THERE WAS GENTLE precision to the way Jason's lips pressed against mine.

There was a simultaneous rush of everything I'd been feeling for the past few weeks.

Then there was the brush of fearful excitement. Potent and strange and undeniable, something I didn't know I wanted until it was handed to me.

The last time I was kissed, it was on someone else's terms. It was a crush of lips and the wet invasion of tongue too early. It was gag reflex training. It was something I couldn't say no to out of fear of what it would mean. It was underwhelming yet intense. But I'd allowed myself to feel wanted, allowed myself to believe this was how it was in real life, how it should be. So I absorbed all of it.

This was different. Nothing was rushed, nothing was forced. He kissed my lips just as tender and just as firm as I thought he would, pulling back only a fraction after each one to give me space to breathe.

Close-mouthed. Respectful. Testing the waters. His fingers still skimming.

I stayed put, letting him lead, even though my body buzzed to do more.

His breath fanned across my cheek as his free hand dropped to my waist and slowly trailed down to that strip of exposed skin. Behind my closed eyelids, my vision wobbled when his thumb ghosted over the spot. Just once. Like an experiment. Then he nudged me forward, and I let my lips part over his. Let my hands slide up his shoulders. Let my head tilt just enough. Let that welcome heat sit and stir. Let my heart stutter behind the bony bars of my ribs. Let my breath tremble over his.

The hand he had against my face dropped a few inches, cupping where my jaw met my neck, and I barely got the chance to feel the flutter that brewed there before he gently drew my bottom lip between his, subsequently deepening the kiss.

I lost what little control I had there.

I half-expected urgency to step in there, half-expected it to grow hungry and impatient and hot. But whatever I thought I knew about Jason Rivera crumbled to inconceivable bits.

Yes, he tipped my chin how he wanted it. Yes, he leaned down lower. Yes, he pressed his face impossibly closer to mine. Yes, I could tell he wanted more. But he kissed me like a prayer, slowly, cautiously.

Our lips and breathing moved in sync, his upper lip between mine as he worked my bottom one, and vice versa. We didn't pull away in a hurry, lingering, savoring. I could taste the soft cherry of my gloss on his lips, the spicy hint of tequila, the sharpness of restraint, and something else, something unmistakeably him. And I couldn't get enough.

I moved my hands around to circle his neck, in a bid to tether myself to him. He responded by shifting his hold to the small of my back. I was shaking. I wanted him to touch me better, like he wasn't afraid, like he wasn't toeing a line.

Just when I made to make another move of my own, he drew back, and our lips parted with a quiet smack. In that same breath, he urged my face a few inches to the right with his so he could place one last kiss on the corner of my lips, right on my beauty spot.

I didn't realize when a breathless God left my lips.

For a moment, we stayed suspended, unsteady breaths mingling as he rested his forehead against mine. I could hear my heartbeat, feel my nerve endings crackling. I didn't know what the hell it was that just happened, but I knew it wasn't enough. It was supposed to douse the heat, kill the fire, but instead it turned out to be fuel.

So instinctively, I leaned up and pressed my lips back to his, pushing closer, harder, pulling him down lower, a quiet message he was keen to respond to. When we came back up for air, his hands moved slowly, feeling distant behind the fabric of my corset.

"Shit," he whispered, his lips just a breath away from mine, daring me to go back in.

As slowly as I could manage, I opened my eyes. The glare from the fairy lights was almost too much against the otherwise dark surroundings, and it took me a few seconds to adjust. His eyes were still closed, unintentionally giving me time to collect myself before I had to face the reality of what we just did.

The frantic beating of my heart wasn't shock. It wasn't disbelief. It was nameless, and it was big, and it was terrifying.

Because Jason Rivera kissed me, and I kissed him back. He licked off all my gloss, and I allowed him. I knew what his lips felt like, what they tasted like. I knew how he sounded on soft exhale. I knew his first instinct was to touch me like he was handling something fragile. I knew he was disarmingly warm. This big guy with the impish smiles and stray compliments, a resolute presence since my freshman year at Carlton.

