Page 19 of Fiancée for the Cameras

“It seems you’re better at gauging my moods and my reactions than understanding your own feelings.”

Now, when she should back off at his grumbly tone, she stayed put. “Why are you angry, Andrea?”

He sighed. “Let’s just say my fragile ego got dented.”

She smiled then, and it lit up her entire face. Those unique amber eyes of hers glowed with pleasure and he wondered how they would look full of desire. “That’s not possible, is it? Will you not tell me? Please? If there’s one constant, one anchor around me, it’s you and where I stand with you. I’d like to—”

Andrea had to stifle his groan. If she used that pleading tone with him, he ran the risk of granting her whatever she wanted. “I’m not angry with you.”

“More like frustrated?”

He shrugged. Then he asked the question he shouldn’t. “Do you want to act on it?”

She looked as if he’d asked her to jump from a running train. Also something he’d attempted once to show off. She licked the curve of her thick, shapely lower lip, her pulse fluttering like a butterfly’s wings at her neck. He wanted to press his mouth to that delicate spot, lick up the susurration and bite down on the sensitive skin, leaving a mark.

Usually, he preferred experienced partners, women who liked and demanded pleasure as much as he demanded his own. And here was this creature, looking like she might be blown off her feet by a strong kiss. So where was this coming from?

She was beautiful, yes, but simple beauty had never done it for him. Not since he’d finally grown up.

“What?” she whispered, her entire body trembling from head to foot now.

“Do you want to act on the attraction?”

“Why would you... What does that mean?”

“It means that this—” he motioned a hand between them, wondering at how convoluted this was “—is not one-sided.”

“Oh! You mean you’re attracted to me, too? You want...” Her mouth fell open on a soft gasp, her gaze finally, finally, landing on his mouth and staying there. “You want...”

“You. I want you.”

She swallowed audibly.

He scoffed. “In case you haven’t looked at a mirror recently, you’re hot,bella.”

“I’m a selection of symmetrical features and in-trend arbitrary body constructs that we’ve been programmed to like, butyouare...” Her gaze moved over him—from his hair to his mouth to his neck to his chest—with a sweeping, overwhelming thoroughness, before she jerked it back up to his eyes.

“What? A slab of unfeeling rock?” he taunted, feeling as unbalanced and on edge as she seemed to be. Which made him wonder at how new this felt. “I would take you to my bed right now and give you what you want and demand you give me what I want, if you said yes. That’s what I mean when I say acting on it. My only hesitation would be that I can’t be a hundred percent sure Mama won’t come banging on the door to protect her innocent lamb from me.”

The reddish streak warming her cheekbones intensified as she pressed a hand to her mouth. “Flora knows.”

“I think the entire goddamned world knows by now. Except you.”

She walked toward him then, surprising him yet again. He could feel the pull between them as easily as if there were opposing poles embedded deep in their bodies. Her gaze, usually so meek, met his, pupils blown wide already. A breathless gasp left her as she seemed to find whatever confirmation she sought. Her hands fisted at her sides, and Andrea understood the need for that, too.

“This is a lot,” she said, after what felt like an eternity stitched of hot, hungry moments.

“It is,” he said, trying hard not to let his disappointment seep into his tone. “But chemistry is nothing but nature and instincts. It doesn’t mean we have to give in to it.”

“But you want to?”

He touched her then, just the pad of his thumb skimming over the soft, silky swath of skin on the inside of her wrist. Her pulse went haywire under his thumb, and her shallow breath was a symphony in his ears. “Yes. But it would be an affair,a fling, in your words. A...finite thing. I won’t make false promises. I won’t dress it up and call it dating. I won’t lie and tell you that I’m interested in a girlfriend or a partner or a future wife. Because I’m not. I have no interest or any inclination toward love.”

“How long would it last?”

He laughed then, and when she made a moue of her lovely mouth and made to pull away, he stopped her, all the while gentling his grip on her arm. She was so fragile in his hands. And more than just her wrist.

“Such anger,bella? I wonder that I know you at all, mouse.”

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