“Maybe.”

“Kiss me, then.” Her voice was low. Daring me. She spoke the words as if she didn’t quite know she was saying them.

I let myself laugh. “No.”

“You want to do it, then kiss me. Do it.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

She shrugged nonchalantly, a smirk playing about her lips, and she turned her face away from me. “What a terrible shame,” she muttered. “I’m sure you’re a very good kisser.”

And before I could process what was happening, I felt my hand on her neck, pulling her back toward me.

I kissed her cautiously, as if afraid of myself. Unsure. She pulled back and looked at me, the ghost of her feather-light peck stinging my lips. We looked at each other hard and then I was leaning forward, closer than before. My head was buzzing, swirling at the sudden movements and all the haziness in the air. I kissed her again.

It wasn’t soft anymore, and it certainly wasn’t gentle, or cautious. We kissed each other blindly in the dark with no sense of anything other than our own intuition, both of us shifting to meet each other, minds spinning, hearts thudding, as if everything before had been nothing more than foreplay to this night—as if our whole friendship was merely a match for the fire we would spark there, together, in a dingey black alleyway. Instinctively she parted her lips and tilted her head and her hand wound its way into my hair. The kiss turned sloppy, what felt like months of pent-up anger and frustration and suppressed desire, all messy, clumsy tongues and heavy breaths and choked up moans. I gnawed gently on her lip, my heart quickening when I heard her whimper. It felt like raw, carnal lust and I could hardly think, in that swirling darkness. It wasn’t even a kiss any longer, not really—it was a declaration of hunger, a proclamation of insatiable wanting.

But it was good. It was perfect. It was everything.

“You are a good kisser,” she whispered nonsensically, her voice sounding almost as if it didn’t belong entirely to her, and her mouth was on my neck then, showering my skin in a trail of hot kisses, down to my shoulder. I gasped, clutching at the back of her neck, my fingers digging into her skin. Her teeth grazed my collarbone and then claimed my lips again, and I couldn’t help but draw my hands to her chest, to her low collar. I began to push her backward as she pulled me closer, leaning into my body, so that I was almost on top of her, my weight pressing her down. She shifted slightly leaning back on her elbow, and the hand that was weaving through my hair tugged sharply. The world shrunk down to simply the two of us, my own pulse thudding in my ears, her gentle moans, the touch of her tongue, my fingers toying with the edge of her collar—

And then I couldn’t help but gasp as I felt her shove me away sharply, eyes wide with startled fear and realization. She sat up straight and pushed me back. My hand stayed tangled in her hair. She sat there still, chest heaving. She wasn’t smiling but there was a wildfire in her eyes. Terror. Fear. Shock.