Page 91 of One and Only

Because of the mirrors on one side of the wall, she caught sight of me walking in, slowing her pulls. The muscles in her upper arms flexed as she pulled, and I gently tapped the skin of her upper back.

“Sit up higher,” I told her. “Like you’re trying to squeeze a tennis ball between your shoulder blades.”

She nodded, chest heaving on great gulping breaths of air. Greer straightened her back on her next few pulls, and I nodded. The warmth of her skin still lingered on my fingertip, and I realized just how much of this confusion had started when I woke up with the feel of her body against mine.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to indulge, that I didn’t want to see what it would feel like with her.

I wanted to very badly.

So badly that it clouded all my rational thoughts. And that was the problem.

If I pushed her against the wall behind us, slid my hand to anchor behind her neck, if I devoured her mouth, swallowed all the sounds she’d make with my hands on her sweat-warmed body, I knew it would feel good.

It would feel amazing.

With very little effort, I’d be able to justify this one indulgence, just so we could know. So we could have an outlet for all this bound energy coiled tight between us.

And it just might wreck everything else around us.

As Greer came to a stop, I snagged her water bottle from the edge of the wall and handed it to her. She took a big gulp, and when a drop of water slid down the edge of her neck, I fought the urge to lick it off her skin.

“You okay?” she asked, still slightly out of breath.

She’d sound like that, sprawled out on the bed. She’d be flushed in the same way, if I let myself peel off her clothes and unleash all this foreign energy in the way I wanted. The way she wanted to, I could tell.

It would be so fucking good.

I closed my eyes for a moment and let out a slow, controlled breath.

“Olive won’t be back now until after the wedding,” I said.

She nodded. “I know.”

“And when she’s here, everything is … a little bit unclear.” My eyes traced her face. The strands of hair stuck to the graceful line of her neck. She was so beautiful. And every time I thought about touching her, those thoughts got louder and louder, eclipsing everything else in their path. “The role we’re playing feels a bit more real, doesn’t it?”

She exhaled a quiet laugh. “Yeah.”

I took a step closer and allowed my thumb to catch a drop of water where it clung to the edge of her jaw. Greer inhaled shakily.

“And when I touch you,” I told her, “or think about touching you, I forget that it’s a role. That it’s not real.”

Her brow furrowed.

“That’s what we need to remember. What I need to remember.”

“Can’t we allow things to change?” she asked. Of course she wouldn’t easily back down. I thought about what Cameron said. How stubborn she was when she wanted something. And I saw it in her eyes. She wanted me. She wanted me in the exact same way I wanted her. “Things don’t stay the same simply because we want them to. That’s not how life works, Beckett.”

“I know.” I dropped my hand. “But I can’t afford to get distracted right now. I have too much on the line.”

Greer smiled, just a little. “So you’re admitting you want me,” she said.

My laugh was nothing more than a shocked gust of air.

She was so fucking fearless.

“Yeah,” I told her. “I am.”

“And you’re not going to do anything about it because this is all fake. Because we lied to protect these certain pieces of our life,” she said quietly. Her eyes glowed though, like she could read through every line, every piece of subtext, every tangled thought in my head. “So even if it feels real. And the attraction between us is real. You’re deciding to leave it the same because it’s easier in your head if it stays that way. The risk of acting on it is too much for you. Am I getting that right?”

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