Page 20 of Out on a Limb

I push higher onto my toes, claiming his mouth for another head-spinning kiss. Stig growls with approval and slips his tongue past my lips.

Yes.

Could float up to the sky right now. Could float all the way up to the cosmos.

We stand there kissing for a few minutes—or a few hours. I’m not sure exactly how long. But enough time passes that when I finally settle back on my heels, my lips are reddened and raw and our gossipy neighbors have lost interest and moved on.

My knees shake. I’m hot and squirmy beneath my clothes.

And the pigeon is back, feasting on the dropped crumbs beneath the table. As I turn and look at it, dazed and still leaning against Stig, the raggedy little bird flaps up to land on the table and peck directly at the cake.

“Oh.” My voice is faint.

“I’ll buy you another slice.”

Has Stig always sounded that husky? That strained?

I shake my head and step backward out of his arms, shivering as the cold breeze swirls around my body and beneath my sweater. The sky is darker than when we got here, the evening closing in, and I’m rocked by the sensation of time passing me by. An opportunity slipping past my fingertips.

“We’re closing in five,” a voice calls from the cafe doorway. A hard-bristle brush scratches rhythmically, sweeping the floor behind us, and I nod, though I can’t bring myself to turn and meet the woman’s eye.

“Okay, thanks,” I call.

“Jana,” Stig says, but I can’t look at him either. Not now, when my body’s still burning up beneath my clothes, and my insides are quivering from all the want he brought up in me. Not when I’m slick and swollen and aching between my thighs, desperate for more of this man that I’m only pretending to be in love with.

Or maybe I’m not pretending. Not anymore.

But either way, it’s still just a marriage on paper. Just some bet. I mean, who gets married for a bet? What is that about, and why haven’t I asked him yet?

God, I can’t think straight, not with Stig’s gaze on me and the cold wind cutting through my clothes and my lips raw from a dozen hungry kisses we shouldn’t have shared. I wrap my arms around my waist, hugging tightly like I could hold myself together, and try to sound normal as I say: “Shall we head home?”

“Jana,” Stig says again, not buying my act for a second. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

The laugh bursts out of me, bitter and strangled. Doesn’t he know? Can’t he tell by now?

Because I’ve bought my own bullshit. Fallen for my own con.

And none of those kisses were fake for me. Not one.

Eleven

Stig

Iknow I’ve messed up the second Jana shuts down in the town square, the light dimming behind her honey-brown eyes. It’s like I can see tiny shutters close behind her gaze, and then she’s lost to me. Withdrawn into her thoughts, wrestling with some inner quandary as we hike back to the cabin in silence.

She doesn’t say a single word to me on the whole walk home. Hell, she barely seems to notice I’m here.

She just drifts forward, walking along the mountain trail on autopilot, while occasionally I redirect her elbow when she’s about to step wrong. Jana stiffens up whenever I touch her, and man, that kills me even more than the silence.

Should never have kissed her like that. Should never have taken such liberties. It was a peck she asked for—a polite, fake fiance peck—just enough to show affection and set the gossip mills churning in our favor.

Instead, I devoured Jana’s lips like it was my last day on Earth. Kissed her with abandon, letting some of the soul-deep longing I feel for her slip through, and now I’ve ruined everything.

Such an idiot.

The cabin door slams behind us, and I watch dry eyed as Jana toes off her hiking boots then drifts to the bathroom, still in a daze. She shuts the door quietly behind her, then a few moments later, the sound of the shower spray sputters to life and drums against the tiles.

Will she leave? What if I’ve made her feel pressured or unsafe? Where will she go if she leaves our cabin?

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