Page 32 of The Very Naughty List

The way her exuberant smile lights up a room, the curve at the edges of her lips when she laughs. The delicate lacing of freckles over the bridge of her nose and top of her cheekbones. And that mischievous little twinkle in her eye—fuck, that one really gets me.

Everything about Hailey makes me want to touch her. Even the way she’s so unafraid to wear her emotions on her sleeve. And when she moves—even if it’s just a casual brush up against me, a breath that I can feel on my cheek if we’re sitting too close, or a strand of her hair that happens to fall against my skin—it’s all the most delicious kind of torture.

Now that my hands are on her body, feeling the fullness of her breasts and the delicate curve of her waist beneath my palms, I feel like I’m feasting.

With every passing second of our kiss, my lips moving against hers and my tongue sweeping into her mouth, I wantmore. I’m quickly reaching the point where I won’t be able to make myself stop. Everything feelstoogood.

With my lips on hers and my hands on her body, I’m like a starving man at a feast. I just can’t get enough, can’t help myself.

My blood thunders in my ears with every pounding heartbeat, and Hailey’s initial shock must have passed because she’s responding to me now. She pushes up on her tiptoes, squeezing her arms around my neck to get closer and kiss me back. She even starts to lift one leg and wrap it around mine like she’s trying to convince me to take her right then and there, and if she’s not careful, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

The warmth of her body against mine, and the way she’s winding herself around me like a vine, turns me into a wild man. My hands find hers and my fingers link with hers so I can push her hands backward, pinning them against the car along with the rest of her. Her body arches as she wilts and lets out a moan. With her exposed like this, I can’t stop myself from grinding against her, dragging my almost painfully swollen cock against her thigh through my pants.

“Oh my god, Nick,” she whimpers as my mouth kisses and nibbles down the side of her neck to her collar and back up to her lips. I crush my mouth against hers, then again, and on the third time, I trap her lower lip between my teeth, biting down. She gasps, and the sound of it cuts through the fog in my mind.

My chest heaves as my senses return and I remember what the hell I’m doing.

This is Hailey. Off limits Hailey.

I can’t touch my best friend’s little sister like this. Not in the way I want to.

Fuck.

I press my lips harder against hers for a split second, then wrench myself away from her, releasing her hands. She looks up at me, dazed and clearly reeling as she tries to catch her breath.

Goddammit. It would be so easy to pull her against me again. My cock is straining against my jeans as if it’s desperate to get closer to her and is pissed as fuck at me for stopping. I drag in a breath and step backward so that she won’t feel the bulge of my hard-on against her stomach.

Hailey’s eyes have a hazy sheen to them, the deep green of her irises dark in the dim light. Her tongue slowly darts out to lick her lower lip, as if she’s trying to remind herself of how I tasted, and it almost fucking undoes me.

If things were different, if this wasn’t all still supposed to be pretend and if she wasn’t my best friend’s little sister, I wouldn’t be ending things like this. It takes everything I have not to kiss her again.

“That kiss under the mistletoe was because your grandmother was watching, songbird. This one was because she’snot,” I say, working to keep the rasp out of my voice.

She blinks, her expression clearing a little. “Songbird?”

Shit.

I’ve called her that in my head for years, but I’ve never spoken the nickname aloud. It was easy enough for Sebastian and Reid to get away with calling her teasing, lighthearted nicknames, but considering that I could barely ever work up the courage to talk to her, it would’ve felt strange to call her anything but her given name. I don’t know why I said it now, and I instantly regret it.

I don’t know how to answer the question in her voice, so instead of giving any explanation, I just take another step backward, shoving my hands into my pants pockets.

“Come on. I’ll take you home.”

My voice sounds gruff as I try to shut things down and regain my usual stoic composure. It’s the only way I know how to deal with all the shit knocking around in my chest and keep myself from giving in to the desire to kiss her again. Because giving in to it would mean crossing a whole lot of lines that I know I shouldn’t cross.

“Oh. Uh, okay.” Hailey looks a little taken aback, but she nods.

I open the door for her to get into my car, then walk around to the other side.

As I drive her back to the place where she’s staying, I can tell she’s nervous, or flustered, or maybe both. She breaks the silence in the car by talking, but our conversation is stilted. There’s so much tension filling the car that it’s as if there’s an entire extra person sitting in the back seat, and Hailey keeps fidgeting with the sleeve of her shirt like she’s trying to keep her hands occupied.

“So the next season ofShadow’s Edgestarts after Christmas, huh?” she asks. “Now I kind of want to go back and start from the first episode.”

“Yeah.” I nod, almost wishing that Reid and Sebastian had crashed our date like Seb and I did to Reid earlier. I feel like one of them would be able to say the right thing to ease the tension, but me? I have no idea what that might be. “Good idea. You’ll probably like it.”

When we get to the place where Hailey has been renting a short-term room, I insist on walking her inside. It’s not a “date” gesture or part of the act of fake dating her. It’s more due tothe fact that no matter what, I can’t stop myself from being protective of her.

“Oh, you really don’t need to,” she says, making a face. “Ted’s probably sitting in his underwear with a fat cigar hanging out of his mouth, since it’s almost his self-proclaimed ‘jamming time.’ Trust me, it’s not a sight you’d want to see.”

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