Page 175 of Fake it ’Til Fall

Not the joke.

The permission under it.

The wanting she’s trying to make ridiculous before it can ask for too much.

I set the notebook on the shelf beside us.

Slowly.

Her eyes follow the movement.

Then mine.

“You want me to do something about it?” I ask.

Her swallow is small. Visible.

“I think I said that with excellent sentence structure.”

I reach for her.

Not fast. Not grabbing. My hand comes to her jaw the way it did this morning before Puck started filing hallway complaints, and Daisy’s eyes shut for half a second like she hates how much she wants the touch.

That almost ruins me.

I’ve wanted to kiss her since she woke up beside me with panic in her eyes and my hand on her stomach. I lower my mouth to hers.

The kiss is not careful enough.

I mean it to be.

I mean to keep it small, because Bea is in the café and Puck is by my leg and Daisy is at work, and last night still lives under both our skin.

But Daisy makes a sound against my mouth.

Soft.

Relieved.

A little angry at herself for being relieved.

And careful becomes impossible.

Her hand comes to my shirt, fingers curling in the fabric, while the other stays trapped between us, still holding the edge of her notebook like she can keep one hand on the plan and one hand on me.

I kiss her deeper.

She rises into it.

Not shy. Not uncertain. Daisy Thorn does nothing halfway once she stops pretending she isn’t going to do it. Her mouth opens under mine, and for a few seconds there is no café, no contract, no pilot program, no fake anything.

Still trying to control the shape of a kiss she already surrendered to.

I pull back first because one of us has to remember doors exist.

Her eyes open slowly.

Her mouth is soft from mine, and the look she gives me is offended, dazed, and dangerously close to happy.