[WATTYS SPECIAL PRIZE WINNER 2024] Getting over your first crush seems impossible - especially when he's the star of the world's biggest movie franchise.
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Jess Wheeler is happily single and perfectly content with her simple life in Hemlock Landin...
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In all of the quiet, secret moments when I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to kiss Bay Connor, I thought that I would remember every single sensation and be able to tuck them away, creating a catalog of touches and sounds and tastes that I could revisit at will. But with every minute movement, every renewed kiss, every sound he makes, the old melts away into the new. Kissing Bay feels like listening to the world's greatest symphony, each new measure outperforming the last, and I have nothing to cling to but pure desire.
The paper on the examination table crinkles loudly as he pulls me up beside him, never breaking our embrace. All of the bandages have tumbled out of my arms and lay unspooled on the ground.
"Jess," he whispers, and my name has never sounded more like a prayer. "I want you so much it drives me insane." My chest squeezes: he wants me, too. Something needles at the back of my mind, but I can't quite figure out what it is or care to explore it as I lean forward and trail kisses from his cheek down to the part of his throat that's exposed by his dress shirt, where his pulse thuds against my lips.
"I want you too," I breathe against his skin.
He sighs, a sound more beautiful than any I've ever heard, before grabbing my hips and pulling me flush against him. The skirt of my dress rides up high, coming dangerously close to exposing the center of my throbbing desire, and as his fingers start to free my shoulders from the straps of my dress, the needling in the back of my mind becomes an annoying poking, which turns into incessant hammering. I reach up and steady his hands.
"What is it?" He asks, his breath heavy, his hair disheveled, and I want nothing more than to pretend that this is fine. I want to pretend that he isn't Bay Connor the movie star but Bay Connor the boy from next door and kiss him all night, until we've made up for lost time.
But that would make me no better than him.
"How can you do this to her?" I ask, and it's impossible to disguise the mingling hurt and guilt in my voice.
"To who?" He asks, brows furrowing. And with those two words, I feel a surge of anger so strong that I don't realize I've slapped Bay across the face until he lets go of me and reels back.
"Ow!" He shouts, grabbing his jaw, and I jump to my feet, humiliated and sweaty and feeling like the biggest fool in the entire world.
"Who? Who?" I scream. "Sylvia Loreno! The girl that the entire world knows you're dating!" Bay stares at me wide-eyed, his face slowly turning redder where I'd hit him, and his confusion pisses me off even more. "Or did you forget all about that? God, I can't believe I ever let myself think you actually cared."
"Jess, hold on a minute—"
"You're obviously just as shallow as I thought you were. A complete player."
"Jess, please—"
"How many other women were hoping to hook up with tonight after your little act of chivalry? I bet—"
