As Blue takes her place in the passenger seat of the Pig, she thinks about the fact that she and Gansey are going to have their second kiss tonight and feels her stomach jump with nerves and anticipation. She's jittery but it's happening. She has decided so earlier. That's why she called him to whisk her away to a place where only the two of them existed. They have waited long enough.

Earlier, she talked to her mother about it and received the green light from her and the other psychics: now that her curse has fulfilled itself, there was no danger to her lips anymore and she could kiss Gansey to her heart's desire. Blue took the news with relief but no surprise - she had an inkling they broke the curse, though it was better to be safe than sorry - and could only contain herself for an hour or so before giving in and calling Gansey up for a ride.

That's as far as she thought ahead, and now, sitting next to Gansey, quietly admiring both him and the dimly lit trees they pass by, she wonders how to go about this. One option is to simply turn to him and kiss him and never stop. That sounds very tempting and very forward. Another is to tell him what her family told her which seems sensible but Blue could see how it could quickly turn awkward. He would be forced to kiss her whether that's what he wanted or not - and that sounds wrong. Procedural. Blue cringes.

Perhaps she's thinking too hard about this. Overthinking has never been her forte, it's Gansey's, and yet. She's dreamed about this for too long for it not to be perfect. Perfect is a naive fantasy, of course, but she needs to make up for that disastrous first kiss which shouldn't even count as a first kiss. Blue can barely recall what it felt like to hold him then - perhaps she just doesn't want to, perhaps it's better not to remember. She knows he tasted like fear in her mouth, and that makes her cautious to think about anything else that happened that day.

This kiss will be their do over and they can pretend the first didn't happen. She needs it to go well.

Gansey glances over at her. "Is everything okay?"

"Hmm? Yes."

"You're frowning."

"Am I?"

"Yes."

Blue sighs and reaches for his hand on the gear shift. She lets their fingers lace together, covering their hands with her free one, and says, "Sorry, my mind won't shut down."

Gansey gives her a playful smile. "I know the feeling. What are you thinking about?"

Blue hesitates, her eyes locked on their hands, before admitting, "Us."

"Hmm." His tone slightly changes - it would be imperceptible if she didn't know him as well as she did. It's still soft and calm but with an edge of curiosity and wariness. Nevertheless, he remains lighthearted when he says, "So there is an us."

"Don't be stupid."

"You told me once that there is no us, remember? Maybe not with those words but that was the point." He squints, perhaps trying to recall her exact words (Blue remembers, "It was never on") but all he ends up saying is, "It wasn't that long ago, actually."

"I remember. Still, don't be stupid."

"Alright. I'll bite. Is this good or bad kind of thinking?"

"Good, I suppose. No, it's good, I'm just overanalyzing it."

Gansey hums but says nothing for a long time and Blue thinks he dropped the subject. Moonlight embraces him in a soft glow, glinting off every sharp angle of his face. Blue's eyes latch onto his jawline and she imagines herself reaching out to caress it. Gansey's breath would hitch and she would smile smugly, a bit like a seductress who's caught her prey and intends to play with it. She would then lean closer and press her lips to the spot where his neck meets his shoulder while her hand slides down his chest and curls into his shirt, tugging it up.

Of course she can't do any of that because Gansey might drive them off the road if she tried but it's nice to imagine. He keeps his eyes on the road, unaware of the direction her thoughts have taken, so she's safe to ogle him uninterrupted.

Gansey turns right to a dirt road leading to a grassy field and parks the Camaro. He turns to her.

"What is it?"

It takes a moment for Blue to realize that he's picking up their conversation from earlier and then she sighs and looks away. She lets go of his hand to fiddle with her own, and watches, while she tries to come up with the appropriate words.

Then she looks back at him, and without warning or thought, she climbs across her seat into his lap and leans her forehead against his. Gansey silently stares at her, caught off-guard and in awe. Their lips are only inches away and it finally inspires the right words from her.

"I want to kiss you," she whispers. "And I want it to be perfect."

Gansey swallows, his throat moving, and Blue is fascinated. "No pressure."

She laughs quietly. "My mom told me it's okay now. For us to kiss."

"Mmmhm, so we gotta make this one good, right?"

"Right. Exactly what I was thinking."

"Well then." He inhales and straightens himself like he's gathering his confidence. "May I beg one off you, Jane?"

Her smile is so big it hurts, and even though they're sitting in the Pig, she counters, "Under all this?"

He smiles back at her and touches his hand to the dimple in her cheek. "You remember."

