Read Online Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center - Free Book Online Page A

pulled tight and then relaxed. There was a great rhythm to it, like being tugged by ocean waves.
    â€œOh my God,” I said. “You do get straight A’s.”
    â€œTold ya,” he said. “I’ve wanted to do this since the first second I saw you, by the way. All I wanted was to walk up to you and do exactly this.”
    â€œYou mean, as I was walking down the aisle? To get married?”
    He nodded.
    â€œThat would have been awkward,” I said.
    But he was serious. “I’ve always regretted that I didn’t just do it.”
    â€œYou’re too young to regret anything.”
    â€œTrust me,” he said. “I’m not.”
    Then, he was kissing me again, and in that moment, school was officially over. I didn’t have anything to teach this kid. I hadn’t been kissed like this in years. Or ever.
    Jake nudged me back onto the bed, and I let him, laughing a little as we tried to keep kissing as we worked our way down onto the mattress. I relaxed against the pillows, kissing him back, just as breathless and just as lost. He worked over to the crook of my neck, using his teeth for contrast like the Ivy League overachiever he was. My whole body seemed to gulp every sensation down.
    Through the blur, I heard myself say, “You lied to me.”
    He lifted up. “What?”
    I looked at him. His hair was less damp now, but mussed and falling forward. His eyes were glassy. “You told me you didn’t know how to kiss,” I said. “You told me you were terrible.”
    â€œOh,” he said. “Sorry about that.” Then he went back to my neck, making almost unbearable swirling eddies.
    â€œI knew you were lying.”
    He knew I knew. He didn’t even try to pretend. “I’m actually pretty good.”
    Was I angry that he’d lied to me? Hell, no.
    He went on, talking into my shoulder, his voice slightly muffled. “You’d never do it for fun. You’d never do it for a dare. You’d certainly never do it because you wanted to.” He worked his way back up my throat, then, and up along the curve under my chin. At last, he lifted his head. “It had to be charity. I knew you’d do it for charity.”
    He wasn’t wrong. “You’re much sneakier than I gave you credit for,” I said.
    He was back at my neck. “Only when I have to be.”
    â€œYou didn’t have to be,” I said. “You just chose to be.”
    He lifted his head. “I had to be.”
    Before I could ask what that might mean, he kissed me again, until everything in my entire life seemed out of focus except for this one delicious thing. He went on, “I just wanted you. Every time I saw you, or heard about you, or saw your photo in Duncan’s room.”
    â€œAnd now that you’ve got me here, how does it feel?”
    â€œToo good to be true,” he said. A second later he added, “And it’s pure agony.”
    I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew this: He did have me. If he was playing me, I was played. If this was just a teenage conquest of his friend’s big sister, I was conquered. It was partly the kissing sneak-attack that had me all dazed. But it was mostly the fully earnest expression on his face. If he was acting, he was the greatest actor in the world.
    Agony, he’d said. I didn’t want him to feel agony. I wanted him to feel every good thing that I did.
    I reached up and hooked my hands behind his neck and pulled his mouth down to mine. I wasn’t playing professor anymore. I was just me, the real me, kissing him and trying to do the very best job I could. I started doing to his neck exactly what he’d done to mine. Which I knew, for sure, was the opposite of agony.
    The next time he lifted his head, he seemed like he couldn’t believe his eyes.
    â€œI’m glad you tricked me into kissing you,” I said.
    â€œMe, too,” he said.
    â€œI