2013 No Kiss Blogfest!!

It's here! It's here!!!

The Annual No Kiss Blogfest, hosted by Frankie Diane Mallis!!

For my entry this year, I decided to play with characters connected to my latest project, You and I. You and I is filled with little excerpts from the "books" my book-geek MC reads, including a "book series" about a girl in love with a ghost trapped in a mirror world. This No Kiss is a little blurb with the characters in that "series."

To make my life harder and to give myself practice in working with tenses (one of the things I needed to strengthen), all of the "excerpts" from this "book series" are written in first person present tense. Please forgive any awkwardness in tense here!

I present to you Marissa and Cyril, from the Hidden House "series" in all their no-kiss glory:

            I throw my hands up in frustration and pace away from the mirror. “Don’t you get it, you idiot? I’m not in love with him.”

            “If you do not have feelings for him, why did you let him into your room? And why did you act like he was the most interesting person on the continent?” Cyril adds something else under his breath and I can’t hear it.

I blink at him, feeling my lips turn down into a frown. I want to reach through the mirror and shake his jealous Victorian ass. “I’m only flirting with Dan to get his attention off of you. Remember, I don’t do love triangles.”

“Love triangles?”

            The confusion on his face is so cute I can’t completely stay mad at him. Still, I take my time walking back to the mirror. I know the little skirts and makeup I’ve been wearing to school definitely upset his old-fashioned sensibilities, but he’s still a guy. Who is totally checking me out right now. “Translation: I only fall for one guy at a time.”

            “And Dan…?”

            “Is not that guy.” I lean closer, my nose only inches from the antique silvered glass separating us. To normal people, I must look like a freak, talking to my reflection. But they don’t see what I see, which right now is an adorably frustrated hottie. Cyril steps closer to his side of the glass and, if I imagine hard enough, I can feel his breath whisper across my cheek as he exhales. “You are,” I whisper.

            There are rules. A line we can’t cross. He and I both know it. But it doesn’t stop either of us from leaning closer, moths drawn to an incredibly dangerous flame. His eyes flicker to my lips and I feel a cold fire run across the surface of my skin, electrifying me.

            We don’t touch the mirror’s surface. Instead, our hands parallel each other’s path along the carved wooden frame. One of his hands comes up and his fingers seem to be tracing the line of my chin, up to my bottom lip… I shut my eyes and imagine him here, that one finger trailing a line of electricity along its path. My lip tingles with that phantom touch and I hold back a gasp. My hand grips the mirror’s frame, its carvings digging into my palm.

            On his side of the mirror, Cyril audibly takes in a breath and my eyes pop open. He’s just as affected as I am. Somewhere along the way, we had both tilted our heads so our lips are perfectly aligned. Our combined breaths leave a cloud of white on both sides of the mirror and I see the puffs of breath speed up to the same rhythm. We’re so close that if I just lean in a little bit further, maybe--

His fingers touch the mirror, oh so gently, in a motion that’s meant to stop me. His silver eyes lock with mine and his next words come out sounding almost pained. “If I touch you, you’ll be trapped here.”

“What if I say I don’t care anymore?” I ask, my voice a lot shakier than I’d like.

Cyril closes his eyes, takes a step back, and another until he’s a safe distance from the mirror. No amount of me touching it now would break the barrier. “I do.”

I slump to the floor, breathless, and drop my head into my hands. My body still feels the ghost of the might-have-been. “How are we going to make this work?”

“I don’t know.”

Want to read more no-kiss scenes? Head on over to Frankie's site!