"I remember all of it. But if you say we'll never talk about it again, I'll -"

She's cut off by his amused laugh and shake of his head and she laughs with him until she grows impatient and unexpectedly presses her lips against his.

It's simple and sweet and over too quickly. She's testing the waters, gathering his reaction. But he looks fine when she pulls back, healthy and alive, and the smile never leaves his lips or his eyes, so she's reassured enough to lean in for another. This time she lingers longer, committing the taste and feel of him into memory. His lips are soft and tentative but willing to learn. They are both trying to figure each other out. Gansey winds his arms around her hips and slides one of his hands up her back until he reaches her neck, stirring the soft baby hairs there. Blue shivers in his arms.

The fact that she's kissing Gansey - she's kissing Gansey! - finally hits her and she sighs happily into his mouth. This is what a real kiss should feel like. Not tinged with fear or grief or desperation. This is what she always wanted it to feel like, what she's been yearning for - and it was worth every agonizing second of wait.

She breaks away with a little giggle, their foreheads still touching. Her chest feels lighter than it has in months. She breathes in air that feels like happiness and revels in it. Her bones are all screaming, I'm alive I'm alive I'm alive.

"Wow."

Gansey laughs with her, touching her hair senselessly, pushing it behind her ear only to pull it out immediately. Their gazes lock and something immediately changes in the air between them from light and innocent to thick with tension. She can practically see the gears in Gansey's brain turning as it provides him with all the possibilities they could now do. His eyes darken as they zoom in on her mouth. Blue's heart pounds fast with everything she wants to do to him.

They lean in at the same time, both sure of what they want. More passion, more tongue, more exploring hands. Blue pulls herself closer to him, acutely conscious of the fact that she's straddling his lap, legs on each side of his hips. She can tell that Gansey is very aware of it too. His tongue slips into her mouth and Blue welcomes it with her own, holding back a moan. She burns hot in his arms. She imagined kissing a thousand times before but none of her fantasies could ever compare to the reality of it, and how intense and consuming it would feel.

Blue runs her hands down his chest, feeling his muscles through his shirt, but quickly deciding that it's not enough. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks that she'd like to take his shirt off him. She'd like to kiss his bare chest. She'd like to make him squirm and tremble. She'd like to kiss his neck too but she doesn't want to break away from his lips.

She settles for slipping her hand under his shirt and exploring the bare skin under her palm. The reaction from Gansey is immediate: he jerks at the contact and releases a muffled noise against her mouth that feels, rather than sounds, like a gasp. Blue is pleased to have gotten the first vocal reaction from him.

She moves her hand up, slightly digging her nails in until Gansey breaks away, inhaling sharply. Blue hides her smug smile; she feels powerful, dangerous, and unpredictable. A goddess. The queen to his king.

"Gansey," she scolds him, a laugh hiding somewhere in her voice. He looks dizzy and disoriented, panting heavily. She draws his face back to hers with a gentle touch, kissing him again, and taking all of the control for herself. It quickly becomes obvious that she likes to lead and he lets her.

Her hand still under his shirt, Blue finds his nipple, circling her thumb over it. Gansey's harsh breathing reverberates in her ear. With her free hand, she captures one of his and places it on her leg, just below where her handmade dress ends. Where skin meets skin. He takes the hint and begins to tease her skin, drawing strange patterns and indistinguishable markings on her leg while she plays with his nipple and melts further into the bliss that is Gansey's mouth. And they never stop kissing.


"This was worth dying for," he says a while later. She's not really sure how long they kissed and how long they have been sitting like this in the driver's seat, with her head against his chest and his arms around her waist, but she feels like she could do it for a few hours more.

Blue sighs and says nothing. This conversation is not a road she wants to go down yet.

Gansey is content with her silence. He plays with a strand of her hair, twisting it around his finger, back and forth, back and forth. He kisses the top of her head and she can feel the smile in his voice when he speaks.

"God, I'll never get tired of this. Kissing you. I can kiss you now, Jane. Jane, can you believe it? I can actually kiss you!"

Blue laughs quietly. He said that in the same childlike wonder he tends to use when talking about Glendower.

Amused but touched at his awe, she says, "I know."

Gansey sighs wistfully. "I'll never stop kissing you. I'll be kissing you so much you'll grow sick of it."

"You can try." She turns and presses her lips to his cheek, sitting up in his lap. "Let's go ho home. To Monmouth, I mean."

"Are you sure? Your mom -"

"Won't care," Blue shrugs. "As long as we're being careful. Her words, not mine, don't misunderstand me."

