Page 53 of The Dating Contract

“This?” he asked as if she’d stumped him. “What are you talking about and how am I making it impossible?”

“Fake dating. Our arrangement.”

“But this isn’t the first time in the midst of this…that we kissed. We fit,” he said.

She nodded. “I know that,” she replied, holding back the feelings that were threatening to explode. “We’ve managed to convince everybody we need to convince that we’re dating, mostly…but we’re getting into trouble.”

He looked at her. “What…what do you mean by trouble?”

“What we did on the dance floor.”

He didn’t respond, and she tried not to notice the haze leaving his eyes. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

“We were devouring each other in public in the middle of a…gala that you and I are attending for work reasons.”

The words were stark and clear, her desperate attempt to draw a boundary, and her heart pounded through her chest as she waited for a reaction.

He nodded, making her feel as if he was tracing the lines of her face with his eyes. Touching her in ways she didn’t want to consider. “Okay?”

“There are other ways of showing affection that don’t involve kissing,” she said making sure he was watching her as she took his hand, traced the lines of his palms with her fingers. “You don’t have to swallow my tongue in public to show me I matter.”

“Mmm,” he said, the sound a strange cross between a growl and a purr, and he moved to wrap his fingers around hers. “I see.”

“We’re still a mess,” she said, as she leaned into his touch. “We don’t know how to talk.”

“Mmm,” he managed. “That’s because what we need to talk about has been removed from consideration.”

“Can versus need to,” she said. “Should versus having no business to. Which is why we can’t actually date.”

“We still go up like fireworks when we get near each other,” he said, notably still not letting up on her hand. Granted she didn’t stop touching him either. “Much to the anger, surprise, and annoyance of both of us.”

“Chemistry was never a problem,” she said.

“No,” he said. “It’s still not.”

She wasn’t sure who leaned forward first, who closed the space between them, but before she knew it, her lips were touching his, her breath on his face, his breath intertwined with hers like a Havdalah candle.

As if that acknowledgment that their chemistry had nothing to do with their conversation freed her from implications.

“Leah!”

Shayna.

Shit.

“Leah,” her sister-in-law said again. “Ramona had to go but she wanted to make sure you were watching her and I couldn’t find you…”

“Well,” Leah said with a snort as Samuel straightened himself up out of the corner of her eye. “You have found me.”

“I also,” Shayna continued, “thwarted Judith who wanted to come after you.”

“And this,” Leah said, “is why I love you.”

Which was when she turned to Samuel. “Should we head back in?”

He nodded. “We should.”

She stood, allowed him to take her hand, hoping she didn’t look like she’d had a run-in with an air dryer. And then, her hand in Samuel’s, Leah followed Shayna inside.

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