Page 57 of Off the Mark
“Getting people’s pity and sympathy wasn’t my thing. I’m sure it ain’t your thing either. But I know what the hope can do. When it was just me and Dean together, I told him the pain didn’t mean shit. Someone was going to call and tell me they made a mistake. My coach would reach out. My teammates, my agent. The truth was, they didn’t want me anymore. Not like that.”
He raked a hand through his dark red hair. “Every day I was furious with myself for being so goddamn disappointed when I knew the outcome was always gonna be the same. The hope tore me up inside more than anything.”
He moved closer, three more steps, until he was officially close enough to kiss me. I tipped my chin up, my hands behind me and gripping the dresser.
“I understand why you feel so conflicted about your dad’s situation, is what I’m saying,” he added. “The hope makes it complicated.”
“This whole ‘being a human’ thingkeepsgetting complicated,” I said with a wry smile. “It super sucks.”
“It does, but not all the time. Sometimes the complicated parts are the most fun.” He stayed focused on my mouth. “Where would you like me to kiss you, Charlie?”
All the air in my lungs vanished. Rowan’s body language was restrained, his expression friendly. Like this was a transactional arrangement and nothing more.
Which it was.
This leashed control was more arousing than if he’d taken this moment to make a sloppy move. Every other man I’d dated or fucked would have done it.
That was because every other man I’d been with had been utterly predictable. Deep down, I believed Rowan was predictable too.
But this caution had a different flavor to it. Part of me wished hewouldmake a cheap pass or tell a stupid joke so I could roll my eyes and slip back into the dynamic we’d perfected over the years.
And slip away from the allure of this small, darkened room and his whispered question.
Where would you like me to kiss you?
I tilted my neck, exposing my cheek again, and tapped it. “Here is good.”
He fully closed the remaining distance between us. I felt the heat of his palm at my hip. The drag of his fingers as they slid around to my lower back. And then his face, dropping toward mine.
There was a pause. His breath feathered across my cheekbone. Then his mouth, performing that same delicate caress. The mouth that loved to taunt and tease me, the mouth that formed the smile he employed like a weapon, bewitching those around him.
Those lips had performed plenty of sinful acts, yet here he was, pressing them to my skin like I was something precious. Quick, barely a second. He moved back, but not away. His fingers still flexed against my spine and his mouth hovered near my cheek.
The tip of his nose pressed into the hair at my temple.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
“Is there anywhere else you’d like me to kiss you?” Rowan whispered.
“No, that was sufficient,” I whispered back, voice shaking. “As long as you do that and act like you worship the ground that I walk on, we should be able to pull this thing off.”
He hummed under his breath. “It’s important that this goes well tonight. For your reputation. For the rec center. If I have to stare at you like every time you smile at me, it feels like I’ve been hit on the head with a sledgehammer, I’ll somehow find the strength to do it.”
“Thisiswhy I asked for your help. Your superior flirting abilities are unmatched.”
He exhaled, his warm breath dancing along my hairline. Tingles raced up my spine.
We needed to go.Ineeded to go.
Actually, I needed to go back in time and ask someone lessRowan-liketo be my fake boyfriend.
“Is there anything else you need from me before we leave?”
I swallowed. “There’s a lot that I want right now. I don’t think you can magically make them happen. But I appreciate the offer.”
His lips brushed across my temple. “I can make some things happen for you. All you have to do is ask, Maddox.”
The persistent throb between my legs twisted, became a true ache. Rowan had no idea how many times I wiped down the bar while watching women he had taken home nights before stumble in with the kind of smile that saidI just had the best sex of my fucking life.
