When our entrées arrived, I cut into my steak and tried not to let my disappointment show.
“How is it?” Axel asked, his boyfriend voice back in place.
“It looks delicious.” If you were a vampire.
His attention snapped to my plate, and something shifted in his expression. The playful antagonism vanished, replaced by genuine concern. “You ordered it well done.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not.” He raised his hand for the waiter, voice firm. “She ordered this well done. This is medium rare.”
“It’s really not a problem.”
“Undercooked meat makes you nauseous.”
I blinked, genuinely surprised. That detail came from years ago—before Knox’s arrest, when I’d gagged at a pink burger at some summer barbecue. The fact that Axel remembered such an insignificant thing about me was more disorienting than anything else that had happened tonight.
He doesn’t need that detail for our charade. The influencers can’t possibly know my meat preferences.
So, why did he do it?
The waiter apologized profusely and whisked my plate away, leaving me staring at Axel with something that felt unexpectedly close to softness.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. Because, hello, I wasn’t a total bitch. I could thank himandhate him. Multitasking was my specialty.
Something vulnerable flickered across his features before he looked away. “Don’t mention it.”
The wall between us cracked, just slightly, and suddenly, I didn’t have another cutting remark ready. Not when the energy had shifted into something uncertain.
When my correctly cooked steak returned, we fell into a different kind of silence. Not hostile, but hyperaware. Of every glance, every accidental brush of hands, every breath.
After, dessert arrived with a decadent chocolate creation that looked sinful, and when I took a bite, a small moan escaped before I could stop it.
Heat flooded my cheeks.God, did I really just…
Axel’s entire body went still at the sound. His fork actually stopped midway to his mouth, hovering there like he’d forgotten how eating worked.
I caught a drop of chocolate sauce on my finger, and for a split second I wanted to disappear into the floor. But then I saw how he was looking at me—frozen, transfixed—and something shifted. If one accidental sound had done that to him …
A thrill ran through me. The embarrassment transformed into something else entirely, something that made me feel bold. Dangerous, even.
I slowly brought my finger to my mouth, reminding myself that the faster I sold this charade, the faster I could escape. Get away from whatever this was… this heat coiling in my stomach that had nothing to do with hatred and everything to do with the way he was watching me.
My tongue darted out to clean the chocolate off. Deliberately. Seductively.
Those eyes fixed on my lips. He didn’t blink. Not once. An eternity passed between us, suspended in chocolate and heat and this dangerous game I was suddenly winning.
I licked another drop from my bottom lip, slow enough to watch his pupils dilate, to see his chest forget to rise and fall.
He wasn’t breathing. I’d actually made Axel forget to breathe.
The smart thing would be to stop here. Pull back. I’d already sold the performance.
But something reckless unfurled in my chest. A need to see how far I could push this, to know what would happen if I shattered that legendary control completely.For the act,I lied to myself, even as fire burned low in my belly.I'm supposed to be his girlfriend. This is what couples do.
I dipped my finger into the chocolate sauce again, but this time I leaned closer, extending it toward his mouth. “Want a taste?”
He hesitated—because of course he did—but the show must go on.
