Chapter 13

I led her back, pushing her to let herself give in. Her knees must've hit the mattress of the bed because soon they bent and my legs came up beside her thighs as she sat down and allowed her hands to pull me closer to her body, as close as I could get.

Atop of her, and happy, I stopped a moment to take her in.

Her eyes slowly opened as she dreamily smiled. "You're not drunk," she said.

"I'm not drunk," I smiled back, taking her face in both of my hands and leaning over her to kiss her again.

She was so good at kissing. Liam never kissed this way and neither did Haley.

Kissing Amy was like losing myself. If I pulled away at all she got me back.

When Amy kissed me everything in the world sort of melted away. All I could feel was her.

Our bodies spoke a different language, both calling and answering. We knew each other's mannerisms far too well.

Her hands came up my back, under my shirt, while she kissed me. I felt my body sparking inside, like a string of fireworks shooting off inside my body and, instead of damaging me she sparked intense pleasure, a feeling I never felt before, a feeling I needed.

I moaned in her mouth, it was all so much. So much that I'd never felt before.

She twisted her body and pushed me down onto the mattress, kissing me slower and whimpering too. She kissed me like it hurt to be deprived of kissing me for so long. That's the only way I can explain it. But it felt so different than everything else. It wasn't an act, it wasn't a show, it wasn't a preset decision on my part to do this or do that, to impact her in a way and get her to do a certain thing. The only thing I knew going in was that I wanted to kiss her and let myself feel how that felt. That's all that was happening and somehow that was worlds more intense than everything else I had done up until now.

Somehow, someway, Amy finally got me to let go.

She kissed me both soft and hard. She touched me similarly taking advantage and probably knowing that this was the first time I'd let go with anyone.

When she touched me my body reacted. It was hard not to feel every single feeling like it was this huge fucking thing. But that's exactly how it was. She touched me and I let her. She asked for me and I gave to her.

This was so far from Liam it was almost disturbing. But she couldn't know that. She couldn't possible know how scared and vulnerable I actually felt.

At one point though, she must've sensed my inner panic.

"You're being so quiet," she said, nuzzling her nose into my neck as her entire body pressed onto mine and made me feel the weight of her, the weight of us finally together, finally like this.

I let out a few quick breaths. "Is that weird?" I asked nervously. I thought back on the things I had done. She was right, I was never quiet for this long while with someone this way. Again though, she couldn't know that.

"No," she said, kissing my neck softly and then my cheek. She must've known.

Slowly, she made her way back to my lips. I felt how hungry she was, how not timid, not scared, and I felt jealous of that, so very jealous.

But I had starved her. I had starved her so much and what for? The whole time I was just unsure so I said no. The whole time I Was just scared and refusing to say yes to something that could potentially drive her away from me forever.

No big deal, right? Amy getting sick of me? Amy getting tired of me? Amy having me like this and then maybe possibly deciding that I'm really not her favorite person in the world?

My thoughts raced at all that went unspoken. Until Amy pushed her body up onto mine just a tad, dragging her thigh against my center as she kissed me so very slowly. This time I felt the fireworks behind my eyes. Such little pressure from her lit me up inside and shut up my thoughts.

I felt her smile into her kiss when she noticed. I felt her smile and them practically hum.

"I knew it," she said, rolling off of me and onto her back.

I felt dazed and almost attacked but in a good way. The room was so hot. My face was hot. My body was hot. When I looked over at Amy, she was holding her head with closed eyes. She was panting just as much as I was and smiling. God, I missed that smile so much.

"What?" I asked nervously. I would hate to have done something wrong or stupid. I rolled over onto my side and tugged at her shirt over her stomach, balling the fabric into my fist and pulling it to rattle her.

"Nothing," she said. "Don't worry about it." She looked so happy and she let her hand fall down over mine until it covered it completely and reminded me of home.

Then the door flew open and Reagan came halfway into the room still clinging onto the knob. She had a leather jacket on now and a pair of shades.

"Alright lovebirds, I'm going into town to get food," she said. "Train leaves in 5!"

