“Look at me,” I said.

Clay dragged his gaze from where Maliyah was on the dance floor, and I framed his face with my hands.

“If you’re not playing, you’re losing, remember?” I rolled my lips together, swallowing past the knot forming in my throat. “So, let’s play.”

Clay frowned, tilting his head to the side.

“Use me,” I clarified. “Make her remember what you had. Show her what she’s missing.”

Clay arched a brow, glancing around before his eyes met mine again. “It won’t be just her watching.”

“I trust you,” I breathed, and then I tangled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him into me.

I should have been used to it.

I should have been struck with the fact that it was fake, all pretend, every time his lips met mine. But it was the same shock of surprise that flitted through me, and my breath caught in my chest, heart plunging off the highest diving board into a pool of white hot fire as he kissed me.

Clay inhaled a deep breath through his nose, one hand winding around the small of my back while the other cradled the back of my head and held me to him. His chest swelled against mine, and then he tilted my chin with the tip of his nose, demanding access to my neck.

My eyes fluttered closed, nipples pebbling under my thin blouse as his large, warm lips caressed the skin stretched over my throat. Each brush of his lips was more firm than the last as he made his way down, and he nipped at my collarbone, eliciting a hiss from me as I twisted my hands in his shirt.

I didn’t have to have my eyes open to know we were being watched.

I felt the gazes of not just Maliyah, but every person in close proximity at that party burning into my skin just as fervently as Clay’s kisses as he trailed his way back to my mouth. His next kiss was like a brand, demanding and brutal, and for the first time, he slid his tongue against the seam of my lips, requesting access.

And I opened.

I parted my lips and met his tongue with mine, a sharp zip of electricity stunning me at the collision. It was as if his tongue stroked me between my thighs rather than in my mouth, and I squeezed my legs tighter together against the foreign sensation even as I leaned in for more.

Clay moaned, one hand tightening where he held me against him as the other slid down from my face, over my neck, and right over the swell of my heaving chest.