Page 21 of Endurance
“Of course you meant it!” I rip my arms out of his grasp, not giving a shit that I’m shouting. “I make you miserable. Your words were very clear. Feeling’s mutual, arsehole.”
I turn to walk away, but his rough hand gently cups my cheek, giving me pause. His other hand reaches up to embrace the other side of my face so he can force my gaze to his. His face is dangerously close to mine as he speaks. “It’s not you that makes me miserable. It’s this scenario. You can’t be happy with this either.”
“God, no!” I exclaim. “I don’t want to be here anymore than you do, but here we are. You need to commit to this, Tanner.”
The crowd feels as if they are slowly closing in around us. He swallows hard, looking like he wants to argue but knowing he needs to watch what he says so they don’t overhear. It annoys me. His weakness burns the very fibre of my being.
“Be a man for once in your life!” I snap. “Take responsibility and own this. The veryleastyou can do is be a fucking gentleman. I know it’s a completely foreign concept to you and not one the Harris Hoes ever expect, but—”
Kiss.
He’s kissing me.
He’s pressing me up against the brick wall and he’s kissing me as if his life depends on it.
Perhaps in this case, it does.
But it catches me off guard. My stony lips reflexively soften as he tilts his head and increases the pressure on the inside of my mouth…with his tongue.
His tongue!
The cheeky bastard is completely out of control, and I’m still so mad at him. My adrenaline is still high, my rage still so acute. So I decide to fight fire with fire.
I bite down.
He lets out an audible growl against my lips and his tongue retracts, giving me room to sink my teeth down onto his pouty, smouldering, annoying as fuck, lower lip. This elicits a different reaction than I expected. He releases my face and lowers his hands to my waist, pulling my hips into his. His body is rock hard against mine as he pushes us both further into the bricks.
Further into this madness.
My hands reach up and comb through the damp beard on his jaw, tugging softly and relishing in the coarse texture of it on my fingertips, lips, and chin. The messiness, the burn, the wild, beast-like feeling of him is intoxicating.
This foolishness has to stop.
I’m kissing Tanner Harris in a busy London alley with people snapping pictures all around us. And the way he rolls his hips into mine makes everything in my body quiver with need.
I need to get a hold of this situation.
Finally, I find myself again, no longer lost in his touch and his kiss. I pull back, breathing heavily on his lips. “What the fuck was that?” I pant.
The side of his mouth curls up. “Sorry, I’ve never been much of a gentleman.”
I grab Belle’s hand and pull her through the crowd of people flocking around us. As we make our way back toward the restaurant, I’m praying like fuck that our seats haven’t been filled yet. If they have, I’ll wait. I’m starving and that starter I had of Belle’s fucking lips did nothing to satisfy my appetite.
If anything, it made me hungrier.
What started as a simple solution—kiss her and make it look like a lover’s quarrel—quickly ramped up into,Holy shit, I need to be inside this woman right now. Sod all these prats watching us.
This situation with Belle is going to get very complicated very fast. I haven’t forgotten all the reasons I didn’t kiss her three months ago. But the fact that we’re being forced together for the next few weeks seems to overrule all those reasons.
Doesn’t it?
Even if it doesn’t, Belle certainly isn’t too keen on turning this fake dating into a friends with benefits scenario, which would suit me a lot better. So if monogamy is what will be required of me, I’m going to become very well acquainted with my hand over the next month.
I find our seats waiting for us when we get back inside and do my best to ignore all the people gawking at us. Belle did just throw a glass of red wine in my face, so I’d probably be staring, too. I zip up my jacket to hide the evidence of her outburst on my T-shirt. Then, when the waitress comes over, I tell her to bring us a variety of whatever she recommends.
“I hope that’s all right,” I say, feeling tense and introspective and glancing awkwardly at Belle.
She nods woodenly, and I just now notice that her dark lipstick is smeared on her face.
