Chapter 12
LUKE
I follow her up the stairs, watching the way her hips sway in that dress, the way her hand grips mine like she needs the connection. My fingers tighten around hers automatically. This woman has no fucking idea what she does to me.
Her bedroom is exactly what I expected and nothing like it at the same time.
Sage green walls, string lights creating shadows and warmth, books stacked on every surface like she’s building a fort out of words.
The air is thick with her scent, that clove-studded orange mixed with sugar brittle that makes me want to bury my face in her neck and just breathe.
She rushes to her closet, yanking out dresses as if the place is on fire. One catches on a hanger and she tugs harder, nearly taking the whole rod down.
“Shit, shit—” She stumbles backward, three dresses clutched to her chest.
I catch her elbow, steady her. “Easy there, tornado.”
“I’m fine. I’m totally fine.” She’s not fine. Her pupils are wide, chest rising and falling too fast. “Which one?”
She throws them on the bed, and I study the options.
The first is emerald green. Modern cut, thin straps, the fabric feels soft.
The second is some pink monstrosity with ruffles that must have escaped from 1987 and needs to be put out of its misery.
The third is a navy blue, sleek, contemporary dress.
“Not the pink,” I say immediately. “Burn that one.”
“What’s wrong with—” She looks at it, really looks. “Oh God, why do I even own this? I think my sister gave it to me.”
“Okay, so green or blue first?”
“Green.”
She gathers it up and heads for the walk-in closet, and Christ, watching her move is torture. She shuts the door behind her.
“So,” her voice streams out, “we should nail down our story. Like, we’ll say we met at the Harvest Dance. Last October. We’ve been together for a year.”
I sit on the edge of her bed, trying not to think about her stripping in there, fabric sliding down skin.
“And you were wearing that burgundy sweater. You kept playing with your necklace,” I add to our story.
The door opens and I’m fully alert.
The green dress molds to her body like water, flowing from her chest down to just above her knees.
The straps are delicate, as if I could snap them with one finger.
The color brings out the glow in her skin, all cream and gold, and when she turns to show me the back, I notice how it dips low, exposing the line of her spine, the delicate wings of her shoulder blades.
“Thoughts?” she asks, doing another turn that makes the skirt flare.
I have thoughts. Lots of thoughts. None of them appropriate. “I’m lost for words.”
“That bad?”
“That good.” I clear my throat, shifting on the bed because my jeans are suddenly too tight. “But maybe too sexy for Savor with family.” Not to mention, trying to keep my hands off her.
“Right. Of course.” She disappears back into the closet, and I hear the rustle of fabric. “First kiss? We need a first-kiss story.”
“After our third date. We went to see that movie… what’s it called? The one with the guy who inherits his grandmother’s bookstore?”
“ The Words Between Us ? You love rom-coms.”
“I really do. I usually watch them after a long and stressful day. It helps calm my racing thoughts.”
The closet door opens again, and fuck me sideways.
She’s in a new, black dress now, must have had it in there already.
It’s modern, sophisticated, with a halter neck that leaves her shoulders bare and a skirt that hits mid-thigh.
The fabric clings to her curves, shows off legs that go on for miles.
But it’s the way she’s standing that gets me, uncertain, one foot turned in slightly, hands smoothing down her sides nervously.
“This one’s probably too much,” she says quickly. “I bought it on sale and never wore it because?—”
“Because you’d cause car accidents.”
Her hands stop moving. “What?”
“You walk into Savor wearing that, every man in that place is going to forget how to use a fork. Including me.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m being honest. Your mom will hate it because you’ll outshine her without even trying.”
She looks down at herself, and I notice the exact moment she actually realizes that what I see is true, the way the dress has her looking powerful, sexy, untouchable. “Maybe that’s what I want.”
“Yeah?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” She presses her palms to her cheeks. “God, why is this so hard? It’s just dinner. It’s just my mother. It’s just?—”
“Hey.” I stand, cross to her. “Breathe.”
“I am.” She takes a shaky breath, another. I don’t touch her even though every instinct screams at me to pull her close. She needs to choose that.
“Okay, so not this dress,” she says finally. “The navy one.”
Back into the walk-in closet she goes. I return to the bed, but this time I lie back, staring at her ceiling where she’s stuck glow-in-the-dark stars in actual constellations. Of course she has.
“Our first fight,” she calls out. “We need a good fight story.”
“Why?”
