Page 123 of Just (Fake) Married
“What?” she asked.
“The curl and catch?” I said, smiling as I kissed her.
She laughed against my lips. “It’s the catch and curl. I told you, it’s important to get the C’s in the right order. And yeah,” she whispered, licking my lips, sucking my tongue. “It’s happening.”
Me too, I thought, and I picked her up and carried her upstairs to our room where I laid her out across my bed and kissed her some more.
I kissed her until it wasn’t enough. Until she was arching into me and making those needy noises in her throat. I pulled back, stripped off her clothes and then mine in record time and then kissed her again. Kissed her like I couldn’t breathe without her. I let her slide the condom on me, because I was too busy memorizing the inside of her mouth. The sharp edge of her teeth. The way her tongue felt against mine.
She lifted her hips and I slid into her and cried out, shaken. This was heaven. It was beyond sex. It was everything I never knew I wanted.
Home. Right here.
Harmony
The silence,as we lay there, sweat cooling on our bodies, heart rates coming back into normal range, was excruciating. The weight of everything we weren’t saying and everything I had said pressed us flat to the bed, our hands touching. Our knees. But I didn’t know what he was thinking. I didn’t know what I was thinking, except…
The festival is in one week.
One week until we got that blue ribbon back.
Fulfilled the terms of the will. Saved the ranch. Saved the town.
Then Ethan would go interview for that job in Arizona. He was going to get it, of course he would.
Then we would have to somehow start the process of unraveling this lie we’d told.
Maybe I shouldn’t have told him I loved him. I knew it was reckless. As were the millions of kisses we’d just shared.
But it was true and it was real. And that was worth something. Not enough to save us, but something.
Right on time, my heart was breaking.
Once, when I was a kid, I dislocated my finger and my dad took my hand in his and looked me deeply in the eyes and said, “I’m going to count to three and-”
Before he even finished the sentence he’d popped my finger back into place. I had to do that, but with Ethan and my heart and this stupid fake marriage we were in.
We were out of place and it was time for me to pop us back where we belonged.
I stood up on legs that wobbled.
“Harmony?” he said, from the side of the bed where he was sprawled. I couldn’t look at him. His ruffled hair, his swollen lips. He was so beautiful, but in my mind he was already gone.
I wanted everything with Ethan but that wasn’t going to happen. He was too big for me. I should have seen that back in high school. I definitely saw it when he was in action last night. Someday, I hoped he would see that I’d made this sacrifice for him.
Taking a deep breath, I found my clothes, holding myself together with sheer will and the elastic of my bra.
“What are you doing?” he said, his hand on my shoulder, and I couldn’t stop my flinch. He pulled his hand away and sat up, too. I glanced at his face and then away. It hurt too much to look at him.
“I think I’m going to go,” I said, after clearing my throat.
“Back to your room-”
“Home,” I interrupted. “Back to my mom’s house.”
I pulled on my jeans and did up the button. I found my t-shirt.
“Harmony. What do you mean?”
