Page 48 of Goal Line
I didn’t want to push this last night on the plane, but it bears repeating. “Yeah, you did. Honestly, Eva, you’re going to have to get comfortable with me touching you and kissing you in front of other people. Otherwise, no one is going to believe that we’re in love.”
“Maybe...” She pauses, sinking her teeth into her full lower lip again. I can’t take my eyes off her mouth. All I want to do is lean in and kiss her.
When my eyes flick up to meet hers, the worried look on her face has me wondering what she’s thinking, and what she was going to say. I’m about to ask if she’s worried that we can’t sell this, but then she says, “Maybe we should send our parents that message and prepare ourselves for the fallout.”
Chapter Twenty
EVA
“You know,” Luke says as he holds out his hand and pulls me up from my seat. I come to a stand directly in front of him. “This feels like the perfect place to practice acting like a newlywed couple who can’t keep their hands off each other.”
My breath hitches as my gaze flits around the patio of my favorite Mexican restaurant. The high stucco walls around the perimeter are covered in flowering vines, and wooden tables dot the brick patio beneath string lights. The setting is perfect, except all around us, people are eating their meals.
“I don’t think that the middle of a restaurant, out in the open like this, is the right place,” I say with nervous laughter. Plus, I’m pretty sure my enchilada breath means it’s notthe perfect time, either.
Though when, exactly,wouldbethe perfect time to practice?At least here, I won’t try to take it any further like I almost did in that chapel in Vegas.
His throat bobs with a deep swallow, then he tilts his chin and looks at me. “You’re probably right.” Still holding my hand, he leads me to the restaurant’s exit.
Regret flows through me at the missed opportunity, even though the rational part of me knows that kissing him—any more than completely necessary—is a bad idea. Still, I follow behind him, wondering if I can somehow take him up on his offer without coming across as clingy or desperate. I want to feel those lips on mine again, so much so that the physical yearning overwhelms me.
I don’t know if these feelings are a result of lying next to him in bed this morning and pretending like I felt nothing, then trying to quell our anxiety about our parents’ reaction by putting our phones onDo Not Disturbwhile packing up half my apartment? Or is it the way we’ve been sharing my small studio space all day, constantly bumping into each other while trying not to get too close?
Simplyexistingnext to him now fills me with a nervous energy I haven’t felt around him in a decade. My longing and desire have reached new heights, and I’m starting to ask myself stupid questions like: what’s the point of being married to him if I can’t kiss him whenever I want to?
Because you’re protecting yourself from getting your heart broken,I remind myself. Having that physical connection would make it too easy to convince myself that there were real feelings involved.
But that level of practical reasoning is at war with my desire. When he places his hand on my lower back, and his fingers make contact with the exposed skin between mywaistband and the tie across my mid back, electricity shoots up my spine. That feeling should be a warning, but instead, it’s a flame that lights an inferno.
“Maybe you’re right,” I say, turning as he guides me onto the sidewalk outside the restaurant. “Maybe we do need to practice...so we’ll know how to keep up appearances?”
“Are you asking me, or telling me?” A slow smile spreads across his beautiful face, and I should take it as another warning—he’s toying with me. I know it, and he knows it, which means he knows that I want him more than I’m letting on.
Shit.I’ve worked too damn hard over the years to hide my attraction to him, and here I am, acting all needy.Don’t risk a lifelong friendship for another kiss.
As if he’s following my thoughts and sees me starting to spiral, he wraps his hand around the back of my neck and pulls me toward him, gently but with determination. He dips his face toward mine and traces the line of my cheekbone with the bridge of his nose, until his lips are right at my ear.
“We wouldn’t want to be unprepared, would we, Evie?”
I swear I could melt from his voice alone. As if he knows he needs to hold me up, his other arm wraps around my hips, anchoring me to him.
“We wouldn’t.” I barely squeak out the words because, with him this close, I’ve suddenly forgotten how to breathe.
“That’s my girl,” he says, pulling back just enough to look at me. His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip before he pulls it between his teeth, and the longer he looks at me, the darker his eyes become and the heavier his breathing grows.
For our entire lives, I would’ve described Luke as a nice guy.But absolutely nothing about him looksniceright now—he looks like he can’t wait to devour me. And as his face descends toward mine, something akin to a strangled moan escapes the back of my throat.
Then his lips are on mine and his tongue is invading my mouth, and I push up on my tiptoes to meet him. His palm is cupping my ass and my arms wrap around his neck. If I wasn’t still the tiniest bit aware of our surroundings, I’d lift my legs and wrap them around his hips because my core is positively aching for contact. I need that friction...I needhim.
He threads his fingers into my hair, cupping the back of my head as he owns my mouth with his tongue. And then some guy says, “Get a room!” as he walks around us entwined on the sidewalk.
Luke pulls back, both of us locking eyes as we stand there, practically panting. And then he tips his head to press a light kiss on my forehead. “I think we’ve got strangers fooled,” he says with a subtle laugh. “Maybe with a little more practice, we’ll be able to convince our families, too.”
“The fuck?” Luke’s voice comes from somewhere in my dark apartment.
I reach over and tap my phone screen to discover that it’s four in the morning. And since I had lain awake for hours, replaying the kiss in my head while convincing myself not to get up and go to Luke, where he was sleeping on the new air mattress, I’ve probably only gotten two hours of sleep at this point.
It sounds like he’s moving furniture. I scoot to the end ofmy bed and don’t see him anywhere obvious. But when I look to the right, I see him moving some of the boxes we packed up earlier and stacked against the wall next to my kitchen table. What the hell is he doing?
