Page 102 of Not Another Happily Ever After

Frog’s chest rises unevenly as I climb to my feet, bringing with me all the questions he’s stirred in my chest. My fingers don’t stop at his hands, they know exactly how to see them answered.

His heartbeat drums beneath my palms as I reach for his mask.

He catches my wrist, but he doesn’t push it away.

“I shouldn’t,” I breathe, acknowledging the impossible wall between us.

He swallows hard. “No,” he agrees.

I step closer, gently pushing against his grip until the palm of my hand is flush with his mask.

“But you want to?” I ask, heart raging against my ribs, aching to reach him, aching for the truth.

His eyes shudder as he leans into my touch.

“Desperately.”

Air abandons my lungs, leaving only him.

“Frog,” I whisper, my mouth hovering just below his mask, where I can feel his every shaky breath. “Kiss me.”

“Miss Sunday,” he breathes my name like a prayer. Pleading. Surrendering.

“Please.”

He closes the distance between us with a trembling hand on my waist, and just like he’d learned with our dance, he leads me back. One slow step at a time.

He places his hand on the crimson wall behind me, and eases me back until I feel his knuckles on my spine.

“Close your eyes,” he whispers.

I stare up at him for one more heartbeat, devouring the heat in his gaze.

Then I drift my eyes shut.

His hand falls from my waist, lifting to loosen the iron hiding his face.

I keep my eyes closed.

A ragged breath is all that slips between us—when something warm brushes the corner of my mouth.

My breath catches.

His trembling thumb traces my lower lip with impossible tenderness, as though committing it to memory. The touch is so achingly tender that my heart forgets how to beat.

“Mine.”

The word slips as his mouth brushes against mine. Softly at first, as if I might rescind them. As if I’d want to break this spell between us.

Not this time.

“My knight.” I rise onto my toes, meeting him halfway.

I kiss him without abandon, without thought for tomorrow, and he melts against me. He tastes like wild orange, and cinnamon, and hope.

I cling to him.

“Miss Sunday,” he whispers, his hand at my back no longer trembling. “You need only tell me to stop.”