Eventually, his arms loosened around me, pushing me to rest my palms against the soft linen of his shirt and stand up straighter. I still didn't stop observing him, noticing how dark and thick his eyelashes were, how the ends were slightly curled up. I watched until they fluttered open and I became aware of just how much my calves hurt from being in heels all night. Maybe the unsteadiness I felt contributed to the ache, maybe the realization that he was looking at me now, too, but it suddenly became all I could feel.

The gravity of the situation hit me all at once, a sluggish anchor lowering itself into the pool of heat at the bottom of my stomach.

I took a step back, forcing his hands to fall from my waist.

There were quite a number of things to acknowledge in the next couple of moments, but they all mashed together in my mind until I couldn't tell where one started and the other stopped. Until talking didn't even feel right, because what exactly was I supposed to say after that?

I could tell he felt the same way.

He was staring at me. Not as lost as I probably looked, but he was staring at me.

Unable to hold it in any longer, I finally spoke. "What the hell, Jason?" It wasn't angry, it wasn't judgmental. It was whispered. Stunned. I was stunned.

His lips parted as he prepared to say something, but it was in those few seconds that all the frustration and overwhelm from the last couple of days washed over me. I thought about his hand on the counter at The Hub. I thought about the tilt of a genuine smile as he focused on me. I thought about how he'd looked up at me in that stairwell. How he'd stepped close. How he'd held onto my hand. Then I thought about Sydney Miller and our push-pull dynamic. How he didn't even consider us friends, despite everything. Beneath it all, a decision firmly settled.

Jason started to say something, but I didn't wait to hear it. I reached down to slip off my heels, one after the other, my movements shaky but determined.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

I answered by stepping back forward, my hands already reaching for his face. It was sudden, and it was quick. Still, he didn't reject me. With me taking the lead this time, it wasn't as gentle or hesitant as the first. I kissed him like I was dehydrated in the desert and he was an oasis. Moments like this were rare for me—where I knew what I wanted and went after it, where my mind wasn't screaming consequences at me. I guessed that was the famous magic of alcohol at work.

I was hit by another round of lightheadedness the further we stirred this. We inched backwards until his back touched the pillar, not breaking apart once. Our kisses grew deeper, our breaths slower, our touches more certain. I absently trailed a finger along that strip of bare chest, finally scratching an itch I'd had all night, reveling in the sharp breath he drew in. His hands cupped either side of my waist, and he slipped his thumbs beneath what he could of my corset, just enough to remind me that he was there.

"The hell is this thing?" he breathed against my lips as the pads of his fingers circled over my skin, and I pulled back slightly to watch him through a dreamy haze.

"A corset," I breathed back.

"Feels like it was sculpted to you." He followed the curve of my waist with his hands, then leaned in to softly place yet another kiss to my lips.

"I actually can barely breathe," I said through the kiss, and he laughed, and I tasted it.

I went back for more, again and again and again, until my lips felt heavy and the spot between my legs did, too. It was only then that I regretted my choice of clothing for the night. Jace wouldn't be able to get past my—

Oh. Shit.

I cut the kiss short as realization dawned on me. As Fallon's words came back to me. All the signs my body had been giving me—signs I was way too eager to ignore.

And now I was entertaining the thought of Jace touching me. And I wasn't repulsed by it.

I lightly bit into the side of my lower lip as I tried to catch my breath, and maybe I was just a little drunker than I thought, because that was the only thing I could pin the next thing I said on. "Do you want to do something about it?"

Silence. Jason stared at me in silence for a hot second. Then, "Sorry?"

"The corset, Jason. Do you . . . maybe wanna do something about it?"

Time was suspended between us as I waited for his answer, and I didn't realize I was holding my breath until he cracked the smallest smile.

