Page 21 of Dream (Fighting Fate)

I knew my expression mirrored exactly how I was feeling. Horrified.

He laughed. “Come on. It’ll be fun. I promise I’ll look after you. I’ll be lonely if you don’t.”

Remembering his three friends that’d been out with him the day before, I knew that would be highly unlikely. I smiled. “Isn’t that the whole point? Serenity and all that crap?”

He laughed softly, the sound sending tingles over my skin. “Most of the time, but I’d really like you to come out with me. Come on, just once. I promise I’ll make it fun.”

Just the look on his face made me want to say yes, but there was no way I could remember what to do. It’d been six years, for crying out loud.

“Please?” he begged.

The puppy dog eyes did it. “That’s not fair,” I mumbled. “No one would be able to say no to you when you were looking at them like that.”

He laughed again, this time louder. “I’ll have to remember that for when I’m working.”

Intrigued, I halted my steps and studied him. “Show me some of your other expressions you use when you act.”

I watched him pause, his face in contemplation. “Okay, how’s this one?”

All of a sudden, Josh looked seriously pissed. In fact, he looked so angry, my heart immediately jumped with panic. “Okay, stop. You’re scaring me.”

Josh laughed. “What about this one, then?”

Even though I’d never seen anyone look at me the way he suddenly was, I instinctively knew the expression Josh was showing me was made of deep intimacy. The intensity of his gaze made my nerve endings spring to life. My breath started to deepen before it seemed to stick in my chest completely.

Lust poured from his eyes, and even though I knew he was just acting, I couldn’t stop my body from reacting. His gaze fell to my lips as though he wanted to kiss me, and before I could stop myself, I sucked in my bottom lip and released it in response.

Tension seemed to hang in the air between us, and just when I didn’t think I could stand it any longer, Josh smiled. “Directors love that one.”

I blinked, my mind still in a haze. What the hell? I took in a shaky breath and closed my eyes for a few heartbeats. “Yeah, I think that look was scarier than the other one . . .”

Josh’s light chuckle brought me the rest of the way out of the haze. I grinned shyly, knowing exactly what I must’ve looked like.

We continued down the beach, and when we reached the end, we climbed the rocks and continued down the next stretch of beach.

Conversation was easy. I’d never felt more relaxed with another person in all my life. In fact, I thought I’d never talked so much. He seemed to have this way of getting me to open up about things I’d never even thought to talk about before, but the look of intrigue and admiration in his eyes as I spoke confused me.

“So, you enjoy acting?” I asked, trying to take the conversation away from me for a while.

Josh nodded, his expression turning serious. “I love it.”

“Do you get a lot of work? I mean, isn’t it hard to get enough to earn a living from it?”

He sucked in a slow, deep breath. “Yeah, it can be a tough industry to crack. I don’t do too bad. Lucky, I guess.”

“That’s good. It’s kind of the same for writers, I guess—hard to make a living out of it. Maybe you can rub some of your luck off on me.” I nudged him softly with my shoulder and threw him a teasing grin as we reached the end of the beach.

He turned to face me with a slow, easy smile. “I have a feeling you’re not going to have any trouble making your own luck.”

An underlying intensity seemed to burn in his gaze as it held mine. A little of that passion he’d displayed in his acting abilities earlier stared back at me. Was he acting with me again, or was the desire I could see real? Either way, I was as helpless now as I had been when I had watched it transform him earlier.

His deep intake of air drew me out of my haze again, and I blinked to try to clear my head.

“Do you want to head back now?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. It was a lot harder to do than it should’ve been.

We walked close to each other on the way back, my shoulder almost touching his arm. Josh kept the conversation going, while my mind slowly caught up again, but it didn’t take long. Within a few minutes, we were back in a constant stream of chatter.

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