Page 72 of Rook

And certainly never by a man.

Feeling the wetness flooding my eyes, I squeezed them shut.

I wasn’t sure if Rook was just playing it up for the camera, or if maybe he heard the little sniffling sound I made, but both his arms went around me, squeezing tight. A second later, his lips pressed down on the top of my head.

At some point, Gigi stopped clicking. And a while after that, I got the strange feeling that maybe we were alone.

“You alright?” Rook asked, his voice vibrating through his chest.

“Yeah.” Not remotely.

“Babe…”

“I’m fine,” I tried again, yet somehow even less convincingly.

“There’s no one here but me.”

“Where’s Gigi?”

“She headed out a bit back. What’s going on? You regretting this?”

“No. No, that’s not it,” I said.

“Then what is it?” he asked, his hand sliding up my back to slip into my hair.

My defenses were too low to lie convincingly. But maybe a half-truth would suffice.

“I think I just really needed a hug,” I told him, cringing at my own words.

I don’t know what I expected in response to that. Silence, maybe. Or, if my past was any indication, mocking.

Instead, Rook’s arm squeezed me tighter again. “Me too,” he admitted.

His fingers went to my scalp, doing those little circles that had me both simultaneously relaxing and coming alive with a slow, unfurling sort of desire.

It was my damn growling stomach that ruined the moment.

“Yeah,” Rook agreed. I could hear the smile in his voice. “What did we each get? Three bites?”

Then he was folding up and I had no choice but to move with him.

The disappointment at the moment lost stuck with me as we drank more champagne and picked at the grazing boards of food.

The night grew darker around us, but with our little light being powered by a small solar generator hidden behind some aesthetic piled baskets, we could see what we were doing as we started to clean up the food.

I figured we were seconds away from getting up and walking back to the car.

But out of nowhere, Rook’s hands sank into my hips.

Then he pulled me to straddle his lap.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Tessa

I was too surprised to resist.

But let’s face it, even if he told me his intention, I’d have been helpless but to follow.

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