Page 35 of Off the Mark
“Should we invent a story about how we met? Something dramatic?” she asked, yanking me from the past.
“Why don’t we tell the truth? We met at Jolene’s when I was pitching for Syracuse. Stayed friends and reconnected”—I leaned in, saw that same heat in her gaze— “and you finally admitted you’d been pining for me, your hottest friend, all these years.”
She pressed her lips together, tryingsobadly not to smile. “Pass.”
“Yo, where’s the lie?”
“Rowan, you asked me out, like, four hundred times at Jolene’s. If anyone in this pretend story was pining, it was you.”
Her smug look of presumed victory sent blood rushing to my cock. And she looked so sexy like that—so coy and flirtatious—I shrugged and said, “Sounds like an origin story to me. You nailed it.”
She chewed on her lip. Then she held her thumb and index finger a centimeter apart. “I can tell people that I pined too. A teeny, tiny, little bit.”
I pressed a hand to my heart. “I should be so fucking lucky to deserve your minuscule affection, Charlie Maddox.”
She laughed at that, then grimaced at the clock behind the bar. “I need to get back to the hotel soon and take care of my bike. Anything else we need to cover?”
I hesitated. “Touching each other?”
Charlie went still. Cleared her throat. “Right. Clearly. We can’t be out in public without some convincing handholding.”
“And what you’re comfortable with,” I said slowly. “We’re friends first, Maddox. I don’t want it to make things…weird.”
Her smile was breezy. Confident. “It won’t make me feel weird, though I appreciate you saying it. But we obviously shouldn’t kiss.” At my surprised look, she said, “Why would we? Wait, do youwantto kiss me?”
I chuckled softly, spreading my legs wider on the stool. I clasped her non-injured hand and gently tugged her to stand between them. “Charlie. We don’t have to kiss. At all. Friendsshouldn’tbe kissing. But we can do other stuff. And we can even practice now, if you want.” I nodded my head at the mostly empty bar. “It could be good practice since we’re in public but no one recognizes us here.”
She rolled her shoulders back. “Sure, sounds like a plan. So we just…like…now? Now we’re…together?”
I couldn’t tell if her nerves were from the thought of being touched, generally, or being touched by me, specifically.
“I’m a little nervous too,” I admitted. “Why don’t I touch you the way I would if you were my actual girlfriend? And you tell me what’s okay and what’s not. Or you can tell me to fuck off, and we don’t have to touch at all.”
Charlie huffed out a laugh, but then went back to what she’d been doing. Which was staring at my mouth with a naked hunger. I didn’t move—I wasn’t about to pull my nervous friend against my body with a goddamnerection.
But then she blinked a few times, and whatever I’d seen there vanished. “How would you touch me if this wasn’t pretend?”
I kept my smile easy and very lightly brought my legs together, trapping her where she stood. We were face-to-face now, so I could study her reactions. Her eyelashes fluttered. She swallowed rapidly. I draped a loose arm around her waist, and her skin was warm against mine.
Then I did something I’d wanted to do since the first moment I saw her at Jolene’s. I reached up and caught a strand of blond hair between my fingers. Rubbed it once and tucked it neatly behind her ear, careful not to let my fingers graze her skin for longer than necessary.
After all, none of this was real. If it was, if she was mine, I would have taken that sweet curve of skin between my teeth.
“Is this okay?” I asked.
She raised a shoulder, nonchalant. Almost in challenge. “That’s fine.”
Eyes locked on her face, I caressed my palm up and down her spine. Soft. Barely there. She inhaled sharply, her attention moving back to the TV screen.
I stopped, but she only said, “That’s fine too. And why are you looking at me like that?”
I pulled her in another inch, dropped my mouth close to her ear. “I’m attempting to salvage what’s left of my ego over here. The last time I touched a woman and she said it wasfinewas…never.”
She arched a defiant eyebrow. I wanted to kiss the freckles on her cheeks. “I’m sure that ego of yours will live to see another day.”
My thumb slipped beneath the hem of her shirt, and I stroked it across the small of her back.
More warmth. More softness.
