Free Hidden Deep by Amy Patrick Page B

right?
    “There are girls among my people with whom I have… spent time… but I’ve never kissed a girl before. I never wanted to kiss any of them, and they wouldn’t have wanted me to.” Yeah, right. Alien girls from the planet Blind and Stupid maybe. I gave him a look that expressed my disbelief, and he responded by taking my hands in his. His grip was warm and intimate. His smile was just as warm.
    “Whether you believe it or not, Ryann, that’s the truth. It was my first kiss.” A long pause. “I liked it.”
    “I… liked it, too.” Straight from the understatement-of-the-year file.
    Lad rewarded my reply with a breathtaking smile.
    “Lad… if you’ve never… kissed anyone before, why did you start with me?”
    “I couldn’t resist,” he whispered.
    I felt crimson heat creep across my cheekbones, and my heart leapt. For the first time in my life, did someone really find me irresistible? Did Lad truly see something different and special in me ?
    “And one can only read about something so many times before wanting to experience it,” Lad continued. “Kissing’s actually even better than it sounds in books,” he said.
    And there was the real story. I was like an air mattress with the plug pulled out. Deflating, but not surprised—I’d happened to be in the right place at the right time. Lad was curious and experimenting. Nothing personal. The kiss had meant much more to me than it had to him. Of course.
    Icing on the cake, Ryann, remember?
    Something inside of me started to close. He wasn’t safe. Yes, he pre-dated all the bad things that had happened in my life this past year, and clearly he was not like other guys, but Lad was more dangerous to me than a player like Nox could ever be.
    Still, staring into the clear green of his eyes, I found myself powerfully drawn to him. His warmth and sweetness pulled me in—no one had ever made me feel like this. I didn’t want to think—just to be kissed like that again, no matter what his motivation was, no matter the risk.
    I fought the urge, summoning every last reserve of inner strength and stepping back. “You know what? You’re right. I do have to get home. It’s almost dark.”
    “I wish you could stay with me.” Lad pulled me close to him again, stepping his feet apart so I was sort of caged by his body, surrounded by him. And he sounded so sincere. Maybe I’m not just an experiment to him? My heart resumed its pounding. Icing icing icing. I needed to get out of there fast .
    I pulled away. “My mom and grandma will be worried.” It was truthful, if not the full truth about my urgent need to escape this too-tempting closeness. “And I have to make the sweet tea for supper.”
    “Sweet tea?”
    “Yeah, you know, the drink?” I forced a lightness I didn’t feel into my voice, trying to re-establish a sensible distance with him. “What—never kissed a girl and never tasted sweet tea? Where’ve you been, living under a rock?”
    “No, under a tree.” He laughed at his own puzzling joke. “I would like to taste this sweet tea.”
    “Oh. Okay… well, I guess I could bring you some sometime.”
    “When?”
    Tilting my head to the side, I evaluated him through squinted eyes. “I thought you weren’t going to see me. I thought it was forbidden ,” I challenged.
    He smiled back at me, moving closer once again. His voice lowered to a soft, graveled tone. “Yes, well, maybe I don’t care about that anymore. How about tomorrow? After school?”
    A thrill went through me at his eagerness. At the same time, it frightened me that I was having such a hard time controlling my attraction to him. Tomorrow seemed too soon to be alone with him again. Way too soon.
    “Okay,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
    We agreed to meet at the pool an hour before sunset. When Lad had walked me home, it took all my shaky willpower not to slow my pace at the clearing line and give him the chance to kiss me again. I uttered a quick goodbye and stepped into the