Page 87 of Faking It
“How’re you doing?” I ask as I step up behind him and make sure my pelvis rubs against him. He freezes momentarily and then a laugh falls from his mouth and echoes around the empty place.
“Nice try, but it’s not going to work.”
“Looks like you’re score’s getting up there.” This time I pull up his shirt and scrape my fingernails over his abdomen right above the top of his button. His muscles tense beneath my fingers.
“Harlow,” he warns.
“What?” My voice is a mask of innocence while my hands make a sinner’s descent beneath his waistband. My fingernails play with the rough patch of hair there and then slowly make their way down to where his dick is already straining against the denim of his jeans.
His fingers begin to slow their pounding of the button. My hand grips around his cock as best as I can with my body flanking his from behind, and I do my best within the confines of the space to stroke him.
His body stills—hands on button, hips motionless, his head now hanging down—as my hand continues to tease and the game emits the sound of an explosion telling me he just lost. Yes. Distraction technique successful.
“Oopsie,” I say and it takes everything I have to slide my hand out of his jeans and away from his very tempting and skillful dick.
“Harlow.” It’s a low grumble of a curse.
I take a step back and then squeal when he lunges for me, pained grin on his face, and begins to chase me around the arcade. The chase only lasts a few minutes as the space is limited but when he catches me, when he wraps his arms around me and pulls my back against his still hardened cock, I feel just as tortured as he is.
His teeth scrape ever-so-softly against the skin where my shoulder meets my neck, his labored breath in my ear.
“That was dirty.”
“Yeah . . . well . . . it worked.” My smile is automatic. Closing my eyes, I sink into the wonderful warmth and feel of him behind me.
“I love that you’re unapologetic.” He chuckles, his lips still against my skin. “You won, Cinder. Name your prize.”
I turn in his arms and just stare. Take him in. The disheveled hair. The green eyes. The lopsided smirk. The sexiness that just exudes off of everything about him.
I’m so screwed.
Distance. Space. Time.
Those are the three things I need right now because if we head back to the coach, we’re going to end up having sex . . . but right now with our mood, with this vibe between us, with my heart blatantly worn on my sleeve where it sits right now, I won’t just be opening my legs to him. I’ll be opening my heart too.
“Umm,” I say, knowing I need to chill these thoughts of mine so I can at least pretend to myself that we can still do the casual sex thing. “I want to play another game.”
“What?” He laughs, clearly thinking we were heading back to the coach and our bed just like my body wants to be doing.
“Another game. A couple more moments where we’re not the face of SoulM8.”
He chews on the inside of his cheek as he stares at me with confusion flickering through expression. “Okay. Whatever you want.”
“Thanks.” My voice is soft. My heart constricting in my chest.
“How about you close your eyes, spin in a circle, and whatever game you point to when you stop is the one we play.”
“You want to play spin the bottle with arcade games?”
“Only if I get the other benefits of the spin when we get back on the road,” he says with a wink.
I just shake my head and go stand in the middle of the room. With my finger pointing out and my eyes closed, I spin slowly at first and then a bit faster until I’m disoriented. When I stop, Zane’s arms are there to hold me from falling over from the dizzies and my finger is pointing at a Lover’s Lane pinball machine.
“What the heck is that?” I ask and then laugh when I notice there are two identical pinball machines side by side for a couple to play.
“It all comes back to love,” he says and chuckles disbelievingly.
But as we slide our tokens in the machines and wait for the games to dispatch their pinballs for us, something about his comment bugs me. Reminds me of that first time we met. A time that now feels like forever ago when it’s only been weeks.