As quickly as she had swung right in she swung right back out. We both stared at the door once it had slammed and let out a sigh before looking over at each other again.

Amy turned her body on its side to face mine. She pulled our hands up between us until they were just near our chins.

"Okay," she said, her smile still unable to leave her. "Tell me you felt that."

I tried not to laugh. "An astronaut watching from space must've felt that," I said.

She laughed too.

Curious, or rather, worried, I scooted in closer and allowed myself to kiss her again. I wanted to feel her again, that feeling of knowing that, even though I was getting a lot, I wanted more. But mostly I wanted to know that she didn't hate me.

Within a second of my kiss we were both smiling, Amy more than me.

Surprising me though, Amy pushed at my chest to keep me away. "We really don't have food," she whined sweetly. And here I thought we could take advantage of the alone time and just stay like this, feel this more.

"Shit," I said, taking in her eyes and her lips.

"Come on, it'll be fast, I promise."

She leaned in and placed a sweet kiss on my forehead. I could hear her breathing me in. She moved around me and put on her shoes. I watched her lazily from the bed, feeling a mixture of things, mainly a pang of sadness that we couldn't just be the only two people in existence anymore.

When she looked over and noticed my forlorn stare she crawled toward me on her knees and took my hand.

"Believe me, there's nothing I'd rather do than keep kissing you all night. But after two hours of nothing but kissing a person gets hungry, Karma. Really hungry. And the stores around here close really early and I don't want to be that girl who can't feed you."

I laughed.

She was right.

With nothing much to compare it to, I thought of Liam. I'd noticed that about him, the long periods of kissing caused him hunger, but I never felt that myself, not with him. Usually kissing just felt sort of ritualistic and then when it stopped it stopped and whatever happened next happened next. I never really understood why sometimes it was different for him or why sometimes we kissed so short or so long. For me it was just a thing that we did.

I hated myself for not knowing the whole time that to kiss was to feel like this. No wonder Amy was so frustrated with me. This wasn't some act without feeling. This act could really drain you.

With Amy, I got lost in the kissing. I was really starting to understand Liam now though it would do me nothing but cause me guilt. I didn't want him. This was undeniable proof. Amy and I had only been together a few minutes, maybe a half hour tops but we spent the bulk of that time kissing and I felt sweaty and soft like every touch and breath of hers could really break me. When she kissed me like he did I turned into a pile of mush. There was really so much of a difference that I felt like screaming. But I couldn't scream. It would confuse Amy and make her crazy.

Instead I held it all in and tried to calm it all. Mostly though I just wanted to be kissing her. I just wanted it to never stop.

She tugged at my hand and I got up lazily and allowed her to pull me back out of the room and down to the kitchen where a lot of the others were still sitting and talking like normal.

The van started up outside and we all heard it. Amy pulled me out the door. She opened the side door to the van and motioned for me to go in first. I was glad she did, I didn't feel like sitting next to anyone but her.

Some other girls got in too but not everyone was coming. I realized a second too late that Reagan had been staring at me through the driver-side mirror.

"You two okay?" She asked.

"We're fine," Amy said. Her tone was one of warning. It meant, this is none of your business and I love you but please don't ask.

"Karma?" Reagan asked, but she was looking toward the crack on her driver's side chair and she whispered so that maybe Amy would let me answer for myself.

"Yeah," I agreed, gathering myself up. She must've seen something in me, a bit of sadness, a bit of panic. I couldn't really explain to her in one look that I was upset that Amy and I couldn't just be kissing for the rest of our lives without stop. That would be rude and also weird.

"Good," Reagan said. It made sense for her to be protective of Amy. I wasn't expecting her to be protective of me though so it felt good to know that she was, good to know that even after everything she didn't hate me.

I squeezed Amy's hand and turned to lean on her.

She kissed my forehead again and held my face to her shoulder with her opposite hand. I can't even explain how good it felt to be near her again, smell her again, touch her again, be everything with her again.

But that panic was still there. Doing normal things felt so very hard with that panic inside.