“Well,” she finally said, and he couldn’t help but notice she seemed a little breathless. “Sounds like it would be quite an experience.”
He forced a quiet laugh, trying to lighten the tension. “I’d like to think so.” He pulled his knees up and extended his arms, resting his forearms there.
They didn’t speak for some time, and he wondered what memories this song conjured up for Mia. He was too chickenshit to ask that, so he asked a different question.
“Would you rather kiss me every once in a while to make sure our relationship seems believable, or find some other way to convince them?”
“Real kisses, or what you did in there?”
Real ones.“What I did in there.”
“That seems easier, don’t you think?”
“I guess.” He nudged her with his shoulder, hating how awkward he felt. “Is this too weird?”
She bumped him back and grinned. “It’s a little weird. But it’s you and me. We’ll figure it out.”
“When? It’s been more than a week.” He didn’t know which was worse—before this whole ruse, where he’d been pretending to only think of her as a friend or now, pretending to be her husband.
The only difference between the scenarios was who he was lying to.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you think...”
She trailed off, and he looked over at her. “What?”
She rubbed her hands up and down her thighs, the blue fabric of her skirt rippling under the movement. “Um, do you think maybe we should kiss again? Maybe we just need to get used to it. Make it less of an ordeal.”
He almost choked on his tongue. “Here? Now?”
“Yeah. While we’re alone. It feels so much worse with an audience, and maybe that’s the problem.”
He shook his head at the same time his heart screamed the affirmative. “I don’t think—”
“You’re always thinking,” she said, shifting to her knees. “We both are. Let’s just stop for a minute.”
She took his face in her small hands, angled his head toward her, and pressed her lips to his. Like before, her eyes were open, brown and wide and beautiful. His hands shook with the effort to keep them to himself.
“Noah,” she murmured against his mouth. “Don’t think.”
Don’t think.
He gave in to his body, allowing his arm to rise up and his fingers to slide across her cool cheek. Her eyes slid closed and a small murmur escaped her throat, and at that tiny sound his control snapped. He grabbed her by the waist and hauled her onto his lap. She let out a little yelp but kept her lips against his, settling her thighs down to frame his waist, her hands still on either side of his face.
One of his arms clamped around her back, pressing her against him, while the other slid up the back of her head, gripping her hair in a frenzy. She arched her back—fuck, he couldn’t get her close enough—and opened her mouth to him.
Deep and intense, it is.
Her tongue was in his mouth and he was completely lost. Dying and drowning in her breath, her scent, her touch. He never wanted to come up for air. Ever. Her hands were under his shirt, scorching his skin as they slid up his stomach to his chest.
He lifted his hips a little, unable to stop himself, and she pressed down against him, causing the most beautiful and painful friction. When she said his name on a breathless moan, he was seconds away from flipping her onto her back.
That’s when he came back to himself.
It took the strength of every single cell in his body to take his lips from hers. He dropped his head against the tree, anchoring himself there. Her eyes slowly opened, taking him in.
“Wow. Noah, I—”
He shook his head, his eyes dropping to her swollen lips.Dammit.