Picture This by Jayne Denker Read Free Book Online Page B

of touches. She felt light-headed at the contact. She needed it to stop, if she was going to think clearly. She didn’t want it to stop.
    â€œNiall, I—”
    His wandering touch traced her jawline. “I meant it when I said I was glad you came. I’ve been dying to see you again.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œCelia, you . . . do something to me. I don’t know what it is, and it scares me a little bit. Not like Naomi.” She could hear the smile in his voice. His hand crept into her hair, and he ran his long fingers through the strands at the back of her neck. “I really like you,” he said earnestly. Then the switch back to joking, as though he were reading a kid’s scrawl on a piece of notebook paper. “Do you like me? Circle one: yes, no.”
    Celia laughed again, even as her heart raced, beating triple time against her chest, which was now inexplicably pressed up against Niall’s. She had every intention of pushing him away. She really did. But when his hand in her hair pulled her closer, slowly and gently, she went to him. A denial was in order, at least. She could protest, say he’d gotten it all wrong, that she didn’t like him one bit. Then his soft, generous lips met hers, and every logical thought deserted her.
    For a moment, she could think of nothing but his kiss. She fell into it, and it was a wonderful, soft place to land. Niall didn’t grab her, didn’t grope, didn’t go on the attack. There was no “lunge”—yeah, it seemed he’d definitely improved since middle school. His mouth moved over hers slowly and lazily, as though they had all the time in the world to explore each other. The tip of his tongue met hers and twined around it, gently, but he went no further. When he moved back, giving her one last small, soft kiss at the corner of her mouth, every inch of her screamed for more.
    â€œI want to see you again,” he murmured, his breath hot against her cheek. “Can we make that happen?”
    Yes. Absolutely yes. But she forced herself to say, “No, Niall. We can’t. Tiffany—”
    â€œDon’t worry about Tiffany,” he breathed.
    Celia drew back. “What?”
    â€œWait. That’s not—”
    â€œWhat you meant? Really? How many different ways are there to interpret that?”
    â€œIt’s com—”
    â€œDo not say it’s complicated. Please. ”
    â€œIt is. ”
    â€œOh, give me some credit.”
    â€œYou don’t understand.”
    What in the world could make him think he had the right to hit on her—or any woman, for that matter—when he had a girlfriend right outside the closet door? And what was she doing in a dark closet with a celebrity, anyway? What was wrong with her? Better question: What was wrong with him ?
    â€œI understand just fine.”
    Whatever he said next was drowned out by shouts from the main part of the loft. Strident, violent voices rose above the music.
    â€œShit,” Niall muttered, lurching to his feet.
    He yanked open the closet door and burst back into the room. Celia followed. Nobody noticed them coming out of the closet together because everyone was circled around two people who were grappling with each other in a cleared space. For a second, all Celia could see were hunched bodies and flailing arms. A single, huge earring skidded across the wood floor and came to a stop directly under the track lighting, where it lay glinting in a beam from one of the lamps. Various screeches of “Bitch!” and “Whore!” rose over the shouting of the rest of the crowd. Each woman had the other woman’s hair in her grasp. One pulled, and a clump went flying. Celia gasped, horrified, until she realized it was just some extensions.
    Niall threw himself into the fray, getting behind the blonde and putting one arm around her waist and pulling. She wrestled herself away from Niall and pushed her hair