His confusion was adorable. “Why would I do that?”
Even as he spoke, his hands already found my waist, locked into the curves like they belonged there.
I grinned. “Joy, silly. People do dumb things when they’re stupid happy. If we were really in love, you’d be so overcome with it that you couldn’t help acting silly. You’d have to let it out. So you’d kiss me until we were both giddy and then you’d pick me up and swing me around until I was shrieking with happiness too. Then we’d break down in giggles together, and you’d kiss me again. And this time, you wouldn’t stop.”
Nathan took a moment to digest everything I’d said. Undoubtedly, he thought it was stupid. But his hands remained on my waist. He stared at them as if weighing his choices. Keep them there and go with the flow. Remove them and end the whole thing.
Then, before I could say another word, he lifted me as easily as any partner I’d ever trained with. My arms wound around his neck, my hands into his thick curls, while he pressed kisses into my bare neck and collarbone. I could feel his smile against my skin. Joy sprouted from deep in my gut, and I laughed with the kind of unadulterated glee I’d just described, except none of this was an act. Maybe it was the drugs, but I had a feeling I’d respond the exact same way if Nathan picked me up on a street corner.
Maybe even more if we were alone.
“Good?” Nathan asked when he finally set me down.
He was grinning so hard that his left dimple was joined with one in his right cheek, and a thin sheen of sweat had appeared over his brow. Those chocolatey eyes flashed with the delight I knew was reflected in mine, and before I could stop myself, I clasped his face between my hands and kissed him, long and hard.
For the second time that night, his lips met mine, soft yet firm, tentative yet full of impact. And then he was devouring me, growling softly while his tongue and lips and teeth explored the terrain of my mouth. His hands slipped lower, taking firm handfuls of my ass, pressing me into him, into that considerable length that still teased even through his jeans.
When we broke apart, he was sucking in harsh breaths. His eyes were almost completely black as he searched my face for something.
“Good?” he asked again.
“Very good.”
I pressed one kiss to his upper lip, then another to the bottom. He shuddered with each one, his hands gripping my skin harshly, shaking through the fabric of my dress.
“Now,” I said, just before I swiped my tongue across his lower lip. “Do it all again. And this time, don’t stop.”
FAMILIAL PATTERNS
Nathan’s lips were burning. They had been prickling for weeks, but the slow burn had intensified considerably since 9:42 p.m. last night.
It wasn’t an uncomfortable burn, like when he drank coffee too quickly or forgot to use sunscreen on a hike.
This wasn’t even a nuisance. It was pleasant, even. A frisson that tingled over his mouth during waking hours and augmented whenever he saw Joni.
Or thought about Joni.
Or more specifically, thought about Joni’s mouth.
Which happened a lot.
He was up to three showers a day.
“Nathaniel?”
It had started with kissing her in the middle of a department store. Actually, that was incorrect. It had started the first night they’d met at that damn bar, when she’d popped up on her toes to “pay him back” for his kindness with an innocent kiss to the cheek but ended up smashing her lips to his instead.
That spark had been blown into embers in her boss’s office when she’d kissed him the first time, and Nathan had all but mauled her right there on the couch.
He still couldn’t believe he’d lost control that easily.
Kindling had been added with that “practice” kiss at Bergdorf’s. Blown into a flame at dinner, where watching Joni savor ten courses worth of fine dining with those absurdly luscious lips was no better than pornography. Fanned considerably in his office last night (he’d legitimately considered fucking her on his desk even with Charlotte Mueller in the next room) and blazed into a full-blown inferno at…whatever he should call that place Joni had taken him in Brooklyn. By the end of that damn party, Nathan’s entire body felt licked by flames.
And yet he wanted to walk straight into the fire and let it consume him.
Every instance had been a taste. A step toward completing the ruse they had set up together—however oddly determined and almost certainly ill-advised it was. He still wasn’t sure why exactly he had thought it was a good idea to propose such an insane idea. But even now, in the cold light of day, with his head pounding and body aching after maybe an hour of sleep on that shitty warehouse couch, he still wouldn’t do anything differently. He only knew it was better than the alternative: Virginia. His parents.
And then, of course, there was Isla to worry about.
