Until Fountain Bridge: (InterMix) Read Free Page A

lowered my gaze, feeling bad that he’d been dragged into my teen drama.
    “Come here.” Adam pulled me to him again and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead before he hugged me close. Now that I wasn’t bemoaning the stress of my morning and crying on his chest, I was suddenly fully aware of being crushed against him. He smelled amazing, and his body was hard with lean muscle; it felt good against mine.
    A weird, tingling feeling erupted in my lower belly and my skin suddenly grew incredibly flushed. I jerked back and tried to cover my awkwardness with a tremulous smile and a goofy wave.
    Adam gave me a quizzical smile and then said, “Anytime you need me, you call, okay?”
    I nodded.
    “Okay, sweetheart. I’ll see you later.”
    “Bye.”
    He grinned at me again. This caused another wave of tingling to spread over me. As I watched him get into his car and drive away, it occurred to me that my crush on Adam had just intensified. My brain was no longer the only thing attracted to Adam. My hormone-charged teenage body was now too.

Chapter 2
    Adam’s brow was puckered as he shifted his focus from the diary and gave me a smile. “I don’t know how I feel about sexually awakening a fourteen-year-old. It’s all a bit Lolita-like.”
    I laughed at his discomfort. “It’s not as if you felt the same way about me back then. Anyway, now that I’m yours, would you really have preferred if some other guy gave me my sexual awakening?”
    He glanced back down at the pages. “Good point,” he muttered.
    “Here.” I handed him another diary, open to more than halfway through, and took the one with my fourteen-year-old thoughts out of his hands. “This is from the year after that.”
    Saturday, March 23rd
    I am this close to screaming at Adam to stop treating me like a sister. I’m not his sister! I wish he’d just get that already . . .
    I took a deep breath and pulled the mascara wand away from my eyelashes. Staring at myself in my dressing-table mirror, I exhaled slowly and mentally coached myself to calm down. As much as I tried, I could not stop the wild flutter of butterflies in my belly. I gave up and leaned toward the mirror to liberally apply the mascara, since it was the only makeup Mum would let me wear. I had long, light eyelashes, so no one could tell how long they were until I started wearing black mascara. They were
long
and now that they were black, they made my pale blue eyes seem even bluer.
    I’d hoped that the mascara also made me look a little older. Even though I was tall, I was still skinny with small boobs, and had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose that made me feel about five years old instead of fifteen.
    I had a date. My first date. It was with Sam Smith. He was a sixth year, which meant that he was two years older than me, and he was cute and cool and I really, really liked him.
    I liked him as much as I could like any boy who wasn’t Adam.
    Not that Adam was a boy any more.
    A knock sounded at my bedroom door as I ran a brush through my long hair for the hundredth time. “Come in!” I called, somewhat agitated since I thought it was probably my mum, who seemed to be at once both more excited than me about the date, and also concerned.
    To my surprise, when the door opened, the head that popped in wasn’t Mum’s but Adam’s.
    My heart did this little flippy thing in my chest that it did every time I saw him, and I smiled brightly at him. “What are you doing here?”
    He stepped inside and closed the door, his brows drawing together in consternation as I stood up to greet him. His eyes traveled the length of me and I saw a muscle tick in his jaw.
    I was wearing a white sleeveless shift dress. It had a modest neckline and I was wearing a cardigan to cover my arms, and black tights to cover my bare legs, but I was guessing the short hemline pissed him off. The reminder that he thought of me as a little sister that he needed to protect pissed
me
off. I crossed my