Page 42 of The Faking Game

There’s a shift in his eyes. A brush of humor. “Yes, this weekend. I’ll come pick you up on Saturday. Same time.”

“Okay, yeah. That might work,” I hear myself saying.

He leans over and puts a hand on the car door beside me. Locking me in on one side. With only streetlights around, his face is cast in shadow. Broad shoulders turned to me, eyes on me, and dear god, is he leaning in?

He is.

His lips quirk, and there’s just a foot separating us. I catch the scent of the same cologne I caught the other day, when we were pretending in front of his mother. He smells good. And he’s looking at me. He just won’t look away. My heart is pounding?—

“Trouble,” he says. His lips are only inches from mine. “This is when you reject me.”

“Oh.”

“Push me away,” he murmurs, now only an inch from my lips. I feel his warm breath, and my eyes flutter closed on instinct.

I wonder what it would feel like, to be kissed by him. If he closed the distance, would I like it? All his focus, all his strength, directed at me. Maybe it would be ni?—

“Damn it.” He pulls back. “What the hell was that?”

I blink a few times. “What?”

“Youagreedto a second date when you didn’t want to, and you would have let me kiss you.” His brows are drawn low, and the smirk on his lips from a minute ago is gone. He’s dropped the role he was playing, and he’s West again, the West I know. Not the one who looked at me like I was everything he wanted. “Let’s get in the car.”

“Okay.” I get into the passenger seat and wait for him to walk around. I still feel out of sorts, my heart beating too fast. I’ve never seen West so close up before.

His amber eyes looked almost dark brown in the low lighting.

He pulls out onto the street without waiting for the guards to get into the car behind us. The silence is heady, a thing with teeth.

“Do you often do that?” he finally asks. He’s looking straight ahead, one hand on the steering wheel and the other in a fist on the console between us.

“Do what?”

“Freeze. You just froze when I gave you those eyes you mentioned and leaned in.”

My knee bounces. “It happens sometimes.”

“Do you let them kiss you even if you don’t want to? Like you were about to with me?” He blows out a breath. “Fucking hell, Nora. We need to keep practicing. Next time you’re going to push me away so hard I take a step back.”

“Next time?”

“Yes.” His hand tightens around the steering wheel. “We’re going to need more practice here.”

I close my eyes, only to see West’s face again, so close to my own. His arm braced against the side of the car. Is that how he always is on dates? Is that his real charm or something he turned on just for tonight?

Is that how he looks at women he actually dates?

I froze. But I’m not sure why.

“I think tonight went well. I just didn’t… do the last part. I’m going to push you away next time.”

“Good,” he says. “I asked you about this weekend. You should have told me you didn’t want to see me again.”

“I can’t just say that to someone’s face!”

“Of course you can,” West says. “No, I would not like to see you again.There.”

“It’s easy for you to say that.”

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