Page 92 of Single Dad's Fake Bride
The question seemed to deflate her. She sank back onto the bed. "I don't know anymore. I used to know exactly. Stability. Security. My mother safe and healthy."
"You can still have those things."
"Can I? Right now, I feel anything but secure. I feel dependent and trapped and…" She looked up with eyes too bright. "And I feel things I'm not supposed to feel."
My chest tightened. "What kind of things?"
"Things that make this arrangement more complicated than it should be."
I moved toward her slowly. "Sadie."
"Don't." She held up a hand. "Don't make this harder."
"Make what harder?"
"This." She gestured between us. "Whatever this is. It's not real, Harrison. It can't be real."
I sat beside her and tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away.
"You don't know what you want," she whispered. "This situation—the pressure, the stress—it's making you think you feel things that aren't really there."
"You're wrong."
I reached out and traced the line of her jaw with my fingertips. She shivered but didn't pull away.
"I watch you with Eloise," I said quietly. "I watch you care for your mother even when she's difficult. I watch you handle everything thrown at you with grace and strength. And I think about how empty this house was before you were in it."
"Harrison—"
"I think about the way you hum while making breakfast. The way you leave notes in Eloise's lunch. The way you curl up in that corner of the couch with your tea and books."
Her eyes were wide now, lips slightly parted. "Stop."
"Why?"
"Because you're making this about emotions when it's supposed to be about business."
"What if I want it to be about emotions?"
She shook her head. "You don't. You can't."
I leaned closer, close enough that our foreheads almost touched. "Tell me you don't feel anything. Tell me this is still just an arrangement."
For a long moment, she didn't speak. I could hear her breathing grow shallow. "I can't," she whispered finally.
"Then stop trying to talk yourself out of this."
The space between us disappeared. I wasn't sure who moved first, but suddenly, her mouth was on mine and all the careful distance we'd been maintaining shattered.
The kiss was desperate, hungry, full of all the frustration and longing we'd been pretending didn't exist. Her hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer.
Her mouth opened under mine, heat and breath tangling until I couldn’t tell where I ended and she began. I pushed her back onto the mattress, bracing a hand beside her head. The cotton of her pajamas was soft beneath my fingers, but it hid too much. I wanted her skin.
She made a sound when I slid my palm up her side, catching the hem of her top and tugging it over her head. Her hair spilled across the pillow, cheeks flushed, chest rising fast. I bent to taste the skin I’d been aching for all week, my mouth tracing the curve of her collarbone before closing around her nipple. She arched into me, fingers tangling in my hair.
“Harrison…” It was almost a warning, but the way her thighs shifted told me she wasn’t going to stop this.
I covered her with my body, my hand slipping under the waistband of her pajama pants. The heat between her legs hit me like a jolt. I pushed the fabric down, dragging her panties with it, until she kicked free and lay bare beneath me. My fingers slid over her, finding her already wet, and I swallowed the groan that rose in my throat.
