Fuck.

And close.

“And there’s only one way to see about that other what if of yours.” I lean in closer, my hand moving to rest on the side of her neck, her pulse fluttering beneath my hand as I brush my thumb back and forth over her jawline.

“Which one is that?”

“If we can pull off the kiss.”

“Oh.” Her throat jumps beneath my hand as she swallows. “I took a theater class in high school. We had to—I can do the pretend way.”

“Pretend way?”

“Yes. No tongue.” She can barely get the words out.

“Uh-huh.” I lick my lips but am too busy staring at hers. She thinks there isn’t going to be tongue in this kiss? That I’m not going to steal a taste of her like some bullshit B-list actor? She’s fucking crazy.

I brush my lips against hers. Once. Twice. My body hums with desire that’s only natural when you kiss someone.

And then she emits the softest sound in the back of her throat. Something about it owns me and begs me to hear it again.

I dip my tongue between her parted lips and deepen the kiss. My free hand slides to the small of her back and pulls her into me while the other remains on the side of her neck.

She tastes like sin and regret. Like surrender and restraint running a race. Like necessity and indulgence warring against one another.

Stop, Giz.

The two words repeat in my mind.

This isn’t real.

But her taste is as addicting as I imagined it would be.

When I break the kiss, when I force myself to step back, the only sound in the room is our labored breaths.

And my sudden desire for more.

“Great. Perfect. Guess we proved we could pull it off,” Hendrix says in a rush of words as she steps away from me and moves about the room. She picks up an empty water bottle. She fluffs a pillow on the couch. She clears her throat a time or ten. And she infuses cheer into her voice when I can hear the raw unacceptance of what just happened—a kiss for the fucking ages. “Just like theater class.”

I throw my head back and laugh.

Thoughts of dragging her back against me fill my head. Ones of messing up her hair and tangling up the sheets a close second after. Ones of proving just how wrong she is about fucking theater class.

Instead, I adjust my hard-on in my pants, grab the bottle of tequila by the neck, and take a swig straight from the bottle.

It’s going to be a long four months.

Torturously long.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Hendrix

Not like theater class. Not even close.

None of this has been.

Not his kiss I can’t stop thinking about in the hotel or the one for the cameras under the chintz-covered arch in the chapel where Elvis married us. It left me speechless and my body filled with a yearning I’m choosing to ignore.