Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 68987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Because he knew that it mattered.
He was right here with me. And even if all of the boyfriend stuff was fake, that still meant a lot.
As we listened to the background noise of the festival, I saw the camera crew slowly approaching. They’d been a bit further back while we stood on the bridge, getting some wide shots of us. They were still filming as they came over, and I watched Jax’s body language shift.
“Um, should we—should we do something?” he asked.
“We don’t have to do anything in particular.”
“I thought you wanted to kiss,” he said. “For the cameras.”
“Oh,” I said. “When I made that comment, it wasn’t for the show. You just asked me what I’d really do if I were wasted, and… that’s probably what I would do.”
Jax’s eyes went wide for a moment. “Really?” he asked, his voice dropping lower.
I nodded. “I’m sure I’d tell you your mouth was pretty, and maybe say some annoying shit like give me a kiss, pretty straight boy. Dumb stuff.”
He was frozen for a moment, watching me. “Then let’s do it.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Jax, I really mean it, we don’t have to do that—”
Jax leaned in slowly, and some part of me still felt like I should stop him. Clearly, he was just doing this because some part of him thought it would be good to get on film, and I had no clue if he was only doing it to try to make me happy.
Because Jax was always trying to make me happy, as far as I could tell.
But then his lips were close to mine. And an entire night’s worth of pointless anxiety melted away in one moment.
“Don’t you want to, though?” he asked just a couple of inches away from my lips. I swore there was an almost teasing, flirty hint to his question, even though I knew I might be imagining it. I watched his dark eyelashes as his gaze flitted from my lips to my eyes and back again.
“Well,” I murmured, “I’d never say no to a kiss.”
His lips were on mine the moment I’d given him the go-ahead. His kiss was gentle and soft, just as polite as he was. I felt like I could collapse from how purely sweet it was—nothing like the drunk, impersonal, pointless kisses from bars and clubs that I’d gotten used to.
He kissed me like he gave a damn. And that was more than I could ask for.
I kissed him back slowly. I tried to freeze the moment, living in it, forgetting about reality. Some dim part of my mind wondered if he’d suddenly recognize that he was kissing another man and get grossed out, to break off in horror at any second, but I was also too busy enjoying how plush his lips were to care too much.
A moment later, his hand gently landed on the side of my face. His fingertips raked through the side of my hair, just behind my ear. His tongue slid out and brushed against my lower lip.
Goosebumps. All over my fucking body.
And like just about everything Jax had done to me tonight, it made my cock respond instantly, like some sort of wild animal that only responded to his call.
As he pulled back he kept his hand at the side of my head, looking me in the eyes.
“Was that okay?” he asked in a low voice.
Why don’t we do it for another few hours in my bed and find out?
Warmth flared in my chest. “You’re a good kisser,” I told him, my voice coming out slow and syrupy.
“Pretty good stuff,” Kim said as she walked up a moment later, waggling her eyebrows. “That will get people talking. Might have to cut it, if we want to keep building the tension before showing a kiss, but you two are on the right track. Great job.”
“I hope it can work out for the show,” Jax politely told Kim.
Right. I watched as Jax asked Kim a few questions about camera angles and lighting, clearly very happy to have been useful.
Jax had asked me what I would do differently if I was drinking tonight. The truth was that I’d obsess over his kiss for hours, if I were drunk. I’d keep replaying it in my mind, remembering the slight cinnamon taste on his mouth. The clean laundry smell of his sweater, and how it hugged every muscle of his body so goddamn perfectly. I’d fixate on how tender the feeling of his hand on my head had been, and the intimacy of the look in his eyes, even after the kiss.
But that was the old me.
I wasn’t drunk all the time, anymore. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let myself fall into a fantasy that would only end up hurting me.
Maybe the new me could enjoy a kiss, smile and nod, and know it was all for the cameras. The new me knew better than to fall head over heels for no reason at all.