5. Hallie #2
The possessiveness in his touch, the way his fingers curve so gently yet deliberately against my skin, it all screams one thing: You're mine.
The unspoken words reverberate through my body like a shockwave, sending liquid heat pooling low in my stomach, spreading outward in waves that make my thighs clench involuntarily.
I should probably be concerned about how much I like the feeling, how right it seems when it should feel like overstepping.
"What... what else?" I ask, barely recognizing my own voice. It's too husky, too
anting, stripped of the careful modulation I usually employ.
"I'm going to stand close to you. In your space." He demonstrates, leaning in until our knees touch, until I can count his eyelashes. "Close enough that everyone knows I can't stand to be far from you."
"That's good," I manage. "Very convincing."
"And I'm going to look at you." His gaze locks with mine, intense and focused, like I'm the only thing in the universe that matters. "Like this. Like you're the most fascinating person in the room. Because you are."
That's not acting. The intensity burning in his eyes, the way his chest rises and falls just a fraction faster than normal, the tension coiled in his shoulders, none of that is part of the ruse we're supposedly rehearsing.
This is something else entirely, something raw and unguarded that makes my pulse skip and stutter.
Is it?
Or am I just seeing what I want to see? Projecting my own desperate longing onto every lingering glance, every careful touch? Maybe I'm so starved for this, for him, that I'm reading meaning into moments that are nothing more than friendly concern wrapped in convincing performance.
"Caius..."
"And when you talk, I'm going to watch your mouth." His thumb brushes across my bottom lip, gentle, testing. "Because I'm always thinking about kissing you. That's what the PDA should say. That I'm obsessed. That I can't get enough."
I'm melting. Actually melting into his couch, into his touch, into the low rumble of his voice.
"What about me?" My voice comes out breathless. "What should I do?"
"You?" His hand slides into my hair, fingers threading through the strands that have escaped my bun. "You lean into it. Let yourself relax against me. Let everyone see that you trust me, that you feel safe with me."
"I do feel safe with you." The words come out softer , but they're true. Despite the chaos of this fake relationship, despite the confusion tangling my thoughts and the wild flutter in my heart, despite everything, I trust him. I always have.
Something flickers on his face, something that looks almost like pain before it smooths away into something gentler, more tender.
His jaw works like he's trying to swallow words he can't quite say.
"Good. That's... that's good, Hal." His voice catches slightly on my name, and I feel the vibration of it in the small space.
We're so close now. So impossibly close that I can count the darker flecks in his eyes, can see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw that he must have missed when shaving this morning.
His breath ghosts across my lips, warm and wine-sweet, carrying the faint tang of the cabernet we'd been drinking before this whole rehearsal idea spiraled into whatever this is becoming.
I'm dizzy with wanting, my head swimming like I've had far more than one glass.
"Is there..." I swallow hard, trying to find moisture in my suddenly dry mouth. My heart hammers so loud I'm certain he can hear it. "Is there anything else we should practice?"
His eyes drop to my mouth again, and this time they stay there, fixed and intent, like he's studying something fascinating, something he's been forbidden from looking at too closely until now. I watch his throat bob as he swallows. "The kissing."
"Right. The kissing." My voice sounds foreign to my own ears, breathy and uncertain.
"We should... should probably make sure we can do that convincingly.
In public. At the wedding." Even as I say it, I know how flimsy the excuse sounds, how transparent.
But neither of us calls it out for what it is.
"Absolutely." His voice has gone rough, gravelly, scraped raw with something that sounds like barely controlled restraint. "We should practice that." The hand in my hair tightens just slightly, sending sparks dancing across my scalp.
"Now?" The question is barely a whisper, and I hate how hopeful it sounds, how desperate.
"Now would be good." His thumb presses against my bottom lip again, more firmly this time, and my lips part automatically beneath the gentle pressure. "Yeah. Now would be really good."
But he doesn't move. Just holds me there, hand in my hair, thumb still tracing my bottom lip, like he's memorizing the shape of me.
"Hal." My name sounds like a prayer. "When I kiss you, don't pull away. Even if it gets intense. We need to sell this, right?"
"Right. Sell it. Don't pull away." I nod, and the movement brings my lips within a breath of his. "I won't pull away."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
He leans in, slow and deliberate, giving me every chance to stop this, to laugh it off, to remember all the reasons this is a catastrophically bad idea.