There was a slight shift, and Amarissa didn't know exactly what had happened. All she knew was that for whatever reason, James hadn't risen to take the bait, to crack some teasing joke in response to her commentary and grin stupidly at her. Why wasn't he doing that? He was still being oddly serious, each of his motions perhaps a bit different from what she'd seen before. It threw her off balance; she was pretty sure that she'd never been so off her guard before, suddenly unable to interpret what was going on or what precisely he was doing or planning.
Her eyes followed the brief spell that he had performed, catching sight of the mistletoe and the few flakes of snow that accompanied it. He wasn't going to - was he? Before Amarissa could even begin to fully process the magnitude of what was happening, to consider it in the slightest James had murmured something about different games. And yes, this certainly was different games. James continued to speak, but he had hardly seemed to be aware of what he was saying, which was fine with Amarissa, because she couldn't entirely concentrate on the stream of words that his voice was stringing together. She was all together aware of how close they suddenly were, of how his hands were playing over her skin and hair. How had it so quickly spiraled out of him checking that garish bruise to... to whatever this was?
Amarissa was barely aware of the silence that descended when James stopped speaking. Her eyes had been on him the entire time, and when his lips connected with hers, she hesitated only the scarcest moment before returning the kiss. One of her hands moved up to gently curl about the top of his arm, just beneath his shoulder. The grasp was light, allowing him to pull away at any time, but she just needed something to cement the sensation, to ground her a bit.
There were a thousand thoughts racing through her head, most of them protests about how this had become far too personal. It was official now, and there was no way to deny it, no matter what happened after this moment. She should be done. She should pack up and go home, because she clearly couldn't judge things in an unbiased manner any longer, and how the hell was she supposed to deal with all of this? She could only imagine having to explain precisely why she needed to leave when she went home. Amarissa forced all those thoughts to the back of her head, content to not let them filter through for the moment.
When he pulled away, Amarissa felt overwhelmed. Almost dizzy, in fact. She didn't know what to do for the moment, and felt almost relieved when he spoke first. She nodded faintly, taking her hand away to run it through her own hair self-consciously.
"Yes," Amarissa said, her voice sounding off even to her own ears. "Are you going to be okay getting back?" It was a slightly ridiculous question. He only lived next door, after all, but she needed to keep talking for some reason. Maybe she was picking up some of his rambling habits.