Page 43 of Strictly Pretend

“When you’re being nice to me.”

This time when he laughs, he takes my hand in his again.

“I can be so nice to you, you won’t believe it,” he tells me, his thumb making those soft circles again. A weird tingle snakes down my spine.

“I’ll believe it.” My voice is so throaty I sound like I have the flu.

He lifts my hand up to his lips, kisses the inside of my wrist and those tingles go haywire. Dear God are my nipples getting hard?

From one wrist kiss? Goddamn it. I need to focus here. This is all pretend. He’s only doing this for one reason. Because he wants us to move out of our shop and into some sanitized unit across town.

It’s business. He’s not into me, and I shouldn’t be into him.

I just need to remind my much-neglected libido about that.

BROOKS

“So hear me out,” I say to Emma when we pull up outside her apartment building after I drive her home from the restaurant. It took five minutes of heated discussions before she even let me drive her home.

“I’m listening,” Emma says, turning to look at me. I switch off the ignition and suddenly the atmosphere changes. Her blue eyes are on me, and there’s that little dip between her brow again, the one that appears whenever she’s thinking too hard.

And this womanalwaysthinks too hard.

“We need to kiss.”

She blinks. “We do?”

“Yes.” It’s not even a ruse. I don’t want to be saying this to her, but if we’re going to make this wedding work, the woman needs to touch me without looking like she wants to tear her hair out. “You flinched when I kissed your wrist.”

“I wasn’t expecting it,” she protests. “You took me by surprise.”

“Yeah, but if we’re in a relationship every touch should be a pleasurable surprise,” I point out. “It shouldn’t make you look like you want to rip my balls off.”

Her gaze dips to my lap and back up again. “I don’t want to rip your balls off. I just… I’m not always good with touching.”

“Then you need to get good with it. Fast.” I glance at her lips. “We’ve kissed before. It shouldn’t be too different.”

“We’d been drinking whiskey then,” she pointed out. “A lot.”

I try not to take offense. “You’ve been drinking champagne tonight.”

“You haven’t.”

My lips twitch. “I think I can work through the pain of it with no alcohol.”

Emma frowns. “Well that’s rude. Why would I want to kiss you when you’re being like this?”

“Because we’re playing pretend,” I remind her. “If we’re doing this at the wedding I’m going to touch you. I’m going to kiss you.” I reach out to tip her chin up with my forefinger until she can’t help but look at me. And there’s that vulnerability again. She tries so hard to hide it, but I can see it.

And I’m not sure why it’s such a turn on, but it is. Like an angry lioness turning coy just for me.

“Without my consent?” she asks.

“Never without that. So I’m asking you now. Do you give me your consent for me to touch you?”

She swallows hard. “You already are.”

“You know what I mean,” I say, slowly removing my hand from her face. “If you say yes, it’s on. I touch you when I want. How I want.”

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