Page 99 of The Match Faker

I turned to face Mia. It felt wrong to take a picture without her.

‘How about I take a photo for you,’ Mia suggested.

‘That’d be amazing!’ She squeezed through and thrust her phone into Mia’s hand as I stood beside her and smiled.

The train jerked forward and I caught the pole just in time. Seconds later the doors opened. We’d arrived at Charing Cross.

‘Nice to meet you.’ I smiled at everyone. They were still bug-eyed like they’d seen a dinosaur rather than just me. It felt kinda nice.

‘You survived!’ Mia looked up and smiled at me as we walked from the platform to the escalators.

‘Yep.’ I smiled back.

Right now I wanted to kiss Mia. To thank her for coming tonight. For not laughing when I shared my career dreams with her. For suggesting we take the Tube. For paying for my ticket, even though she was struggling financially. For being so cool when people wanted to take photos. For making me feel so damn happy.

I was so glad she was back in my life.

Surviving the Tube was one thing.

But surviving without kissing or touching Mia again?

Something told me that was gonna be a lot harder than I thought.

35

Mia

Liam and I jumped to our feet, clapping enthusiastically.

‘That was brilliant!’ I cheered along with the audience as the cast took a bow on the stage.

‘Now you understand why I’ve seen it so many times.’

‘I already want to see it again!’ I gushed. ‘Maybe next time we…’

I caught myself just before I put my foot in it. I was about to say that next time we could go together, but I already knew that wasn’t going to happen. We’d agreed in the car that we needed to put the brakes on whatever had been developing between us.

When Liam brought up the fact that we needed to cool things, seconds after that panty-melting kiss, of course I was gutted, but I tried to put on a brave face. Everything I said was true: I knew he didn’t do relationships and that we lived in different parts of the world. But that was logic. Logic was totally different to feelings.

My heart wasn’t feeling logical. Neither was my libido.

The things I wanted Liam to do to me in the back of that car were unthinkable. Ever since last night, my fantasies had been running wild. I had no idea how I was going to keep my hands off him tonight or ever.

‘What time’s Phil meeting us?’ I changed the subject, hoping Liam hadn’t worked out what I was about to say before.

‘Should be there now.’

‘Great.’ I picked up his jacket.

‘Here.’ Liam plucked it from my hands. ‘Let me. Some people have spotted us down there, so I need to look like the perfect boyfriend.’

Liam held his jacket up behind me and I slid my arms into the sleeves.

‘Seeing as we’re keeping up appearances,’ I whispered in his ear, ‘maybe we should show some kind of affection too.’

I wrapped my arms around his waist, looked into his eyes and pressed my lips onto his. A low groan escaped his mouth.

‘Fuck,’ he murmured, his hand running down my back.

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