I do.
And this kiss becomes more than a kiss for the camera.
The device slips from his hands and hits the table with a thud.
In no time at all, his hands are on my face, and he’s hauling me in for a hot, hard kiss.
This kiss wastes no time. This kiss leaves no mixed signals. This isn’t a kiss for a hashtag. He’s taking it for himself.
His hands curl around my face possessively. He holds me like he doesn’t want to let go.
He kisses me fiercely. His lips are hungry, fevered, as he skates his tongue across my lips again, and then our mouths explore each other.
Not just our mouths—my hands are curious cats, slinking up his suit jacket, sliding up his pressed shirt, grabbing his tie. I yank him closer, tugging on the silk.
And he responds with a rougher kiss.
It’s no longer an exploration.
It’s a declaration.
It says, I want you, I want your lips, I want your taste, and I want to feel you, touch you, have you.
In a diner, on a Friday morning before work, we kiss like the world is going up in flames.
I’m positive that if I were to see someone going at it like we are, I’d watch.
Oh, hell would I watch.
Because kisses like this don’t come around often.
I’ve never had one like it in my life, and I don’t have a clue what it means, or where we go after.
Someone coughs, and we break the kiss as the waitress passes us.
I blink, breathing out hard like I’ve run a race.
He looks at me the same damn way.
He swallows, trying to collect himself, his voice hoarse. “So, yeah. Looks like we got that one. You want to post it?”
I don’t know how he’s speaking. I don’t know how anyone can speak after being kissed senseless by her best friend.
But he’s doing it, so I follow his lead. “Yes. Sure. Of course. Do you want me to say anything special?”
He waves a hand. “Oh, you’re great with that stuff.” He looks at his watch. “I have a meeting. I should go.”
He’s leaving? Just leaving? Though he did say he had a meeting. Still . . .
I furrow my brow. “Oliver?”
He scoots away, grabbing his phone and tossing bills on the table. “Yes?”
But the look in his eyes is nothing I’ve seen before. It’s distant and masked.
Actually, I have seen that look before. It’s how he looked for months after his sister died.
My chest hurts. It aches terribly.
He regrets kissing me, while I regret stopping the kiss.
I try to draw a big, fueling breath, like it can reroute the pang in my chest. I purse my lips. Then, against the tightness in my throat, I manage to say, “I’ll meet you at the jeweler. Before the hockey game?”
“That’d be perfect.”
He turns and leaves me and my bruised lips and heart at the table.
21OLIVER
Blinders come in handy.
I put mine on all day, zeroing in on the contract work ahead of me for Geneva’s firm, then on the deal memo for my new client, Helen Williams Designs.
I focus on that rather than on how utterly fucking complicated this fake fiancée gambit has become after this morning’s kiss.
I have half a mind to call it off. Because how the hell am I supposed to spend time with her and pretend I don’t want to kiss her again?
It’s all I want to do.
