I don’t know when it happened. Somewhere between the sarcasm and the stolen kisses, this thing stopped being fun and started feeling like everything. The words claw at the back of my throat. They terrify me. But they won’t stay down.
“I’m so gone for you,” I tell her, the words torn from somewhere deep in my chest. “I’ve fallen so fucking hard it scares me.”
Her eyes go wide and she cups my face in her hands. “Ryan…”
“I know it’s crazy. I know there are a million reasons why this won’t work. But I can’t stop it.”
“I’m falling for you, too,” she whispers, and the admission sounds like it costs her something. “I tried not to, but I can’t help it.”
The confession breaks something open in my chest. I kiss her harder, moving faster, losing myself in the heat and tightness of her body.
“You’re mine,” I growl against her throat. “Say it.”
“I’m yours,” she gasps. “God, Ryan, I’m yours.”
When she comes apart beneath me, it’s with my name on her lips and her nails digging into my shoulders. I follow her over the edge, burying my face in her neck as the orgasm rips through me.
We lie tangled together afterward, hearts racing, skin damp with sweat. I trace lazy patterns on her back while she presses soft kisses to my chest.
“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” she says quietly.
“Deep trouble.”
“I should probably care more about that.”
“Probably.”
She lifts her head to look at me. “Do you regret it?”
“Not a single second.”
“Even when Jay finds out and murders you in your sleep?”
“Especially then.”
She laughs. Really laughs. For the first time all day. “You’re insane.”
“About you? Hopelessly.”
We stay like that for as long as we dare, wrapped up in each other and pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist. But eventually, reality intrudes, and we have to get dressed and sneak back to our separate rooms and pretend like nothing happened.
“Same time tomorrow?” I ask as she’s fixing her hair in the small mirror.
“You wish.”
But she’s smiling when she says it. I take that as a yes.
I want to say yes. Hell yes. But part of me is already counting the cracks in the walls we just built this on. How long before it all comes down?
thirty-seven
WREN
It’stwo days later and I’m stuck in a loop of Ryan admitting,I’m so gone for you. The words play over and over in my head, piling up till there isn’t room for anything else. I sit stiffly on the couch, my hands clasped so tightly in my lap that my knuckles are white. The other contestants are chattering around me, but their voices sound muffled, like I’m underwater.
The host walks in with that megawatt smile that always means trouble. He’s wearing a suit that probably costs more than my rent. His teeth are so white they could blind someone.
“Ladies,” he announces, clapping his hands together. “Tonight, we have a twist.”
