The Kiss Keeper - Krista Sandor Page 0,4
pressed her lips together, trying to hold back a laugh, but even her dry mouth couldn’t restrain her reaction.
“That’s not part of the legend,” she said with a giggle, then rested her forehead against his chest. He felt nice. Solid. It was as if the world could shift off its axis, and they’d remain untouched, cocooned in darkness and the Kiss Keeper’s protection.
“It’s not?” he asked, and she could feel his heartbeat slow.
“No.”
“Thank God,” he answered in a relieved breath, then stilled. “But the whole never finding your soul mate stuff, is that true?”
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s the way I’ve always heard it.”
“And I can’t look at you? That’s part of it, too,” he questioned.
“If you see me, the story goes that I’ll be trapped at the bottom of the well—which may be a better alternative to high school—but it would probably suck when it rained.”
“Or snowed,” he added.
“It’s probably best if I remained on the surface of the planet.”
Her kiss keeper chuckled again, and his kind voice smoothed out the last of her frayed nerves.
“You’re funny,” he said as his thumb moved back and forth across her collarbone. An unconscious movement, but she liked it, nonetheless.
Nat steadied herself. “You’re nicer than I’d expected.”
While her gaze was met with a blanket of darkness, thanks to the blindfold, she could sense that he was smiling.
“You are saving me from a life of tiny testicles and talking like a choir soprano. So, I kind of owe you,” he answered with a gentle lilt to his words, confirming his grin as the air grew heavy with anticipation.
A fizzy buzz, ripe with sweet anticipation, replaced the trepidation in her chest. “We couldn’t have that,” she answered, her breaths growing shallow.
This was it. She was about to have her first kiss.
With her hands pressed to his chest, she felt his heartbeat, strong and steady, as the sound of their breathing slowed, and their breaths mingled in the night air.
“Should we do it?” he whispered.
She swallowed. “You mean kiss?”
She could feel him nod.
“Is it okay if I kissed you?”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” she replied.
He brushed his thumb across her collarbone. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure. Anything,” she answered, the anticipation near palpable.
“I’d want to kiss you even if we didn’t have to,” he said with the smile back in his voice.
She matched his grin with one of her own. “You would?”
“Do I sound like an idiot?”
She gently twisted the fabric of his T-shirt. “No, you don’t sound like an idiot because I think I’d like to kiss you, too—and not because we want to save your balls or avoid a kiss curse.”
He slid his hands from her shoulders up to her face and cupped her cheeks. “This kissing business may be tricky since we can’t see each other.”
She pushed up onto her tiptoes. “Is this better?”
His chest heaved with a tight exhale.
“Yeah,” he answered, leaning in and lowering his head.
His nose brushed against hers as their shallow breaths met in the tiny slice of space that separated their lips. She pushed up farther onto her tippy toes, ready to kiss the kindest boy she’d ever met when the sharp crack of a snapped branch tore through their pre-kiss bubble.
“Is somebody there? You know nobody’s supposed to be out here past lights out!” came a deep, irritated voice.
“Shit,” her kiss keeper whispered, then grabbed her hand, pulling her away from the well and off the trail.
Shit was right! Camp night patrol—counselors who roamed the property in search of kids sneaking out—had gotten wind of them.
He gripped her hand. “We need to go. We need to get back to our cabins.”
She swallowed back her nerves. “But I can’t take off this blindfold. I can’t look at you.”
He drummed his fingers against the back of her hand. “You won’t have to. I’ve got a plan. You’ll keep your blindfold on, but I’ll need to take mine off to get you back to your cabin. We need to be smart. If they find us together, we’re totally screwed.”
He was totally right. What would her grandparents think?
“Okay, I’m good with that,” she answered.
They had no other option.
He gave her hand a little squeeze. “I’m taking my blindfold off.”
A shiver passed through her—or maybe it was the spirit of Otis Wiscasset.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said, lacing his fingers with hers and leading her into the forest before she could worry any more about ghosts and legends.
They wove their way through the thick foliage, past blackberry bushes and spiny jack