Losing Hope

anymore. I don’t think my chest has been empty this whole time like I thought. Whatever is left inside me has just been asleep, and she’s somehow slowly waking it up.
    With every word she speaks and every glance she sends my way, she’s unknowingly pulling me out of this thirteen-year-long nightmare I’ve been trapped in, and I want to continue to allow her to pull me.
    Fuck it.
    I unclench my fist and bring it up to her hair that’s spilled across my chest. I pick up a loose strand and curl it around my finger, keeping my eyes trained on her mouth while she reads to me. I find myself still comparing her to Hope every now and then, despite my efforts not to. I’m trying to recall exactly what Hope’s eyes looked like or if she had the same four freckles across the bridge of her nose that Sky has. Every time I start to compare them, I force myself to stop. It doesn’t matter anymore and I need to let it go. Sky has proved that she can’t be Hope and I have to accept it. The odds of the girl I lost being right here, pressed against my chest, her strand of hair between my fingertips . . . it’s impossible. I need to separate the two of them in my head before I screw up and do something stupid, like refer to Sky by the wrong name.
    That would suck.
    I notice her lips are pressed into a tight, thin line and she isn’t speaking anymore. It’s a damn shame because her mouth is fucking hypnotizing.
    “Why’d you stop talking?” I ask her, without looking at her eyes. I keep my gaze trained on her lips, hoping they start moving again.
    “Talking?” she says, her top lip curling up in a grin. “Holder, I’m reading . There’s a difference. And from the looks of it, you haven’t been paying a lick of attention.”
    The feistiness in her reply makes me smile. “Oh, I’ve been paying attention,” I say, lifting up onto my elbows. “To your mouth. Maybe not to the words coming out of it, but definitely to your mouth.” I slide out from under her until she’s on her back, then I scoot down until I’m beside her. I pull her against me and take her hair between my fingertips again. The fact that she doesn’t resist in the slightest only means I’ll be at war with myself the rest of the damn night. She’s already made it clear she wants me to kiss her, and I’ll be damned if backing away from having her pressed up against the refrigerator wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
    Shit. Just thinking about it is almost as intense as when it was actually happening.
    I drop the strand of hair and watch as my fingers fall straight to her lips. I don’t know how the last five seconds just occurred, but I’m looking down at my hand as it grazes over her mouth like I have no control over my limbs anymore. My hand has a mind of its own but I really don’t care . . . nor do I want to stop it.
    I feel her breath against my fingertips and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to center my focus on something other than what I want. Because it’s not my wants that are important right now—it’s hers. And I highly doubt she wants to taste my mouth as much as I need to taste hers right now.
    “You have a nice mouth,” I say, still slowly tracing it with the tips of my fingers. “I can’t stop looking at it.”
    “You should taste it,” she says. “It’s quite lovely.”
    Holy shit.
    I squeeze my eyes shut and drop my head to her neck, forcing my focus away from those lips. “Stop it, you evil wench.”
    She laughs. “No way. This is your stupid rule; why should I be the one to enforce it?”
    Oh, Jesus. It’s a game to her. This whole not kissing thing is a game to her and she’s going to tease the hell out of me. I can’t do this. If I give in and kiss her before she’s ready I know I won’t be able to stop. And I don’t know what the hell is going on inside my chest right now but I really like the way it feels when I’m around her. If I can drag whatever this is out to make sure she feels the same way, then that’s exactly what I’ll do. Even if it takes me weeks to ensure she gets to that point, then I guess I’ll wait weeks. In the meantime, I’ll do whatever I can to make sure her next first is anything but insignificant.
    “Because you know I’m right,” I say, explaining exactly why she needs to help me enforce this rule. “I can’t kiss you tonight because kissing leads to the next thing, which leads to the next thing, and at the rate we’re going we’ll be