Chapter 21
ANNOYING DICKS
LAKE
In the passenger seat, Remy’s fidgeting with her necklace the whole time. It’s a silver pendant of a sun. She can’t keep her hand off it as I drive along Van Ness toward the dress shop in Hayes Valley. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch her flipping it over like it’s a coin, then back again.
She rolls her lips together, blows out a breath, turns the sun back over.
Something’s up, but her self-protective streak is a mile wide and ten miles deep. I’ve got to start slow and easy to figure her out. “That a new necklace?”
“Oh, this thing?” she asks, like she’s just noticed she’s wearing it.
“Yeah. I haven’t seen it before.”
Her lips quirk briefly, then she says, “Your sister gave it to me just because.”
“That’s very Clem,” I say.
“She’s a gift giver,” Remy replies but her brow knits, and she’s thinking so loud, only I can’t make out the words through the static. But something’s on her mind.
Don’t know what though, so I stay on topic for now. “She likes to give me gag gifts. Last year for my birthday she sent me my face on a potato.”
Remy bursts into laughter. “I had no idea that existed.”
“Everything exists,” I say.
“What’d you get her for her birthday?”
“A Congrats on Being My Sister candle,” I say.
“I think she won that gift battle,” Remy says. “But the candle is a nice touch.”
“The potato is hard to beat,” I admit, then nod toward her necklace. “That’s pretty. And it suits you,” I say, slowing at the red light at the top of a hill.
“Yeah,” she says, a little distant. Then, maybe realizing she’s elsewhere, she whips her gaze to me, flashing a closed mouth smile. “Thank you.”
“It looks nice on you,” I add, and I want to smack myself. It looks nice on you? That’s so weak. I’m off my game now too. I tap the gas when the light changes.
She goes quiet again. Stares out the window.
I need to figure this out before we go into the shop. Don’t want to walk into the store with this strange tension hanging over us before she has to deal with all her sister’s people and all her sister’s wishes.
The GPS chirps at me that we’re nearing the store, so I turn at the next light, heading into the fashionable, trendy district. The second I find a spot on a side street, I cut the engine, turn to her, and ask plainly, “Are you okay?”
Right as she says, “There’s something I have to ask you.”
I’m grateful she wants to say something, but I brace myself for whatever it might be. “Ladies first.”
She swallows, rolls her lips together, and meets my eyes. “Caroline’s sponsor wants me to do a lipstick test. Today,” she adds, the words piling up on top of each other. “Us.”
My brain overloads. Wires short-circuit. They snap and pop. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what a lipstick test is, but just in case, I say, “Like a kiss test?”
A tiny laugh falls from her lips. “Yes.”
I smother a smile so it’s not obvious this is making my fucking day. “On camera? To test the makeup or something?”
“Yes. It was Caroline’s idea at the picnic, and she was going to do it with Parker—like a stress test for wedding makeup. And now she’s sick, and of course doesn’t want to get Parker sick before the wedding so she’s on a strict no-kissing diet, but she asked us to stand in.”
Somehow, in a past life, I was a very good boy. “You need to give me more than a good luck kiss,” I say, then wiggle my brows. “Which, by the way, worked last night.”
“I noticed. Five to three,” she says, recapping our win last night.
“So we’re the Fresh Face fill-in?”
She fiddles with the necklace one more time, bobbing a shoulder. “Yes. Is that okay?”
I could answer her truthfully with a fuck yes. But some moments call for a little…gamesmanship.
Some strategy.
Like it’s a play I can see unfolding from all the way on the other side of the blue line, I scrub a hand across my beard, like I’m really considering this kissing test. “This would be for the cameras, right?”
“Yes.”
“For Caroline to run as part of her wedding programming?”
“Yes,” she says, her voice pitching up with worry.
“You want it to be perfect, I presume?”
“Yes!” She sounds desperate, and it’s almost enough for me to put her out of her misery sooner.
But I’m not that nice. “There’s something we’re going to need to do first then.”
She gulps. “What is it?”
I unhook my seatbelt. Unlock hers. Tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Whisper against the shell of it, “Practice.”
She trembles, a full-body shudder that I can feel. That I can hear. That drives me wild.
I pull back, pin her with a hot stare. “We should do it now.”
“Before we go in,” she says, jumping on board.
“Don’t waste a second.”
She grabs my collar, twists it, and tugs me close to her.
On the side of a busy San Francisco street, in the early evening, with the sun falling behind the horizon, I dip my face and kiss her sweet mouth.
I tell myself it’s just a test.
That this is simply the kind of practice a fake romance requires.
But nothing feels fake about the quiet gasp she makes when my lips brush hers. Or the softness of her mouth. Or the grip of her fingers around my collar.
There’s nothing false either about the way my mouth captures hers. Our lips slide together. My hand cups her cheek. My thumb coasts along her chin. Remy parts her lips for me, asking for more. Pulling me closer. Whimpering.
Heat roars through me, a heavy sort of ache as I follow her lead. Inching closer, kissing more, roping my hands through her hair, whisking my beard against her cheek.
She murmurs, then grabs my shirt even harder, a tight fist holding on. She picks up the pace, her mouth seeking more contact, her hands hungrier.
My greedy woman needs more, and I won’t make her wait for it. I give her everything she asks for, snaking my hand around to the back of her head and cradling her skull. Nipping the corner of her mouth. Slipping my tongue between those plush lips.
Then guiding her eager, roaming hands away from the neckline of my shirt. As I take over the kiss, I peel her hand from the fabric of my shirt, then spread her palm wide open, and place it square on my right pec.
Well, she was checking me out yesterday. Might as well give the lady what she wants.
“Oh god,” she moans softly against my mouth, then she takes what she desires.
She slides her hand down my shirt, her busy fingers traveling from my chest to my abs. It’s decent, since I’m dressed, but it’s wholly indecent too, the path she’s taking, where she’s headed, the hazy sort of lust that seems to consume her.
It’s addictive, too, the way she responds when I show her where to go.
I could spend all night like this, wordless, just a touch here, a brush of my hand there, a reassurance that I want this.
But I’m keenly aware that Remy’s a woman who likes to keep her commitments. And she made one to her sister. The more I kiss her like tomorrow won’t arrive, the greater the chance she won’t walk through that door to the shop. That’ll make her mad at one person only—herself.
I summon all my resistance, cover her hand with mine, and wrench apart.
“We should go,” I say, bluntly.
Her eyes are glossy. She gives me a funny look like my words don’t compute.
I repeat it again. “You really should go,” I say, maybe a little more forcefully than I meant.
Something seems to click inside her. “Right. Yeah. We should.” She’s brushing her hands along her slacks, smoothing out her hair, and rearranging her features.
And fuuuuck. I was too harsh with the ending, with my tone. I don’t want her to think I didn’t like that kiss.
“Remy,” I say, trying to cut through her worries.
But her phone trills. She snags it from her purse at the speed of sound. “Hi, Fallon. Yes, I’m on my way in right now.”
She grabs the door handle and ejects from the car onto the sidewalk.
I’m up and opening the driver’s side door in seconds when it hits me.
I’m sporting wood.
Great. Just great. Dicks are so annoying. “Remy,” I call out, standing by the driver’s side door as it shields my annoying erection. “I’ll be right there. I need…to answer a message first.”
She flashes a smile that I just know is fake. “No problem.”
Then she rounds the corner and disappears.