She shakes her head, thinking back to the awkward but thankfully brief sex talk she got from her mom right after receiving the good news that she could kiss Gansey. Luckily, Maura has never been a strict parent and Blue has always been known for her sensibleness so it wasn't much of a problem.

Gansey chuckles, nodding. "To Monmouth, it is."


Blue stumbles in laughing at something Gansey said that wasn't even that funny but she feels happy and high on life so she laughs. And he laughs too because he always seems to laugh with her when she does.

Monmouth is pleasantly empty. Blue throws her jacket on a chair and turns to Gansey, still smiling. She holds out her hands towards him and starts pulling him closer when he takes them. Her grin grows bigger, silly and wide and free.

"Here we are," she singsongs.

"Here we are," he agrees. The fondness in his voice is unmistakable.

She's wanted to kiss him again since the moment she moved back to the passenger seat so he could drive them home. She even stole some neck kisses here and there until Gansey warned her to stop ("Blue") in a pained voice. She retreated, afraid that he really might drive them off the road if she continued but kept the knowledge that she could effortlessly make him so unstable close to her heart.

Now she steps forward, swinging their joined hands between them. Her movements are wobbly and uncharacteristically playful like she's drunk - and maybe she is, drunk on Gansey and his lips. She leans in teasingly close to his mouth and flits away as soon as he tries to kiss her. She laughs delightedly at his temporary confusion but he quickly recovers, a devilish grin lighting up his face before he yanks her back to him.

"You're a mean one, Blue Sargent," he states, so close he's practically whispering the words against her lips.

She cocks her head at him, eyebrows raised in an unspoken challenge ('What are you gonna do about it?') and Gansey, in response, kisses her slowly. At first.

Then he picks up the pace, kissing her deeper, hungrier, rougher. He leans down towards her but Blue, in this standing position, strains to keep up with the vehemency of the kiss while standing on her tiptoes. (She never imagined she would stand on her tiptoes for anyone but here she is and she doesn't even mind.) Gansey, noticing her struggle, lifts her in his arms, and the next moment Blue finds herself squashed between him and the wall.

His warm body presses up against her in all the right places and she gasps into his mouth. She didn't expect Gansey to get so bold with her but she would be lying if she said she didn't like it. Her legs are pleasantly wrapped around his hips, and she really likes that too. The heat, the pressure, the near dizziness. She can't help arching back against him. It seems it is his turn to make her putty in his hands.

And he's good at it, really. Already very talented at this kissing thing. So much so that she has to hold back a whine when he breaks away from her mouth, not liking the absence of warmth and softness. He licks her lower lip then moves his mouth down, finding her throat, sucking on it the same way she did with him in the car. His teeth sinks into her neck and tugs at her skin, playful and experimenting. He runs his tongue over the bite, earning a quiet whimper from Blue. If she was on fire before, the fire has now turned into an inferno.

Her body is sensitive to every small touch. She's made aware of everything about him; his lips on her neck, his hands on her sides and legs, his warm breath against her skin, his hair tickling her shoulder. It's too much and not enough. He's doing things to her body that makes it very hard to keep still. She fidgets, pushing back against him, tugging on his hair and crumpling up his shirt until Gansey takes hold of her hands and puts them above her head.

She doesn't even try to fight it. He kisses down her neck, between her breasts, and she automatically pushes her chest out to let him do whatever he wants. Her eyes flutter closed, her breathing accelerating and growing louder. Gansey ghosts his mouth over her nipple through her dress, one of his hands traveling down to cup her other one. His other hand keeps her wrists pinned above her head in a hold that she could escape from but doesn't want to. It's really really hot, she has to admit. She likes this side of Gansey.

She likes it even more when Gansey kisses her breast through the fabric then playfully bites down on her nipple and sucks it into his mouth. Blue trembles helplessly, murmuring his name. His mouth moves up again, towards her mouth but stopping to tease her collarbone, her neck, her jaw. He runs his hand up her thigh and hikes her dress up, not outrageously so but higher than she would normally wear it. She loves every moment of it.

When his lips press against hers again, it's softer and lighter than before, and a bit unsteady. His mouth barely touches her but she melts into it, welcoming the tenderness of the moment.

"We should..." He clears his throat, his voice raspy. He lets go of her hand, their fire sizzling out. That doesn't stop her from wanting more of his sweet and airy kisses though. "We should sleep."

"We should," she agrees huskily and kisses him again.

They do sleep, later. When they find it in themselves to move away from that wall and each other's lips. She keeps close to him though, wrapping herself up in his arms and holding on tightly. She is never letting go.