Page 37 of Just (Fake) Married
“Hey, Mike.”
“Sorry to hear about your dad,” he shouted over the music.
“Thanks.”
Mike looked over at Harmony and back at me. I braced myself for some old high school bullshit.
“Ha, better watch out, Ethan. You gonna punch him again, Harmony?”
“Always thinking about it,” she said, cheekily.
“Hey, good to see you again, Mike,” I said, and handed him the empty tray in my hands, my eyes never leaving Harmony’s. “But can you please take this back to the bar for me? We’re talking here.”
“Doesn’t look like talking to me,” Mike laughed. But he got the hint and walked off, leaving me and my fake fiancé staring at each other in the middle of a dance floor.
“You want to dance?” Harmony asked, dragging her arm across her forehead to wipe off some of the sweat. It was zero degrees outside with a windchill factor of hell frozen over, but inside this bar it was a sauna, and it really worked for her. She was flushed and rosy and sweaty and I wanted tolickher.
“No,” I said. “I’m not much of a dancer.”
“Oh. I love dancing,” she said.
“I noticed.” My eyes, like they had a mind of their own, travelled down the length of her body and then back up to her face. She didn’t look pissed. She looked…interested?
“Well, thanks for the shot,” she said, like she was struggling to put an end to whatever thisthingwas. Our inability to move away from one another.
“You need anything else?” I asked, because I still wasn’t ready to walk away.
Her throat bobbed and her eyes were fixed on my mouth. Like she was thinking what I was thinking and having a rule against kissing was stupid.
I stepped closer.
Where was I allowed to kiss her again? So that anyone watching would think there was something going on between us.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
Something stupid. Something very stupid.
“Making us believable,” I said, and I leaned down to kiss her. To put my mouth on that lush set of lips. To taste her smart mouth.
Yes, we’d just established this rule, but honestly, how could I not? Her lips were infinitely kissable. Full and lush and would probably taste like tequila.
“Harmony!” Someone yelled across the bar and she turned her face to the side.
But I was already in descend mode, so while I didn’t kiss her mouth, I did kiss her neck. That sweet sweaty spot below herchin, along her collar bone. For a moment I sucked that flesh into my mouth, licking the sweat I found there. Her pulse started to flutter.
Then I had to take a step back before shit got real on the dance floor.
I could feel the attention of the entire bar on us.
She looked at me with wide, panicked eyes, but that’s what we wanted, wasn’t it? For people to see us together like this.
“You forgot neck kissing,” I said, into the shell of her ear, so only she could hear me.
She blinked like she didn’t understand.
“You know, safe kisses not on mouth. Neck kissing. Perfectly legal.”
She nodded. “I’m going to dance.”
