Page 42 of The Fake Out

“Like I said on the phone, I’ll believe it when I see it. It’s pretty pathetic. Humorous, really.” He smiled a condescending smile, and something inside me snapped.

“Right.” Without another word, I turned on my heel and stomped across the room, rage fueling every step.

Emerson watched me carefully as I came closer, his expression open, but a hair of confusions in his brow.

Jake needed proof? Then I’d give it to him. Without slowing down or allowing myself another thought about it. I stepped up to Emerson, grabbed the sides of his face, and pressed my lips to his.

The second his warm lips pressed into mine, every cell inside me shifted.

He sucked in a breath, clearly shocked. I couldn’t blame him. I was shocked too. But surprise fled quickly, and then he brought a gentle hand to my cheek and opened his mouth against mine. In the next heartbeat, he took control of the kiss, running his tongue along the seam of my lips and guiding me to open.

Without hesitation, I did. With a sigh, I let him explore every inch of mouth and dominate my tongue.

I melted against him, my knees going weak. Holy hell. The man could kiss.

It was more than I expected. More than I’d ever felt. Need flooded my body and settled deep in my core.

With that same hand, he ghosted over my rib cage, then my waist. His fingers barely pressed against the fabric of my dress, but I shivered in response anyway. In a quick move, he snaked an arm around me and pulled me tight to him.

There was no denying how turned on he was. Not with the way his erection pressed long and hard into my hip. My immediate reaction was a gasp, but that quickly faded into a whimper as a fierce need to feel him filling me up pounded through me. I never wanted this moment to end. But he had other ideas. After one more slow exploration, he slipped his tongue out of my mouth.

I pulled back, though I remained pressed tight against his hard body, staring into the fathomless depths of those emerald eyes, where I swore I found a desperate need that matched my own. For one second, I wanted to lean back in. Take more from this man. But in a blink, reality set in.

This wasn’t real.

Even so, that kiss might have been the realest thing I’d ever experienced. I was in so much trouble.

I fought the need to lean back in and claim her mouth again. I hadn’t gotten anywhere near enough of the unbelievably sexy woman in front of me. As I continued battling with myself, she grabbed my arm and yanked me toward the dance floor. For the last twenty minutes or so, a DJ had been playing music, and a few couples speckled the temporary wooden surface.

“Don’t you dare turn back,” she muttered, her nails biting into my arm as she dragged me behind her. The woman had to realize everyone we knew was wondering what was going on. Especially her brother.

But even though I could feel the scrutiny of my friends and teammates, I couldn’t pull my eyes from the sway of her full hips in the tight red dress as she stomped to the dance floor. I was mesmerized. All I could do was follow. Damn, I wanted to smack her ass. Pat it. Squeeze it. Touch it. Hell, pet it. I wasn’t picky. If it meant my hand got to be on those round globes of perfection, then I was game.

“Emerson,” she snapped.

I swallowed and willed my head to get back in the game. Trying to control the hard-on raging in my pants. Trying to hide the evidence of how this woman made me feel from the people around us. I’d gone from nervous as hell, to trying my best to make it work, to confused, to turned the fuck on. But there was a truth I couldn’t deny.

“The guys are gonna ask a lot of fucking questions, Gi.” Because it was not normally my style to attack my date’s mouth at the table. Especially when she was my best friend’s sister.

I winced at the realization. But as I sucked in my bottom lip, I could still taste her, and I couldn’t muster any regret.

That kiss might have actually shut my brain off completely. All my life, my thoughts had moved quickly. Sometimes too quickly. But for that ten seconds or ten minutes or whatever length of time her plush lips had been pressed against mine—existing in a vacuum where time didn’t exist—I didn’t think.

“What do you mean?” Just as we stepped onto the wooden dance floor, she whirled on me. “We’re supposed to be fake dating, so why can’t I fake kiss you?”

Chest tightening, I watched her, taking in that gorgeous mouth. “Nothing about that kiss was fake, and don’t try to bullshit me into thinking you believe any different.”

As I said the words, I expected her to put up a fight. But as those fierce brown eyes swimming with desire met mine, my heart leaped. It was impossible to sum up what made everything, including Gianna’s bad attitude, so attractive, but it was starting to feel dumb to fight it. Apart from the complications—her ultimately living in New York, my best friend probably killing me, the impending loss of my job and any means to support anyone in a few months—maybe, just maybe, she was meant for me.

She huffed a hard breath, but instead of fighting, she shocked the hell out of me by wrapping her arms around my neck. “Shut up and dance with me.”

“Gladly.” Slipping my hands along her hips, I pulled her close and crossed my wrists just above her ass.

She hard-core fought against the shiver that the brush of my fingertips against the curve of her ass caused, making it hard not to grin.

“Are we going to pretend that was fake too?”

“I hate you,” she muttered.

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