“I said be careful what you wish for, Harlow.”
“Why?” I throw my hands up in defeat and frustration, realizing this conversation isn’t going anywhere.
“Because that guy . . .” he says as his hand reaches out, finger tracing the line of my jaw as my breath catches and burns in my lungs. “That guy would walk up to you and do this.”
And before I can think to breathe, he steps into me and brushes his lips against mine. Once. Twice. My lips part. They grant him access so the third time he slips his tongue between them and lights every part of me on fire.
I hesitate and question but before I can even pause, he changes the angle of the kiss and begins all over again. Soft lips. Rough stubble. Warm tongue. Restrained groans.
Desire.
Something I don’t want to feel.
I lie.
I want to feel it. I want to give in to it.
But not with him. Not this way. Not . . .
Good God the man drags me under with him. In this garden full of fairy lights and dark shadows there’s an underlying hint of restraint beneath his kiss that thrills and warns and hints at what else he wants.
When he breaks it off . . .
This is just an act.
When he steps back and rubs a thumb over my bottom lip as if to let me know, yes that was real. The lips that just drugged me turn up into a roguish smirk, and the wicked gleam in his eyes both scares me and thrills me.
“And that’s not even the half of what that guy you want would do with you . . .” He whispers as he steps back, his hands on my face holding it still, when he glances to the doorway at my back and says a single word. “Finlay.”
Still flustered from the kiss it takes me a second to register what he just said. The name of the guy hitting on me inside. But when I glance over my shoulder, there’s no one there.
Was Finlay there? Watching? Or was this just Zane’s way of staking some kind of invisible claim on me in a ruse that’s getting more confusing by the second, more impossible to separate what is real and what is fake.
He retreats another step, all touch now removed.
“Finlay?” I ask when my thoughts align, only to get a subtle shake of Zane’s head in response. “That’s what this was all about? You want to make sure to get in there and stake your claim before some guy you obviously hate does? You don’t want me but that means no one else can have me either? How dare you.”
My heart races out of control and that small part of me that thought he really meant the kiss—the one I keep telling myself I didn’t want because I won’t be his game to play—deflates a little.
“You’re out of line, Harlow.”
My laugh echoes off the concrete walls around us. “Out of line? First off, you don’t get to tell me how to feel and second? I’m not some trophy, and I sure as hell won’t be yours.”
“For now you are, in the eyes of the world anyway.” His lips purse, and his eyes pin me motionless.
“That’s your fault.”
“We both wanted something from the other. We’re getting it. Like I said, don’t mistake reality with pretend . . . and sure as hell don’t mistake the guy you want with the man I am.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Be careful what you wish for, Harlow.”
He retreats another step, our gazes still held, before he nods and then walks away without another word.
A thing I’m starting to get used to him doing.
His way of getting in the last word.
Confusion reigns. What in the hell did I get myself into?
And much later when I’m lying in bed alone, staring at the ceiling, my mind turning endlessly, I hear the clank of feet on the steps. I feel the dip of the tour bus as he climbs the stairs. A few words are exchanged with Mick who’s been waiting for Zane’s return so we can move on to the next city. The next episode of How Confused Can We Make Harlow.
With my eyes closed, I trace Zane’s movements by the sounds he makes, my body never more aware of him than now. The snap of his phone being plugged into the charger. The click of the bedroom door. His sigh as he stands at the foot of the bed. I don’t look but I know he’s staring at me.
I can feel it. In the heaviness of the energy around me. In the chills that suddenly race over my skin. In the slow, sweet ache that burns between my thighs.
My body is betraying me. It’s wanting something I can’t have. Something that would only serve to complicate matters when they already seem complicated enough.
And yet I can feel his stare. I can taste his kiss. I can hear the words he said repeated in my own mind.
The problem is, he’s right.
Women fall in love with words.
In stupid words like mulligan. How can that word have a trace of romanticism in it? It doesn’t, but he said it and I partially swooned at the meaning behind it—at what I inferred by it and how I . . . shit, I’m proving his point for him and he’s not even having to defend it.
He shifts. The bathroom door shuts. The shower turns on.