He relaxed against the pillar and briefly reached up to massage his jaw. "As tempting as that is, I, uh—I think we should slow down, De."

With my right hand, I squeezed a knot out of my left shoulder, aware that I should've been embarrassed, but not exactly feeling it. "Yeah, of course." I chuckled, and my vision wobbled a little. "I think the tequila's starting to kick in."

He continued to smile at me, a little bigger this time. I didn't really get it, but it was calming to watch, and I couldn't not smile back.

"What?" I asked him.

He shook his head and slipped his hands into his pockets, but the smile didn't drop.

"Jason," I warned.

"You know, only one other person calls me Jason with the frequency you do."

"And?"

"My grandma."

I slapped him across his arm before I could think about it, and his laugh bounced off my chest. I would've bottled the sound if I could. He pulled a hand out of his pocket and, just like in the stairwell, he took my fingers and gently wrapped his around them. His laugh softened around the edges, trickling down my stomach and pushing warmth to my cheeks. When our hands fell to the space between us, they were still joined.

"De."

"I don't know what this is," I admitted quietly, my gaze fixed on the spot between our shoes.

I wasn't too inebriated to forget that Jace and I had been toeing a line for as long as I could remember. At first, it hadn't paraded as attraction. He was a good-looking guy, yes, but he'd wormed his way under my skin with the calling out and random questions and, most recently, the compliments he was far too nice to not mean. Now, he was burrowed deep in there, and I couldn't pluck him out, and I'd just kissed him, and I let myself like it.

I could do it again.

I looked up at him as the consideration bounced around my head, and wasn't at all surprised to see him still watching me. His smile was faint, but it was still there.

"Neither do I." He took a pause and ran his thumb in a circle over the back of my hand. When he spoke again, his voice was warmer. "But I meant it."

Before I could ask him what he meant, a sudden cold gust of wind blew in from the left of the gazebo, hitting my back and drawing a shiver out through my teeth. I let myself laugh at the contrast just as a rumble of thunder followed, and, seeking warmth, I instinctively took a step closer to him.

"Sounds like a storm," he said as he drew me in by my arms.

"It feels personal."

He chuckled, but it faded fast. Then he was looking at me again, all quiet and focused, and I couldn't help but remember Sydney at that house party during orientation week. He'd been looking at me not unlike this, not too long before the air between us crackled. It had been soft glances and gentle laughs up until then. A brush of his fingers against mine.

Now, it was someone else looking at me like that. Someone warmer. Someone I didn't think about with the same ache in my chest. Someone I just kissed.

As I continued to watch him, this started to feel less of a good idea than it did moments ago.

What was I doing, exactly? Why was I thinking about Sydney? Why now? Why at all?

"What's on your mind?" Jason asked, his voice as quiet as his gaze. He brushed another loc out of my eye. In that moment, his touch felt like shackles rather than shelter.

In response, I looked towards where I left my bag and phone. "Um, I—I think I should go find Kelsey." As I spoke, I took a small step away. "Get back on campus before the storm hits."

Something quite indecipherable passed across his eyes, and he moved slow in the next couple of seconds. For the second time that night, his hands fell away from me. And in the same breath, whatever remained of his smile faded, too.

A sharp pang sliced its way across my chest, but it didn't stop me from taking yet another step away from him. I didn't understand what my sudden motivation was, but I didn't fight it. The excitement had waned.

I took my shoes from the paved flooring, my vision swimming a little. Then I stood there for a moment and tried—and failed—to offer him a smile, before going for my bag and phone. I pushed the power button to check what notifications had come in while I was distracted, and my eyes were drawn to Ro's text first. Then Kelsey's just below it. Then Rhys Harvard's.

My movements faltered.

RHYS: I'll be in Boston in a few days. Miss your face

Seemed like Jason wasn't the only one with an active radar when it came to me.

With confusion spreading its tendrils through my bloodstream, and with one eye still on my phone, I walked, barefoot, out of the gazebo. I didn't say goodbye.