Page 21 of Fake It Til You Break It

“Jazz, take off your shirt.”

“Youtake offyourshirt,” he countered with all the maturity of a preschooler.

Hmm, I liked this. I liked him flustered and a little off-balance. I didn’t want to push him too far, but if he still had some fight in him, we hadn’t reached the edge of no-return yet.

“Fine.” Putting the paint supplies down on the table, I grabbed the collar of my basic black tee at the nape and tugged it off over my head. “Better?” I asked, tossing it at him. “Happy now?”

He caught the shirt, his fingers digging into the material as his gaze raked me from shoulders to hips. “Very.”

He spoke softly, dazedly, as if that single word had escaped without his permission. Which, honestly, made it even better.

“Your turn.”

When he still hesitated, his eyes darting around the room like a scared rabbit, I decided maybe this was too big of an ask. I wanted him to have fun, not burst into flames.

“It’s fine.” I reached for the paint again. “Let’s just do your face.”

I had been prepared for relief. Maybe a hint of guilt. I had not, however, expected defiance. Dropping my shirt to the floor, he stripped his own top off and added it to the pile, holding eye contact the entire time.

And suddenly, I was the one who needed a reminder to breathe. Not only had I seen what spontaneous combustion looked like, but now, I had firsthand experience of how it felt.

The temperature rose at least ten degrees, and perspiration beaded across my brow. Tracing the lean lines of his torso with my gaze, my mouth turned arid and sticky. Hard and compact, his stomach flexed, the lights casting shadows across the grooves of his abs, causing every hard brick of muscle to stand out in sharp relief.

My nostrils flared as I struggled to pull in enough oxygen without making it obvious, but there was no hiding the rigid line behind the zipper of my jeans.

“Well?” he asked, though some of his bravado had faded now. “Are you going to paint me or what?”

I started at his collarbones, keeping every stroke light and teasing as I dragged the brush over his chest and down his abdomen. This close, I couldn’t miss the way he trembled, or the way his breath caught as I moved around him.

After adding a few stripes of paint to his shoulders and back, I put the brush aside and dipped two fingers into the tub. Then I swiped them across his cheeks and along his jawline, hoping he’d feel more confident with a mask on, even a temporary one.

“There. Now you look the part.”

He stared down at the colorful marks for a long time before nodding.

“Okay, your turn,” he said, echoing my earlier words as he reached for the art supplies. “Hmm, what to do?”

He circled me, eyeing me like a rough canvas. When he came to a stop at my back, I expected to feel the wet bristles of a brush. Instead, his hands pressed against my skin, cold from the paint, but that did nothing to lower my internal temperature.

Over and over, he painted his palm, then pressed it to my body, covering my torso in a kaleidoscope of neon handprints. When I thought he had finished, he stepped in front of me and left one more mark, right over my cheek.

“That’s better,” he announced before returning the materials to the table. “Much better.”

Maybe I was reading too much into it, but something told me this hadn’t been a simple art project. Hell, I wouldn’t even call it foreplay. It felt like I had just been claimed.

“What do you want to do now, Mr. Shaw?”

I don’t know why I liked it so much when he called me that. Honestly, it should have felt distancing and impersonal, and as such, annoyed me. Not the way Jasper said it, though. Not the way his lips wrapped around it like an embrace.

Grabbing two shot glasses of neon blue liquid from the tray of a passing server, I handed one to Jasper while I tossed back the other one. Vodka. And not even the good stuff.

“Don’t drink that.”

I tried to take the plastic cup from him, but he stepped out of reach and downed the contents. Then…instant regret. His lips pulled back, his eyes squeezed closed, and he gave a full body shudder.

“I warned you.” But I still winced in sympathy. “Ready?”

“For what?”

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