Page 19 of Give My Everything
Something comforting with just a hint of danger.
“I thought someone calculated would learn to expect the unexpected,” I whisper back, our faces even closer, our lips hovering.
But our eyes are open, still watching each other.
“Clearly I have a lot to learn,” he answers, smiling. “Why don’t you teach me?”
And then he presses his lips to mine.
It’s a chaste kiss, much more chaste than I’m accustomed to, that’s for sure.
But I still feel it in my toes.
Still feel where my nerves and synapses are firing all along my body.
My hands reach out and rest on his hips, and I pull him even closer to me, loving the feeling of his hardness against my softness.
I can feel him through his fancy suit.
And he isdefinitelyhard.
But at my pressure against him, he rips his mouth off of mine, breathing hard, his brow furrowed.
A distant whistling sound is the only warning I get before a firework explodes in the sky.
I turn my head, looking off in the distance.
“I thought you said this was the best view. I can’t see the fireworks over these bushes,” I say, knowing the explosions of light are happening just on the other side of the shrub, over the green.
“Itisthe best view,” he replies, taking my chin in his hand and tilting my head so I’m looking back toward the courtyard where everyone stands, watching the fireworks in the distance.
And where they have the perfect vantage point to see me and Ben kissing in the alcove of the bushes.
I swallow loudly, something thick and unwelcome falling into my stomach and settling in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable.
He put us here so everyone would see us.
Which makes every word out of his mouth just now a completely calculated plan.
If I were walking, I would trip.
It was only a few moments ago that I was talking about what a great actor Ben is. And yet, when he puts us up on a stage for everyone to see, it feels like he’s yanking a rug out from under me.
I stretch my neck from left to right, trying to loosen up the muscles that seem to have suddenly tightened up.
The last thing I need to do is forget—even for a second—that what we’re doing is something to solve our problems.
I can’t allow myself to slip into that well-fitting shoe, no matter how comfortable it might be.
CHAPTER4
BEN
The whirring sound of the bicycle finally begins to slow as I tap a few buttons on the screen so I’m in cooldown mode.
Today is a cardio day, and it felt good to punish my body with a twenty-mile ride through the Italian Alps—not that I was really looking at the screen while I was going, my mind too full from last night to zone out.
All growing up, we had a private gym inside our house. Then when I went to college, I realized it was a lot more fun to work out with other people, so I got really into cycling classes and group rides.
