Kissing Katherine

PROLOGUE | SOMETHING

Something in the way she moves

Attracts me like no other lover

That was it. That was the moment – it was then, precisely, that I realised what I’d been missing. It was there, in her eyes, dark in some lights and hazel in others – they were hazel then, bright under the cascading bulbs strung from pillar to pillar – that the last piece of the puzzle slotted into place.

Somewhere in her smile she knows

That I don’t need no other lover

Her eyes were quizzical now, bemused, as they settled on my face from behind the thick lenses of her glasses. They enlarged her eyes, making her appear curious, innocent, and my own lack of innocence felt stark in comparison. She smiled, and it was with that smile that my heart swelled, filling the cavity of my chest and forcing me to reassess life as I knew it, and as I had known it, for so very long.

Something in the way she knows

And all I have to do is think of her

The song soared, and my arms tightened around her waist. The garden was full of light and of life, and I smirked at the thought. The tiny beginnings of crows feet at the edges of her eyes tugged, deepening the wrinkles, and I smoothed out the smirk, wanting to pepper those creases with kisses. But her blood pounded through her veins, hot and heady, and I took an unsteady step back. Because I wouldn’t hurt her; I wouldn’t even risk it.

But that I had already known. It was the new information that was startling to me, forcing my brain to perform its usual gymnastics when presented with a moral dilemma.

I had lived for love, and I had died for love, too. Life and love and death and darkness had always walked hand in hand for me. But now I knew.

I knew that, if it came to it, I would kill. And I would do it for her.