Page 37 of Accidentally Wed to My Enemy

“Youare.” I meant it. “You vibrate on screen. It’s like, I don’t know. Like you’re full of so much emotion you can’t hold it in. I can’t look away from you. Nobody could. And it’s not just on camera, not just when you’re acting. There’s something about you that feels…”

Lacey’s eyes had gone round, all liquid with moonlight. “What?”

“Real,” I said. “You feel real, like what you see is what you get. No hidden agendas. No secrets or lies. You wear your heart on your sleeve, and I— I like that.”

Lacey positively glowed. She drew me in closer. “I’d kiss you right now, but that weird bird is watching.”

I followed her gaze, and some seabird was perving, some janky-legged brown thing with beady black eyes. “Let it,” I said, and swept her into my arms.

I kissed her hot and deep, cradling her to me, a long, sweet, unhurried kiss that felt like a first one — no reporters to hide from, no cameras rolling, just me and Lacey and the moon and the ocean, the beauty around us, the warm ache within. This time was real, no doubt, no question. She was mine in that moment, and I was hers.

I could have kissed her forever there on that beach, kissed her till the sun came up and went down again, till the weeks and the seasons passed and the old year became new. But the tide was rising and the waves splashed our feet, and we skittered back laughing, and she took my hand. We fled the ocean together and ran up the beach, across the hotel yard and into the lobby.

In the elevator, she grabbed me and pinned me to the wall, and kissed me with such hunger I felt my toes curl. The bell dinged and we staggered out still entwined, and I stole another kiss, and another after that. I swiped my key on the first door we bumped up against, but it buzzed — wrong door — and Lacey swiped hers. We crashed into her suite clumsy with passion, knocking fruit from her fruit bowl as we skirted the table.

“Bedroom,” gasped Lacey, breathless from kissing.

I scooped her up in my arms and followed the moonlight, and soon I was laying her out on her bed. Her hair spread around her, all silvery-pale. Her tanned skin gleamed bronze, the skin of a goddess. I leaned down and pressed my lips to her shoulder, that sun-kissed sprinkle of brown sugar freckles. She inhaled through her teeth and I took that as a good sign, and followed the freckle-trail all down her arm.

“I’ve craved this,” she said, and ran her hands through my hair. She pulled me back up and kissed me again, and wrapped her legs around me to hold me close.

I slid my hand up her side, tracing her contours. When my palm grazed her breast, she arched up and moaned. She gave of herself without doubt or restraint, one hand clasped possessively on the back of my neck. I responded with all of my pent-up passion, all my stress and frustration turning to need. She was what I’d been missing, her breath shared with mine. Her rabbit-quick heartbeat when I kissed down her neck.

She slid her hand down between us and set my cock free. I pushed her skirt up and thumbed her clit through her panties. I watched her face as I teased her, watched her pale lashes flutter. Watched her lips part and her breath come faster. It felt like bearing witness to some intimate secret, something just for the two of us. Something precious and rare.

Then she was holding me, guiding me inside her. Opening her eyes to watch mine roll back. I bit my lip hard, lost myself in sensation. When she bucked up against me, I matched her desire, thrusting faster and deeper, peppering her face with kisses. I kissed her cheeks and her eyelids, her forehead, her lips. She ran her fingertips soft down my back, no angry nails this time, a gentle caress.

I felt the shuddering storm when she found her climax, and I held her through it and brought her there again. Then her breath kissed my neck and I felt myself stiffen, a hot surge of heat building in my belly. I gathered her to me and chased her over that cliff’s edge, stars in my vision as I lost myself in her.

We lay entwined after, catching our breath, her head on my shoulder, her hair in my face. I didn’t want to brush it away. I liked how it tickled, how it moved with her breath.

“If you’d told me a month ago we’d end up like this…” She leaned up and kissed me, and I kissed her back.

“I’ll never regret this.” I found her hand and squeezed it. She stirred against me and a shiver ran through me, and I knew I’d soon want her again. But for now, for this moment, I wanted to hold her. To feel her weight pressed against me and know this was ours — our chance. Our fresh start, washed clean of the past.

CHAPTER 14

LACEY

Iwoke up the next morning to bliss and not panic. To Eric’s arms around me, his legs tangled with mine. I lay for a while and listened to his breathing, and I felt the exact moment when he woke up, not with a jolt or a sudden inhale, but with a sigh of contentment. He pulled me closer.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning to you.” I stretched out against him and felt his cock stir. “You think we have time, you know, before work?”

I felt Eric smiling, his lips on my neck. “I hate to rush, but I’d never deny you.”

“Let’s be late, then,” I said, and rolled over to straddle him.

We weren’tquitelate, thanks to our driver’s heroics, but we showed up on set that day all glowing and flustered. Berg spotted us, scowled, and stalked off in a huff. He rode us both hard that day, and the two weeks that followed, but his bile couldn’t touch us. Not in our bubble. We mocked his black mood, holed up in our trailer — well, Eric’s trailer, but I’d mostly moved in.

“You’re doing that smile again.” Eric wagged his finger. I giggled into his chest. He did a perfect Berg, right down to the accent. Right down to the hateful way he saidsmile, like it was a dirty word. I smirked up at Eric.

“What, this one?”

He kissed my smirk off me. We’d gone so gooey — so rapt in each other it was almost disgusting. I couldn’t get enough of his arms around me, all strong and sinewed and yet somehow gentle. Nothing could touch me in their comforting circle. I didn’t need anything but the power to stop time. To stretch these golden moments out to forever.

“You’re goingsoviral,” said Grace, one day. She was fixing my hair, streaking it through with fake blood, and she held up her phone so I could see. Someone had snapped us resting up between takes, our chairs pushed together, Eric’s hand in my hair. I had one leg flung over his lap. He was looking at me like I’d hung the sun.

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