Page 64 of Off the Mark
Then I paused. I’d been reacting to the glorious moment of a laughing Charlie on my lap. Not playing as her pretend boyfriend, only here for the positive press.
But the biker babe in my arms didn’t pull away or jump off at my wandering mouth.
The opposite was happening.
She was wiggling her ass, suddenly pressed to my straining cock, and lust shot through me so strongly my hands wrapped around her waist and gripped her still.
“Are you okay, Rowan?” she whispered.
“Never been better, gorgeous. Why do you ask?”
She clasped her arms around my neck, bringing our faces an inch closer. How had I never counted the freckles across the bridge of her nose?
How had I never noticed all the flecks of blue in her green eyes?
There weren’t a lot of people in her life she could trust,Dempsey had said.I can see why she chose you.
“I can tell people are watching us,” she said. “And that’s great. That’s what we wanted. But we didn’t, uh…practicelap-sitting back at the bar, so I wanted to make sure you were all right with everything.”
I breathed out a laugh, every muscle taut. “No, we did not practice this. I would have remembered what it felt like to have you wiggling around on top of me.”
Her lips parted. “Do you want me to move?”
I tightened my grip. “Don’t you dare.”
The air between us grew charged with something dark and seductive.
This time, Charlie seemed to roll the lower half of her body deliberately against my cock. I’d never been harder, never desired more, than sitting in the lobby of the goddamn convention center with a pretend girlfriend making me dizzy with wanting her.
All of her.
“What would you do right now if this wasn’t fake?” she whispered.
My heart stopped. Restarted. Stopped again. I pressed my face to her neck and kissed her there. Ifelther shiver.Felther sigh of breath at my ear.
“We sure as hell wouldn’t be here,” I murmured against her skin. “Not in public, where I can’t touch you where I want to. Where I can’t kiss you where I need to. Where I can’t slip my fingers between these beautiful legs and make you come on my hand.”
Another full-body shiver. And a whimper, so quiet I could have imagined it. I nuzzled the spot under her ear, nipped at her lobe. “If this wasn’t fake, we’d already be back in that giant hotel bed of yours. And I would be eagerly, happily, at your service, Charlie Maddox.”
She turned her head so the tips of our noses almost brushed. Everything around us had disappeared, nothing more than a low hum of background noise. Her green eyes fell to my mouth, her face bent toward mine, andholy shitCharlie was going to kiss me.
Nothing about this suspended moment felt like it was for the public or their cameras. All of this seemed very, very real. And hadn’t I learned to reach for what’s good before it’s taken away?
I raised my lips to hers. An inch separated us.
Half an inch.
Someone cleared their throat. I considered snarling at them tofuck offbut then Charlie sputtered out, “Oh,Dempsey. Heeeeeey, what’s up?”
“Sorry to interrupt the new It Couple,” she replied.
I still hadn’t torn my attention from Charlie’s profile, but Dempsey’s taunting tone was obvious. Charlie scrambled off my lap, looking vaguely flushed and undone. I pushed my hands through my hair—anything to feel like my feet were planted on solid ground again.
What thehellhad just happened?
“No apologies needed,” Charlie said, while fixing the straps of her jumper. “It’s our honeymoon period, and all of that. We tend to get a little carried away.”
Dempsey grinned. “That’s some honeymoon. And it’s no problem. Well, there’s one problem which is you’re very popular, the panel isn’t over, and we’ve got audience members hoping to see you back inside because they’ve got questions.”
