When Scott Met Annie

Chapter 12: Kiss the Girl

Kissing Annie was like nothing Scott had ever experienced.

There was no accompanying rush of psychic connection urging him on, proving to him that he was on the right track. There was no warm fire or even rush of cool water like with Jean or Emma. No connection so he could feel her thrill in his own veins.

He was, simply, kissing her.

In one sense, he missed the assurance of that connection, that steady presence. It was so much easier to know that he hadn't made a huge mistake and assumed way too much when he could feel the response.

But in another, there was something pure about this kind of kiss. There wasn't anything but her mouth on his, her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her. Nothing but the warmth of her cheek under his hand as he cupped her face, nothing but the taste of the gloss she was wearing on her lips.

There wasn't any presence in his mind whispering to him what he was supposed to do next, what she wanted him to do. There was just the way she pulled him until he practically fell into the chair she had just been occupying so that he was at a height she could reach him in her bare feet.

She wasn't hungry about it, like Emma had been. There was no tug on his bottom lip with her teeth, no hands on his wrist pulling him into position.

She wasn't frenetic, like it had always been with Jean, a tangle of minds and passions all at the same time.

Annie was gentle. The only pulling she did was so that she could reach him, and once he was at a height she could manage, it was like moving in slow motion, her lips pressed into his. He could get lost in one single breath with her mouth against his, and she wasn't in any hurry to move on to the next breath, either, each movement slow as she curled the fingers of one hand into the fabric of his shirt around his neck to hold on.

And then the doorbell rang, and she pulled back, surprise and pleasure written all over her expression as he simply stared at her.

He didn't know why he'd done that — but he definitely wanted to do it again.

The doorbell rang again, and Annie seemed to let out all her breath as she primly rearranged her expression and her hair, laughter just behind her gaze the whole time. "I should go see who it is," she told him, and he grinned up at her crookedly for a moment before she headed downstairs and he was left staring after her for a long moment.

There was a big part of him that knew this was a mistake, getting involved like this.

But his ears were still buzzing with the kiss that she'd given him, and his heart was hammering in his chest loud enough to drown out any thoughts like that. He wanted more than anything else to go and get her and bring her back and kiss her all over again — whoever was at the door could wait; he didn't care about them.

He had never done this before. Kissing, yes, sure, he'd done that, but this — this thing where he was totally lost with nothing but her hands in his shirt to prompt him forward? That was new. He was out of his depth in a way that he hadn't been since Jean — and he was trying hard not to grin too widely at the newness, the excitement of it all.

He broke out of his thoughts when he heard Anton's deep voice downstairs and decided to head down himself — since, after all, Anton had only just gotten him out of a jam with the local idiots, and Scott wouldn't be surprised at all if he was checking in.

He was halfway down the stairs when he heard Anton saying, "Yeah, you'd think they'd learn at this point, but some people just weren't born with the sense God gave the rest of us."

"Why can't people just leave him alone?" Annie asked in a frustrated tone as Scott poked his head into the living room from the stairs, and she gestured his way. "He's not hurtin' anyone!"