Page 34 of Call My Bluff
A sneaky smirk inched across his face, and one finger came up under her chin. He tipped her face up to his as he took another step forward. She moved again, but this time she felt the wall of the summer house against her back. A few choice words skittered through her mind; she hadn’t meant to let him push her into a corner—figurative or otherwise.
Noah looked down at her like he was memorizing the details of her face, and his hand grazed back along her jaw toward the nape of her neck. While he wastechnicallyplaying fair, it suddenly didn’t feel like “neutral territory” at all.
“Okay,” he murmured.
Olivia swallowed hard and reminded herself that this meant nothing. There was no reason he should affect her like this; none at all. “Two,” she said, “this isonekiss. Once you break it, that’s it. No repeats, no do-overs, no curtain calls.”
He dipped his head, and Olivia felt the stubble on his chin graze the soft places on her neck. “Got it,” he said, though it was really more of a breath that skated across her skin and sent a cascade of goose bumps down her spine.
She told herself to stay still, to give only what she’d agreed to and no more, but her subconscious didn’t seem to be listening. Instead, she felt her head tilt to one side without her permission, as if some parts of her brain were staging a mutiny. She could feel her heart rate kick up another notch, and she tried to keep her mind from clouding over.
Why did he have to smell so good?
He skimmed slowly along her jaw and came to hover over her mouth, mere millimeters away as the clock ticked down. “Anything else?” he asked.
Olivia sort of thought she’d had a number three, but whatever it was vanished from her mind as both his hands threaded into her hair. She merely shook her head in response.
The final countdown started, and the chanting from the main house was so loud they could hear it where they stood.
Ten!
Nine!
“One chance. Don’t choke,” she reminded him, though it was hard to talk when she could barely breathe. She wasn’t completely sure how she’d gotten into this predicament, but now that she was there, she could no more walk away than sprout wings and fly.
Eight!
Seven!
Noah pressed forward, pinning her completely against the wall, and Olivia felt her hands drift toward his waist of their own accord. The very air around them crackled with anticipation. “Stop talking,” he commanded.
Six!
Five!
Four!
Olivia’s eyes drifted closed.
Three!
Two!
One.
9
“Okay, so don’tkill me because it wasn’t my idea.”
Olivia paused with her wooden spatula hovering over a large pan of vegetables. She cut her eyes toward where Lexie stood with her back against the edge of their kitchen counter. “Whatwasn’t your idea?” she asked, her voice flat.
“Well, you know how I asked Jacob to come tonight?” Lexie began.
Olivia went back to cooking, the onions and garlic sizzling each time she stirred the skillet. She hadn’t actually known her roommate’s boyfriend was coming to their annual back-to-class dinner, but it wasn’t surprising. Lexie and Jake’s “Cold War,” as Noah had called it, was definitely over, and the two of them could barely be separated on the best of days. “Sure,” she replied.
“Well, Kate asked Jackson so there wouldn’t be four girls and only one guy, since that’s awkward,” Lexie went on.
Olivia pursed her lips, suddenly getting a bad feeling about where this conversation was headed. “Sure...” she said again.