“Mother always says relationships without fights are fake. Like you’re both pretending to be perfect instead of being real.”
“Fine. We fought about… my ex.”
“You have an ex?”
“Everyone has exes, Cindy.”
“I mean, one that would cause a fight?”
“She showed up at the brewery. You were working. She made some comment about how I was slumming it, dating a bartender.”
“I’m not a bartender. I’m a brewer.”
“That’s exactly what you said to her. Right before you poured a half-finished beer over her head.”
“I did not!”
“In the story you did. Then you stormed out, I followed you, and we had a massive fight in the parking lot about trust and jealousy and whether I was defending you enough.”
“Were you?”
“No. That’s why you were right to be pissed. I was trying to avoid drama instead of standing up for you.”
“And how did we make up?”
“I showed up at your place with coffee, a huge box of chocolates, and an apology. Told you that you were worth a thousand of her, that I was an idiot, that I’d never let anyone disrespect you again.”
“Did I forgive you?”
“After you made me grovel for an hour.”
She laughs, real this time. “Good. I have standards.”
The closet door opens, and my mouth goes dry.
The navy dress is perfect. It’s modern but classic, wrapping around her body in a way that suggests rather than reveals.
The V-neck is deep enough to be interesting but not scandalous.
The fabric nips in at her waist, showing off her curves, then falls to just below her knees in a way that nudges at me to push it up.
“This one?” she asks, but she already knows. It’s obvious in the way she stands taller and her hands rest confidently at her sides instead of fidgeting.
“That’s the one.”
“You’re sure? Because I have others?—”
“Cindy.” I sit up, meet her eyes. “You could wear a garbage bag and still be the most beautiful woman in that restaurant. But this dress is armor. It says ‘I’m successful, I’m confident, and I don’t need your approval.’?”
“I do, though. Need her approval. I hate that I do, but?—”
“No, you don’t.” I stand, walk to her slowly, giving her time to back away if she wants. She doesn’t. “You want it. There’s a difference between wanting something and needing it.”
“Semantics.”
“Truth.” I stop just close enough that I can sense the heat radiating off her skin. “You’ve built a whole life without her approval. You’ve got a job you love, friends who’d kill for you, a place of your own, a demon cat, and now you have us—me, Holt, and Arrow.”
We’re standing too close. Her pulse flutters at her throat, and her pupils dilate when she stares at me. Her scent is stronger now, sweeter, and it’s taking everything I have not to lean down and taste it at the source.
“Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“What if she sees right through this? What if she knows we’re faking?”
“Then we sell it better.”
“How?”
“Like this.” I reach up, tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, let my fingers trail down her neck.
She shivers. “Every couple has tells. Little things they do without thinking. The way they lean into each other. The way they touch casually. The way they look at each other when they think no one’s watching. ”
“And how do we look at each other?” Her voice is barely a whisper.
“Like we can’t believe our luck. Like we’re both waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like we want to devour each other but we’re trying to be civilized about it.”
“Is that how you’re staring at me now?”
“You tell me.”
She studies me for a long moment, and something shifts in her expression. “I need to… I should put on makeup. And shoes. And?—”
She turns too fast, snags her foot on the edge of the rug, starts to fall. I catch her around the waist, pull her back against my chest. We freeze like that, her back to my front, my arms around her, both of us breathing too hard.
“You okay?” My voice comes out rough.
“I’m—” She turns in my arms, looks up at me, and suddenly we’re inches apart. “I’m terrified.”
“Of your mom?”
“Of this. Of you. Of how real this feels when it’s supposed to be fake.”
My hands tighten on her waist. “Cindy?—”
“I know we just met recently and this is simply a favor. I know you’re only here because Holt got hurt. But when you stare at me like that, when you touch me, I forget it’s pretend.”
“What if it’s not?”
The words hang between us, too heavy, too real.
“What if it’s not pretend?” I continue, because I’m already in too deep. “And what if this is the most real thing I’ve felt in years?”
“You could have anyone.”
“I don’t want anyone. I want?—”
She kisses me.
It’s soft at first, tentative. Then I groan against her mouth, her hands fist in my shirt, and suddenly we’re drowning in each other. My hands slide into her hair, angling her head so I can deepen the kiss, and she makes this sound—half whimper, half moan—that shoots straight to my cock.
“Fuck,” I growl against her mouth. “You’re gonna kill me.”
“Good way to go, though.”
“The best.”