Paper Kisses (11 page)

****

Sky dropped her off at
CeeCee’s
house on his way to work and luck was not with
her.
 
Her friend was bright eyed and bushy
tailed, waiting for her at the table with a notebook and pen.

“What’s that?” Alannah asked,
nodding to the notebook.

“I’m going to take notes.”

“About what?”

“Sky’s prowess.
 
I know that man’s packing a bazooka in his
pants.”

Alannah shook her head.
 
“You’re not right, you know that?”
 

Chapter Seven

Walking through the field at the
Strawberry Festival brought back a lot of memories.
 
Great memories.
 
Of course, she hadn’t ever worked the
festival before, but then again, the last time she was here she’d been
eighteen.
 
She saw workers putting up
booths and rides, farmers moving animals into barns, and sound crews working on
speakers.
 
The smell of popcorn and
funnel cake wafted through the air, making her belly rumble.
 

The kissing booth was near the
cotton candy machine, much to her dismay.
 
After Bryce had commented on her weight gain, she’d vowed to lose the
extra pounds.
 
In six months she’d lost
half of what she’d gained since her wedding day, so smelling that sugary
confection was going to test her willpower.
 
Of course, the Strawberry Festival got its name for all the different features
about how to prepare and eat them, which most of the time, included sugar.

“I’m glad you finally showed up!”
CeeCee
called out, waving to her.
 

“Sorry.
 
Took a nap.”

“Well, for that, you can hang the
garland.”

She pointed to the top of the booth,
so the first thing she had to do was find a stepladder.
 
For the next couple of hours, right before
the festival officially opened, she and
CeeCee
worked
hard getting everything set up.
 
Rock and
roll played over the speakers, and every once in a while a country tune floated
in.
 
If someone had told her a month ago
she’d be working the Strawberry Festival alongside
CeeCee
she’d have laughed them out the door.
 
Now, there wasn’t any other place she wanted to be than here.

As the first couple of people began
to trickle in,
CeeCee
took a step back to make sure
everything looked romantic.
 
Garland,
lights, paper hearts, they had the whole kit and caboodle.
 

“Does it look like Aphrodite’s
Kissing Cove yet?” Alannah asked.

“Looks pretty
good!”
CeeCee
exclaimed.
 
“Yep, it definitely looks like a place where
a sophisticated gentleman can slap down a buck and pucker up for a wet one.”
 

“Oh, how romantic you make it
sound,” Alannah teased.

CeeCee
entered the booth and slapped Alannah’s butt.
 
“We’re done here.
 
The Cove is
officially open.
 
You and I together,
we’re going to make a fortune!”

“You and Alannah together, now I
would definitely pay to see that!” Kevin called out as he walked up to
them.
 

Alannah threw a bit of garland at
him.
 
“Pervert.”

“Ah, every man’s fantasy,” Kevin
said, waggling his eyebrows.
 
“Hey,
Cee
, you
wanna
go on the Ferris
wheel with me?
 
I got us on for free.”

“I thought they were still testing
the safety of it.”

“They are,” he assured her.
 
“That’s why it’s no charge.
 
Cool, huh?”

Alannah poked her in the back.
 
“Hey, if you crash and die can I have that
new silvery top you just bought?
 
I think
it would look great on me.”

Kevin grinned and grabbed
CeeCee’s
hand, tugging her in the direction of the Ferris wheel.
 
She looked back at Alannah and gave a
helpless little wave.
 
Fortunately, she
didn’t have any customers and it gave her a chance to relax.
 
She saw Sky patrolling in the distance and
her whole body came alive in an instant.
 
The night before rolled through her mind and she realized that he had
given her exactly what she needed.
 
He
took away all the distractions she never knew had been clouding her brain.
 
 

When the evening began to set in,
the kissing booth began to pick up.
 
Alannah hadn’t realized how much Chap-Stick she was going to use but
glad
CeeCee
had bought it for her.
 
The kisses were just quick pecks on the lips,
but just being here, doing this, had her shedding more of that paralyzing doubt
that she had to do something more, be something else.

“Come here, Skylar!”
CeeCee
suddenly yelled out.
 
“
Gimme
a buck and pucker up!”

Laughing, he walked over to their
booth and gave a smoldering stare at Alannah.
 
Instantly, her panties wet as her juices began to flow.
 
One look from him and she went up in flames,
ready to drag him to some dark corner and ride him like a jockey.
 

“I didn’t think you were working
tonight,”
CeeCee
said.

“I asked to switch with my deputy
because I knew Alannah was going to be working here. She’s all mine tonight.”

CeeCee’s
mouth formed an ‘o’.
 
She glanced back
and forth from him to her and Alannah pursed her lips and waited for the
squeal.
 
Which came
about a second later.

“Oh, you naughty
girl.
 
I want details this time.
 
Skylar, tell her I want details.”

“Get used to disappointment,” Sky
warned her, and he laid down a dollar and crooked his finger toward Alannah.

Smiling, she took it and leaned
toward him.
 
He cupped her face, brushed
her skin softly, and kissed her very gently, very lovingly, on the lips.
 
He seduced her, making the world fade away as
he nibbled on her lips, giving a light swipe over them with his tongue before
pulling back.
 
He rubbed noses with her
and then let her go.
 

“Holy Cupid’s arrows,”
CeeCee
murmured, fanning
herself
.
 
