the Romeo + Juliet Experiment

Chapter Eight: Ryan

I wasn't going to lie and say I hadn't been thinking about kissing her again. But I was an evolved male, able to not totally focus on what my dick wanted at every opportunity. That being said, it had been playing in the back of my head for the last two days and I'd really wanted to act on it.

It felt good to know I wasn't the only one. At least, based on the way she kissed me, I was guessing I wasn't the only one.

She felt like madness and rightness at the same time. It was like I knew I should pull away, but there was no way in hell I was going to. She made my heart pound, my stomach flutter, my head dizzy, and every nerve feel alive. Just being near her was exhilarating. Kissing her was a thousand times better.

The buoyancy of the water meant I could hold her closer to me, could hold her feet essentially off the ground. We were pressed together tightly and I'd never wanted to hold onto anything else so much before. Not even with...

Unbidden, thoughts of my ex flooded my thoughts and I had to pull away.

Jess and I were both breathing heavily as we looked each other over. I don't know what she saw, but it made the sexy smirk disappear into a confused frown.

"Sorry," I said quickly, hoping she hadn't had time to wonder if I regretted it or anything.

She drifted away a little. "Uh, no. My bad. I shouldn't have..." She chuckled humourlessly and looked down. "I shouldn't have made assumptions..."

Wait, what?

"No." I stepped forward, panicking I'd somehow insulted her or made her feel bad to something. "No. It wasn't you."

Her eyes flew to mine and the confusion deepened.

"No," I repeated lamely. "I just... The kiss was great." Wow, even lamer. "I mean... I want to kiss– Wanted to kiss you. That was... You weren't wrong or anything."

"Oh..." she said slowly, looking down again. "I thought maybe I'd taken advantage or something."

"This Juliet gives all the consent, Romeo," I told her roughly. "You've got nothing to worry about."

Okay, mouth. Enough out of you, thank you.

Seriously, my stupid, big, fat mouth was going to get me in a world of trouble. And not the good kind here. It was going to get me into the bad kind. The kind that I'd gone through with... I didn't even want to think her name. She hadn't been worth it then and she wasn't worth it now.

I took a deep breath, wondering why I felt the need to justify myself to Jess, wondering why I was so concerned that there weren't any miscommunications between us. But she was smiling.

"All the consent?" she teased, swishing the water around her.

My tension magically eased once more. I nodded. "All the consent."

"It's not like Juliet didn't consent. I mean, Romeo pretty well broke the rules to consummate their marriage."

"Yeah. True. But how much of that was because everyone expected them to fuck?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I see that. I wonder?"

"She would have known it was the done thing. You do the ceremony, make the vows, then you consummate it."

"Did they still have the thing where if you didn't consummate it, it didn't count?"

I shrugged as I dropped back into the water. "Don't know."

"Imagine how many people would end up married these days if that's all it took," she laughed.

"Sex?"