Page 52 of Snared

As the opening scene played out, we drank our coffee and watched the movie.

Well, she watched the screen, and I watched her.

Subtly, of course.

I’d watched the entire series so many times, I knew them all by heart. So I focused on her instead. I wanted to see when she would laugh—if she would laugh.

“Why are you glaring at me?” she asked, eyes still on the screen.

I grinned. “I’m not glaring,” I said, swallowing a mouthful of coffee and waiting.

She, at last, turned to face me. “Are you going to watch me for the entire movie?”

My breath stuttered. It wasn’t my fault that her shirt pulled against her breasts as she lifted her arms to twist her hair up into a messy bun.

A few blond strands had fallen free and she pushed them behind her ears. I wanted to nibble those ears, kiss along her jaw and down her throat. I’d imagined the soft sounds of pleasure she would make if I did that more times than I wanted to admit.

And now I was getting hard. Again.

Fuck.

I shifted in my seat.

“Of course not. I wanted to see if you’d laugh,” I said.

She quirked a brow, probably thinking I was full of shit. But I did want to know—to maybe see if we actually had one thing in common.

“Watch the movie, Charlie.” I turned my attention back to the screen. I lifted my feet onto the ottoman, took another sip of my coffee, and tried to focus on one of my favorite movies.

Then Nora Charles entered the scene and the witty banter between Nick and Nora started.

And Charlie laughed. It was soft, but I couldn’t miss it. I grinned behind my coffee cup, then chuckled right along with her. I tried to ignore the tightening in my chest that occurred from her actually liking something that meant so much to me.

“He totally did it,” she said halfway through the movie.

“I’m not saying anything.”

She’d asked a few questions and given me her theories about who the villain was, but I wasn’t giving her any spoilers.

She appeared invested in the movie, and I wasn’t sure why that made me happy. That was a lie—I knew exactly why it made me happy, and that made me nervous. I was having feelings for her, ones that would get me nowhere.

“You know I can look it up online,” she said.

“Why the hell would you do that?” I asked, swiveling to look at her.

Her eyes were bright with humor. “Your face right now.”

“What kind of monster does that?” I asked.

“My sister does that. It’s annoying as fuck. She’s ruined more than a few movies for me over the years because her poker face is pathetic,” Charlie said.

“That’s just wrong,” I said. “And I have an excellent poker face, so you’re safe. I will neither confirm nor deny your theories.”

“Good,” she said, turning back to watch the movie. It was the first time that we were comfortable with each other, and it was nice. Our fake marriage had put us even more on edge, but for a moment, it was just us being kind to each other.

She never talked about her family. I knew the basics because we’d done a full background check before she joined the band—one older sister, parents still married, all of them living in Upstate New York in a town not too far from where the rest of the guys grew up, strangely enough.

But she hadn’t said much else about them. At least not in front of me.

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