Eight #2
anything more than a friend, I can’t help but remember what she said last night. That maybe, I might have a chance.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” I venture, testing the waters. “But we can pretend, right?”
Her eyes shoot to mine, dark and curious. “Pretend how?”
“However far we want to.” The words slip out. “I mean, getting physical is out of the question. Per the contract.”
“One you never signed,” she says.
“Neither did you,” I remind her, steering my mind away from that potential loophole. “But I was thinking more along the lines
of flirting. Fake flirting,” I clarify.
“What’s the difference?”
“Intent. If I flirt with you today, it will be to help you forget about your book.”
“And if you flirted with me for real?” She’s holding herself very still, only her gaze roving over my face, and I realize
I’m barely breathing, muscles taut.
“If I flirted with you for real, it would be to get closer to you. To see what makes Mia let go.” I shouldn’t be saying this;
I’ve never even let myself think it. “If I flirted with you, it would be to tease out the hidden parts of you, the ones you
hold back.”
Her lips part, eyes wide, and for a moment, I wonder if I’ve pushed it too far. But there’s more than surprise in her gaze... interest, maybe? Curiosity, for sure. Seeing it has me tipping toward her, my normal resolve to resist the attraction frayed to a thread.
She swallows, and my gaze dips to the kissable peek of skin at her open collar. “Flirt away, then. I can handle it.” She sweeps
a casual hand toward her stomach. “No butterflies in sight.”
I jerk my eyes back up to hers, and see a flicker I long to ignite. “No?” I lean forward, elbows resting on my knees, watching
her. “Because I think you like being teased.”
“Excuse me?” Her voice is breathy, and my pulse kicks up. She’s definitely affected.
“You like a guy to mess around with you. You always go out with serious guys in real life, but in your books, the heroines
always fall for the guys who get a rise out of them.”
“That’s fiction.”
“Or it’s you holding yourself back from men who you might fall for.” I’ve seen her around guys she likes, and ones she doesn’t.
And I know just how much she likes someone that can make her laugh, pull her out of her routine. It’s just too bad I can never
be that guy. “You pursue men who are nothing like your friends—”
“Nothing like you , you mean?” She crosses her arms, settling back, and I get the sense she’s faking being unaffected, and it only fuels my
desire to get past her walls.
“All I’m saying is maybe you’re scared of how good things could be between us.”
“And how is that, exactly?”
The wise thing to do would be to back off. But it feels like a challenge. Like she thinks I haven’t been paying attention
all these years.
“Can’t say for sure, but I have a few guesses.” A bluff. I’ve never allowed my mind to wander in that direction. Kept it reined
in. But now it’s easy to go there, to let my mind slip through the padlocked gate of desire.
She swallows, her throat working, and my own pulse kicks up. “Guess away.” She’s joining me in this game. And it is a game, I remind myself. An experiment for her work. Not personal. Not real , even though my pounding pulse says otherwise.
What would Mia like? She’s someone who gives freely of herself. Her time. Her energy. Aware, sensitive. Receptive. “You’re
used to taking the lead, controlling how much you feel. Holding yourself back. I’d like to see you come undone. To take you
past the point of holding back, to watch you get swept away.”
Her mouth is parted, pink tongue visible between her lips, and I speak the next words on instinct alone. “I’d start with slow
kisses, deep ones.” I can’t tear my eyes away from her. “Drawing out the moment until you couldn’t take it anymore. You’d
want me to rush things, prove nothing could make you lose your grip, but I’d take my time. Savor you with lingering kisses,
and you’d surprise yourself with how much you wanted more.”
She lets out a shuddering breath. “You think I’d be surprised by how I’d respond to you?”
For a moment I’m speechless, knocked off-balance by her directness. Even more so when she unfolds her legs and leans in, matching
my pose. “You don’t think I’d be ready for all of that and more? That I’ve been craving the freedom to cross that line?” Her
lips curve upward. “The only surprising thing is you thinking I haven’t already imagined how good you’d taste.”
Our knuckles are brushing, our faces inches away, and the only thing keeping words from becoming reality is years of habit.
Years of reminding myself there are good reasons we don’t touch, good reasons we don’t give voice to thoughts like these.
Reasons that have fully fled my mind at this point, but muscle memory keeps me still, keeps my distance. The intensity in
her gaze sparks something in my chest, but I learned to ignore those bursts of attraction.
Which is good, because a moment later Mia pulls back, a smug grin on her face. “Is that what you had in mind? Because we might want to tone it down if we don’t want our hypothetical colleagues to catch on.”
She was pretending. Of course she was. Pulling from her creative well and years of writing love stories. Or maybe, like me,
she was finally letting go.