Chapter 8 #2
Well, he wasn’t the only one who could play games. If he thought I’d just melt into him like some swooning damsel, he had another thing coming.
I leaned in like I was sharing something precious, speaking low so only he could hear me. “Your smile looks like you’re being held at gunpoint.”
We laughed together, perfectly synchronized.
“Your laugh sounds like a car alarm,” he whispered back.
“Your cologne smells like a midlife crisis.”
His thumb traced circles on my hand … intimate for our audience, but I felt the pressure increase slightly. “And your perfume smells like desperation.”
“At least I don’t reek of commitment phobia and hair mousse.”
“The hair mousse is organic,” he murmured tenderly, gazing into my eyes.
“So is compost.”
He pulled me closer, his voice warm for show. “Your acting is almost convincing. Did you practice in the mirror?”
“Not as much as you practiced your devoted-boyfriend face. Though I’d work on the eye twitch. It’s giving more medical emergency than madly in love.”
“That’s just my natural reaction to being near you,” he quipped.
“It’s actually impressive how delusional you are about your appeal.”
“The only delusion here is you thinking that dress makes you look innocent.”
“Better than looking like I just stepped out of a cologne commercial no one asked for.”
“And yet you can’t stop staring.”
I cooed sweetly, bringing his hand to my cheek like it was precious, “Your eyes have been glued to my cleavage since we arrived, but sure, I’m the one staring.”
He drew in a slow breath through his nose, nostrils flaring. Score one for Dakota.
We gazed at each other with practiced adoration that hid mutual fantasies of attempted murder.
The waiter appeared with our salads, and Axel transitioned smoothly into more public conversation, but his eyes promised our banter wasn’t over.
For now, we kept up the dual conversation: sweet words for our audience, cutting remarks for each other. It was almost fun, in a twisted way. Like we’d found the one thing we were actually good at together: mutually assured destruction with a smile.
When our entrées arrived, I cut into my steak and tried not to let my disappointment show.
“How is it?” Axel asked, his boyfriend voice back in place.
“It looks delicious.” If you were a vampire.
His attention snapped to my plate, and something shifted in his expression. The playful antagonism vanished, replaced by genuine concern. “You ordered it well done.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not.” He raised his hand for the waiter, voice firm. “She ordered this well done. This is medium rare.”
“It’s really not a problem.”
“Undercooked meat makes you nauseous.”
I blinked, genuinely surprised. That detail came from years ago—before Knox’s arrest, when I’d gagged at a pink burger at some summer barbecue. The fact that Axel remembered such an insignificant thing about me was more disorienting than anything else that had happened tonight.
He doesn’t need that detail for our charade. The influencers can’t possibly know my meat preferences.
So, why did he do it?
The waiter apologized profusely and whisked my plate away, leaving me staring at Axel with something that felt unexpectedly close to softness.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. Because, hello, I wasn’t a total bitch. I could thank him and hate him. Multitasking was my specialty.
Something vulnerable flickered across his features before he looked away. “Don’t mention it.”
The wall between us cracked, just slightly, and suddenly, I didn’t have another cutting remark ready. Not when the energy had shifted into something uncertain.
When my correctly cooked steak returned, we fell into a different kind of silence. Not hostile, but hyperaware. Of every glance, every accidental brush of hands, every breath.
After, dessert arrived with a decadent chocolate creation that looked sinful, and when I took a bite, a small moan escaped before I could stop it.
Heat flooded my cheeks. God, did I really just…
Axel’s entire body went still at the sound. His fork actually stopped midway to his mouth, hovering there like he’d forgotten how eating worked.
I caught a drop of chocolate sauce on my finger, and for a split second I wanted to disappear into the floor. But then I saw how he was looking at me—frozen, transfixed—and something shifted. If one accidental sound had done that to him …
A thrill ran through me. The embarrassment transformed into something else entirely, something that made me feel bold. Dangerous, even.
I slowly brought my finger to my mouth, reminding myself that the faster I sold this charade, the faster I could escape. Get away from whatever this was… this heat coiling in my stomach that had nothing to do with hatred and everything to do with the way he was watching me.
My tongue darted out to clean the chocolate off. Deliberately. Seductively.
Those eyes fixed on my lips. He didn’t blink. Not once. An eternity passed between us, suspended in chocolate and heat and this dangerous game I was suddenly winning.
