other hand landed on her hip and squeezed as his arms tightened and he brought her closer to him.
                  Her heart stuttered. Her breath caught in her throat. And Tam ducked his head and pressed his mouth to hers.
                  Jo didn’t know what she was doing, was petrified it would frustrate him…but as his lips moved over hers, pushing hers apart, shaping them, the tip of his tongue pressing between them, she was slowly overtaken by a radiating heat. She might as well have been sitting inside a furnace. Her hands were shaking as she clutched the front of his t-shirt between the halves of his black leather jacket, and was kissing him back, desperate to keep up with him, to taste him, to take all that he was willing to give.
                  When he finally broke away from her, their lips came apart with a wet smack. Tam rested his forehead against hers, his chest heaving under her hands. He was grinning as he said, “this is a bad idea.”
                  “Why?” She was panting, her