“If I knew you kissed like that I’d have been
after you years ago, Skylar.”

At that moment, an older man
approached the booth.
 
His hair was
greasy and hung to his eyebrows in disarray.
 
His clothing was dirty and smelly, the odor reaching Alannah before he
did.
 
His face was streaked with dirt
that disappeared in his stubble and his jaw popped out from a wad of chewing
tobacco. He slapped a dollar on the counter.
 
When he smiled at
CeeCee
, his yellow and black
teeth showed the dangers of nasty old chew.
 

CeeCee
crossed her arms together and eyed the man exasperatedly.
 
“Pete Simmons,
ain’t
no amount of money
gonna
make me kiss you.
 
What do I tell you every year?”

“Get rid of the chewing tobacco and
marry a dentist,” Pete mumbled.

“Yep.
 
Now give me that dollar.”

She held out her hand and he placed
his money in it.
 
She reached under the
counter and pulled out a cutout set of lips in red construction paper.
 
She handed it to Pete.

“Here’s your kiss for this year,”
she told him.

Pete grinned and took the paper
kiss from her.
 
“Thank you, Miss
Cee
.
 
See
ya
next year.”

He walked off, obviously happy with
his red paper kiss held to his chest.
 
CeeCee
watched after him for a moment, shaking her
head.
 

“Does he come every year for that
kiss?” Sky asked.

“Yeah, poor man.
 
Every year I make a special kiss just for
him.
 
When I started this booth five
years ago my motto was
Everyone Gets a
Kiss
but when he showed up I couldn’t do it.
 
I told him to brush his teeth and marry a
dentist.
 
Then I made a kiss out of some
tissue paper I had lying around.
 
Thank
god it worked out.”

“So…you can maintain your motto,
Pete’s happy and every year he walks away with a smile on his face.
 
That’s kind of sad, but a good sad.”

“And maintains hope,”
CeeCee
told her.
 
“That’s what the paper kiss is, really.
 
Hope.”

“I’ll see you after the festival,”
Sky murmured to Alannah, winked at
CeeCee
, and
strolled off to finish his patrol.
 
Alannah couldn’t help but fan herself as she watched his tight ass
flexing under the uniform.
 

They closed the kissing booth at
ten, when the festival was beginning to wind down.
 
Although
CeeCee
planned to run the booth tomorrow, Kevin was working it with her, which Alannah
was thankful for.
 
Kissing strange men
all day wasn’t really her thing, but because it was to help Kevin out, she puckered
up.
 
A big part of her was trying her
best to make up for the past twelve years of not being any type of friend at
all.

Sky showed up to help them close up
the booth.
 
He held out his hand and she
took it, ignoring
CeeCee’s
snigger.
 
How old was she, ten?
 
Sometimes she still acted like boys had
cooties.

Alannah followed Sky to his place,
once again admiring the large cabin style house.
 
She was so happy that he had done so well for
himself.
 
Growing up, she used to love
going to his place because his parents had been so nice, but they’d barely been
holding things together financially.
 
It
had been a bone of contention during his teen years and he’d gotten into more
than one fight over comments about his poor status.
 
She’d been poor too, of course, which was one
of the reason she’d been so much closer to Sky than to
CeeCee
and Kevin.
 
He’d started running track
and field in his freshman year because it had been a sport that allowed him to
work alone plus shave off his aggression.
 
He’d bank rolled that into a scholarship while she had decided to
completely change her entire life by walking away and ignoring everything from
her past.

So…here she was again, only this
time she knew what was in store.
 
Would
he tie her up again?
 
Blindfold her?
 
Did she want that?
 
She grabbed her overnight bag and followed
after him into the house, questions and doubt swirling through her brain.
 
Surely normal people didn’t want such
kink.
 
Did they?
 

“I know it’s late but I’ll fix us
my other specialty,” he said with a grin.
 
“Why don’t you take a quick shower while I get dinner together?”

“Okay.” Alannah grabbed her bag and
headed upstairs.
 
She felt grimy after
the day and wanted to wash off the dozens of kiss germs on her lips.
 
The water was hot and felt heavenly, and all
too quickly she was drying off and putting on a pair of lounging pants and a
tank top.

As she descended down the stairs,
the smell of tomato and garlic wafted through the air and her stomach
rumbled.
 
Festival food was neither
healthy nor filling.
 
While Sky finished
up the pasta, she poured them red wine.
 
It struck her that this was almost…domestic.
  
This was so much different than what she had
had with Bryce.
 
With their schedules and
lifestyles they usually ate out, separately, and rarely spent time together at
night.

“So how many men did you end up
kissing today?”

She blinked, torn from her
thoughts.
 
“I don’t know.
 
Forty, I think.”

He winced.
 

“Don’t worry,” she assured
him.
 
“I scrubbed and gargled.”

“Good to know,” he said.

They finished up dinner and she
helped him load the dishwasher.
 
Once it
was running, he took her by the hand and led her up to his bedroom, once again
turning off the main light and leaving on the soft glow from the nightstand
lamp.
 
Her breath hitched as she realized
this was happening again, and her body flooded with endorphins.
 

“Are you going to, ah, tie me up?”
she asked softly, trying to get her breathing under control.
 
She didn’t want to appear too excited.
 
People didn’t get excited over kink, did
they?