Chapter 11 #3
He growled low in his throat, the sound vibrating through me and making me tremble. His hands slid down to my hips, pulling me tight against him. The heat of his body pressed against mine made my head spin.
We broke apart, both breathing hard, and for a moment just stared at each other. His eyes were dark with desire, pupils blown wide, and the way he looked at me—like I was water in a desert—made something molten pool in my belly.
“God, the way you taste,” he groaned, and then his mouth was on mine again, harder this time, more demanding. I whimpered, arching into him as his hands roamed my back, leaving trails of fire in their wake.
My fingers found their way into his hair, soft and thick, tugging slightly. The sound he made shot straight through me, setting every nerve ending alight. His mouth left mine to trail hot kisses down my neck, and I gasped, tilting my head to give him better access.
This was nothing like Victoria’s memories of kissing him. This was raw and real and…
Oh God. The book. The plot. Sophia.
Reality crashed back like a bucket of ice water, my brain desperately trying to form coherent thoughts through the haze of desire. I was supposed to be the villain. The one who lost him. The one who…
I pushed against his chest, breaking the kiss. We were both breathing hard, and the way he looked at me—lips swollen, hair mussed from my fingers, eyes dark with want—almost made me forget why I’d stopped.
“I… I can’t,” I managed, trying to remember how to form sentences while my body screamed at me to shut up and kiss him again. “This is… I mean… I should…”
“Victoria—” He reached for me again, and I knew if he touched me now, I’d be lost. One more kiss and I’d forget about plots and books and everything except the taste of him.
“Good night!” I blurted, ducking under his arm. “I just remembered I have a… thing. Early. Very early thing. With… people.”
I practically ran up the stairs, leaving him standing in the foyer looking confused and frustrated and devastatingly sexy. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to turn around and throw myself back into his arms.
I needed to cool down, to clear my head. A shower. Yes, that’s what I needed. A nice shower to wash away these very un-villainous thoughts.
After several minutes of trying to get my breathing under control, I dragged myself to the bathroom. A shower would help restore some semblance of sanity. But even the scalding water couldn’t wash away the memory of Jason’s hands on me, his mouth against mine, the way he’d…
“Stop it,” I told myself firmly, wrapping a robe around me. “Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about him.”
My lips were still tingling. I touched them absently, then caught myself in the mirror. “I said stop!”
Great. Now I was talking to myself in the bathroom like a crazy person. Though maybe I was crazy. I’d just made out with the hero of the story like a teenager at prom. The hero who was supposed to end up with someone else. The hero who…
I dove for my notebook, nearly upending Victoria’s perfectly organized vanity in the process. The familiar pages of my plot notes should have been comforting. Instead, they felt like an accusation.
“Okay,” I muttered, pacing the bedroom. “Okay. So according to this, Sophia and Jason are supposed to be growing closer. Instead, she’s making eyes at Ethan while I’m playing tonsil hockey with her future husband. No big deal. I can fix this. I can…”
I flopped onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. “I can set them up. Tomorrow. I’ll… I’ll arrange something. A meeting. Or lunch. Or…”
But the thought of Jason looking at Sophia the way he’d looked at me tonight made something in my chest twist painfully. The way he’d said my name—well, Victoria’s name—like a prayer…
“That’s not the plot!” I grabbed a pillow and pressed it over my face, groaning. “The plot is: Jason falls for Sophia. Victoria is the villain. The end.”
Except I didn’t feel very villainous right now. I felt… I felt…
“No,” I said firmly to the ceiling. “No feelings. No complications. Just follow the plot.”
But as I finally drifted off to sleep, all I could think about was the taste of horchata and desire, the sound he’d made when I tugged his hair, the way his hands had felt…
I was in so much trouble.
No, scratch that. I was in deep shit. The deepest shit. Olympic-level deep shit.
And the worst part? A small, treacherous part of me didn’t care about the plot at all. That part just wanted to march downstairs and finish what we’d started in the foyer.
“Tomorrow,” I promised myself, pulling the covers over my head.
“Tomorrow I’ll fix everything. Set up Jason and Sophia.
Get the story back on track. Be the villain I’m supposed to be.
And maybe when they get their happily ever after, when the story ends as it should, I’ll wake up back in my own world, in my own body. ”
But even as I thought it, my chest tightened painfully at the idea of leaving this life—of leaving him. And that last promise, like all the others, sounded like a lie.