I licked another drop from my bottom lip, slow enough to watch his pupils dilate, to see his chest forget to rise and fall.
He wasn’t breathing. I’d actually made Axel forget to breathe.
The smart thing would be to stop here. Pull back. I’d already sold the performance.
But something reckless unfurled in my chest. A need to see how far I could push this, to know what would happen if I shattered that legendary control completely. For the act, I lied to myself, even as fire burned low in my belly. I'm supposed to be his girlfriend. This is what couples do.
I dipped my finger into the chocolate sauce again, but this time I leaned closer, extending it toward his mouth. “Want a taste?”
He hesitated—because of course he did—but the show must go on.
When he leaned forward, I let my fingers linger at his lips, wiping away the chocolate with a touch that lasted a heartbeat too long. His lips were impossibly soft. Warm. The slight dampness of his breath ghosted across my fingertips, and when his mouth parted, I felt the heat of him.
I should have pulled back.
But his fingers had already closed around my wrist. Firm and inescapable. Those dark eyes locked onto mine with something that might have been a warning. Or a promise.
He wrapped his lips around my finger and dragged his tongue along my skin, cleaning the chocolate with devastating, methodical precision.
Holy. Freaking. Shit.
The sensation shot straight through my core. My breath caught audibly, and from the dark satisfaction in his eyes, he knew exactly what he’d done to me. The bastard had just weaponized dessert.
“Delicious,” he murmured, releasing my finger.
My thighs clenched.
Our chests rose and fell in perfect synchronization while the space between us thrummed with unspoken desire we were both pretending didn’t exist.
Sell this faster. Escape him faster.
The mantra repeated in my head, but my body wasn’t listening to logic anymore. My body had apparently decided to stage a coup against my brain.
“We should really sell this,” I heard myself whisper, and somehow, my hand was sliding under the table, landing on his knee. For show. Totally just for show.
His eyes flashed. “Should we?”
“Rebecca said to make it believable.” My fingers trailed higher, along the inside of his thigh. “The influencers need to see we can’t keep our hands off each other.”
His hand shot down to grab my wrist, but he didn’t push me away. Didn’t stop my upward progress. “Dakota.”
“What?” I let my other hand rest on his chest, leaning in close so anyone watching would see intimacy. “Isn’t this what we’re supposed to do?”
“You’re playing with fire, Sunshine.”
My hand inched higher, and when I felt the hard evidence of his arousal pressed against his fabric, I kept my hand on the outskirts. Careful not to disrespect him in that way, but, man, the primal satisfaction of realizing what I was doing to him flooded through me.
I was affecting Axel Pierce. Mr. Unflappable. Mr. I Don’t Do Feelings. And it was intoxicating.
Maybe some part of me wanted to see him unravel. Wanted to know I could affect him the way he affected me.
When I nuzzled his neck, letting my lips brush the sensitive spot below his ear, a low growl rumbled in his chest.
“You’d better stop, Sunshine,” he warned. But his free hand cupped the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair possessively.
“Is that what you really want?” I challenged, voice barely a whisper.
“Yes,” he claimed, but he looked like he wanted to unzip his pants and plunge my open mouth onto his waiting lap.
“Your body doesn’t seem to agree with your objections.”
His lips brushed my ear. “You’re telling me if I dip my fingers in your panties right now, they won’t come back glistening?”
Mother of …
Heat exploded through my core. My thighs began to throb with an ache that had nothing to do with performance and everything to do with the vivid, devastating image his words painted in my mind.
“I …” My voice came out breathless, and I hated how transparent I was in this moment.
“That’s what I thought.” His thumb stroked along my jawline, satisfaction evident in his gaze. “Don’t start something you’re not willing to finish.”
The energy between us crackled with forbidden potential, and the way Axel was looking at me made me wonder if he might actually slide those hands over my body right here in the restaurant.
I pulled back, but Axel’s gaze remained locked on me, something fundamental having shifted between us. A shift I refused to acknowledge as anything more than physical chemistry. Inconvenient, unwanted, and absolutely meaningless.
Throughout the remainder of dessert, we maintained our performance, laughing at each other’s jokes, exchanging tender glances, my hand occasionally finding his arm or chest in rehearsed affection.
But every casual touch now felt charged with the memory of his tongue on my finger, his words in my ear, the evidence of his desire.
My phone buzzed.