Kiss Me Like You Mean It

Jane Wilde has hated the mirror for years. Every time a date started promising, her brain kicked in like a bad alarm clock. Flirting stayed in her head. The kiss, if it happened, felt like somebody else’s mouth doing it. So she called a dating coach. Serene Siren was supposed to fix whatever the mirror couldn’t. First meeting, Serene studied the twenty-something across the table, eyebrows up. “You? With confidence problems?” Jane talked. High-school party. Cigarette smoke, beer on the rug, the guy who laughed at her when her tongue froze mid-kiss. She laughed telling it, but her knee shook under the table. Serene didn’t laugh. Instead, the coach leaned forward. “We fix it,” she said, like it was a car with a bad spark plug. “We start now.” Jane blinked. “Now?” Serene slid forward, lips an inch away. “Kiss me like you mean it.” Jane froze again, but Serene’s fingers tapped the back of her wrist—once, twice—grounding her. Jane closed the gap with a quick, nervous brush. Too soft. Serene pulled back. “Try again. Open mouth, girl. I need to see your soul.” Jane swallowed, tasted breath-mint nervousness, then pushed harder. Tongue slipped past teeth. Serene answered full force, wet sounds loud in the quiet room. She grabbed Jane’s jaw, tilting the angle until the kiss turned messy, teeth scraping, a low hum slipping out of Jane’s throat. When they broke apart, Jane’s lips were swollen and red. Her hands were still shaking, but now they were shaking from want, not fear. Serene licked the corner of her mouth, then smiled. “Better.”