Page 36 of One Night in My Rival's Bed

I swept the tip of my tongue over my suddenly dry lips. ‘We can still stop this. Erm...them, I mean.’

‘Can we?’ He glanced at my mouth and my stomach hollowed out. His thumb came up and brushed over my lower lip with the softest touch imaginable. ‘Maybe some things are unstoppable.’ His voice had dropped a couple of semitones, and my spine loosened like molten wax.

I was still trying to think of something to say when his mouth came down and met mine. His lips were feather-light at first but then the pressure increased as desire flared between us like wildfire.

The only thing that brought me back down to earth was the little bump as the plane landed.

Grayson brushed an imaginary hair off my face and gave me a crooked smile. ‘Let’s see if you’re right.’

I couldn’t hold back a puzzled frown. ‘About what?’

‘Let’s try and pretend to be positive about Ethan and Niamh’s relationship and see what happens.’

‘Okay...’

He brushed his thumb across my lower lip again, his expression now cast in shadow. ‘I’ve booked us separate rooms at the hotel, but they’re adjoining. I didn’t want Ethan and Niamh to know we’re involved.’

‘Right. Good plan.’

He lifted his finger to my face and smoothed the tiny frown I hadn’t even realised was on my forehead. ‘Does it make you feel compromised to be lying to your sister?’

‘It makes me feel hypocritical.’

His mouth gave a rueful twist. ‘Yeah, well, there’s that, I guess. Do you want to end it now, before we get to the hotel?’

I couldn’t look into his eyes so looked down at my hands in my lap instead.

‘Do you?’ I tried to make my voice sound casual, light, and not all that invested in how he answered but I couldn’t quite pull it off. There was an undercurrent of despair I couldn’t disguise, no matter how hard I tried.

He brought my chin up with the tip of his finger, gently turning my face to meet his gaze. ‘No.’

‘Really?’ A bubble of hope rose in my chest. ‘I mean, isn’t that a little unusual for you, Mr Playboy-About-Town?’

‘It is.’

‘What do you attribute it to?’

His eyes kindled. ‘You.’

‘Me?’

His hand cupped one side of my face. ‘You make me laugh.’

‘What? No one’s done that before?’

‘Not the way you do.’

I stared at the contours of his mouth, my heart kicking up its pace. It was foolish of me to think he might be falling in love with me. As foolish and idiotic as it was for me to fall for him. But what if he was starting to rethink the timeframe on our fling? We had spent so much time together lately. It didn’t feel like a temporary fling at all. It felt like something with the potential to be so much more.

I adopted a teasing expression and met his gaze. ‘You’d better go easy on the compliments, or I’ll start thinking you’ll be booking a chapel as well as your brother.’

A flicker of something passed through his gaze, a slight disturbance like something dark and shadowy moving underneath a deep current of water. ‘That’s not going to happen.’ His tone was adamant but there was a disconnect with the way he was looking at me, as if he was seeing the potential for more and weighing it up in his mind. Or maybe that was my imagination playing tricks on me.

I was saved from having to think of a witty comeback by the disembarking routine. But I was aware of every time Grayson looked at me. Aware of every idle touch of his hand, like when he placed it on the small of my back to guide me down the aisle of the plane. I got the feeling he found it hard to stop himself touching me. I know I found it hard to keep my hands off him. They seemed to gravitate towards him of their own volition. It was like we were programmed now to be physically connected. Our bodies had muscle memory of contact, sensual contact, and wanted more.

Some time later we were in the back of the car he had organised, the driver behind a glass panel, on our way to the hotel. Grayson suddenly glanced at me with an unreadable look. ‘You didn’t answer my question earlier.’

‘Which question was that?’

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