What does a rivals almost kiss scene look like?
Example of a Rivals Almost Kiss
An almost-kiss between rivals is the most excruciating kind of near-miss. They want each other and they hate that they want each other — so the moment stretches, unbearable, until something breaks it. The interruption hurts worse than any argument.
The storage room was her fault. She'd pulled him in by the sleeve after his little stunt in the meeting — contradicting her in front of the whole department, smiling that infuriating smile while he did it. "What the hell was that?" she hissed. The door clicked shut behind them. Shelves of office supplies on every side. A single fluorescent light buzzing overhead. "That was me being right." "That was you being a saboteur." "A saboteur who's right." She shoved his shoulder. Not hard. Hard enough. He caught her wrist. Not rough. Not gentle either. Something in between that made her forget what she was angry about. They were close. Too close for a storage room. Too close for two people who had spent eighteen months making each other's professional lives difficult. She could see the flecks of amber in his brown eyes. She'd never been close enough to notice that before. His thumb was on her pulse point. She knew he could feel it racing. "Let go," she said. "You grabbed me first." "I pulled you in here to yell at you." "Then yell." She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. His gaze dropped to her lips. She watched it happen — slow, deliberate, a confession he couldn't take back. He leaned closer. She didn't move away. The fluorescent light hummed. A ream of paper pressed into her back. His mouth was a breath from hers when his phone rang. They sprang apart. He answered it. She stared at the ceiling, heart hammering, hands shaking, absolutely furious at Verizon and whoever was on the other end of that call. He hung up. Looked at her. "That was HR," he said. "About the seating chart." "Great." "We should—" "Yeah." Neither of them moved toward the door.
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The almost kiss is often more powerful than the kiss itself. It lives in the fraction of a second where everything is possible and nothing has happened yet. This excerpt captures the electric pause between wanting and doing.
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