All That's Left in the World (All That's Left in the World, #1)

by Erik J. Brown

My heart’s racing and it has nothing to do with the fact that our hands are bound and we’re minutes away from death. “I have . . . I’ve . . . It’s . . .” Oh, fuck it, why am I talking? I kiss him. He freezes and I nudge forward, trying to tell him it’s okay and he can kiss back because I want him to kiss back. He finally does, his mouth opening to mine, and he lets out a held breath through his nose. Then he pulls away. “You kissed me,” he says, as if I didn’t know what I was doing. “I did.” He groans in misery and I’m taken aback. “You kissed me for the first time and I just spent the last ten minutes with a dirty T-shirt stuck in my mouth.” “I . . . you . . . what?” “Screw it, never mind. Can you just . . . do it again?” “Yes.” The word is barely out of my mouth before his lips are against it. We kiss and it’s difficult because I want to put my hands to his neck and run them through his hair. Which, now that I think about it, needs a cut. But our kiss has the opposite effect of a fairy tale. When it’s over, it isn’t happily ever after. We’re still in the same predicament.