Page 13 of The Girlfriend Zone

Well, then. That’s clear.

“This is a better pose,” she says, like she needs to explain herself, when I’m so good with it.

“Whatever you want,” I reply.

One hand is still curled around the remote trigger. With the other, she drags her shiny black nail down her chest, toward the swell of her breasts. “Kiss me here. For the camera.”

That’s all the invitation I need. I dip my head, pressing a soft kiss to her skin, instantly lost in the taste of her. Her warmth. The beat of her pulse beneath my lips. The scent of brown sugar and vanilla lingering in her hair while the camera captures the way I touch her.

I kiss my way up her chest, to her throat, flicking my tongue lightly against the hollow there. My brain short-circuits. Everything I’ve been holding back starts to crumble. I want to grab her face and kiss her deeply, but when I reach up to cup her cheeks and haul her close, her eyes widen—just for a second.

Fear flickers across them.

Something’s wrong. “You okay?” I ask, pulling away.

“Yes, I’m great. It’s fine. It’s just—” She cuts herself off, not finishing her sentence.

“Do I make you uncomfortable?” I ask again, my brow furrowing.

She shakes her head adamantly. “No. I swear. I just…” She shifts a few inches back, wincing. “I don’t usually kiss this fast.”

Oh, fuck. I don’t want her to think I’monlytrying to get her naked, even though I’d very much like that. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

“You didn’t,” she whispers. Then she sighs heavily, closing her eyes, like something pains her. She lets go of the grip on the remote.

I feel like a total piece of shit. Except, she’s not moving off me. She’s still straddling me. So I wait for her to go next. When she opens her eyes a few seconds later, she sets a hand on my chest, grabbing the fabric of my shirt, twisting it in her fingers. She parts her lips, breathes out heavily again, clearly at war with herself.

I have no clue what’s going on, but I do not want to make her feel uncomfortable.

“Should I leave?” I ask, trying to fix the mess I’ve made. “I should leave.”

“Don’t.”

So I don’t.

Another big breath, then she straightens her shoulders, gripping my shirt tighter. “I don’t like to talk about this so soon,” she says with a frustrated groan I didn’t expect, then she finishes in a strong voice with, “I wear hearing aids. And I don’t want you to touch my ears when you kiss me.”

I blink. I didn’t see that coming. Only because…I had noidea. Her hair is so long, and it covers her ears, and I haven’t gotten any sense that she hasn’t heard me when I’ve spoken.

But as I roll the tape on the last few minutes, all her reactions make perfect sense—the way she tensed when I got too close to her hair, the way she moved away when I ventured near her earlobe. So many questions ping through my mind, but when I look at her eyes again, there’s a barrier in those blues.

Her guard is all the way up.

Like she thinks…

Ah fuck.

She thinks I’m going to leave.

She thinks this turns me off.

She thinks I’m like some asshole who must have done that to her—left when he learned. And I immediately want to find him and kill him.

I do the next best thing. I lift my hand to run my knuckles down her cheek. “Thank you for telling me. And I have one opinion on that right now and it’s this—I’d really like to take you on a date.”

She relaxes, slowly but surely, her lips curving into a soft smile, like that’s what she needed more than a kiss. “You do?” She sounds enchanted. Maybe amazed.

I don’t waste a single second. “I really do.” I glance at the clock on the wall. “What are you doing right now?”

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