All three of us flinch at the sudden noise.
Aren’t we both using each other? Isn’t that the point of a publicity stunt?
“Leonidas cares about you, but he has a shitty way of showing it.” Elijah tries to reason.
I sigh, picking at my jean shorts. “I know. He’s just sometimes so difficult to talk to. It’s like he doesn’t hear anyone around him but his thoughts.”
I just wish that when he felt heated, he would listen more. He would be present and not in his head. But everyone struggles with something.
“That’s just his inner Greek coming out.” Trinity flashes me a shit-eating grin while plugging one ear and wincing.
Elijah’s lip twitches at the corner. “We are pretty loud, aren’t we?”
“Oh, you have no idea.”
* * *
“Get out of my fucking way,” Levi grunts and turns the steering wheel with one hand to avoid a paparazzo’s car as we drive to our first photo shoot as a couple.
That little action of turning the wheel with one hand should be illegal …
It makes me feel things that aren’t welcome.
“Can you watch it?!” I screech when he starts driving like he’s a professional race car driver.
He flashes me a grin that sends tingles down my spine. “Honey, when I’m behind the wheel, you have nothing to worry about.”
There it is, calling mehoneyagain. It started at the club, and he hasn’t stopped since.
I scrunch my nose in distaste. “Why do you call me that?”
“Call you what?” he asks, not taking his eyes off the road, but resting one arm on the back of my headrest.
Veins. Tatted veins … right in my face.
Don’t. Look. Amelia.
“Honey.”
He shakes his head, fighting his smile. “Because, to me, you’re like a golden retriever that thinks it’s intimidating, but it’s really anything but that.”
Um, excuse me?
Seeing my glare, he rolls his eyes playfully. “And your hair, it’s the color of honey. Your voice is as smooth as honey. And you’re sweet, deep down, just like honey. I could keep going.”
As if my fake boyfriend didn’t just say something so adorable, which was totally not fake, he looks intently at the road while he flexes his fingers on the wheel.
Sitting straight in my seat and looking ahead, just like him, I can’t help but look at him from the corner of my eye.
I wish he weren’t this good-looking. It would help our fake dating and rival relationship feel less tense. The more time I spend with him, the more I catch myself thinking about how his lips would feel against mine, what our naked skin would feel like against one another, and what his morning and night routine are. I want to explore every single tattoo on his body and even watch him as he gets one done.
But that’s forbidden.
We used to celebrate each other’s failures and frown when the other would stream more in a day. But the way my hands itch to touch his and how I have to force myself not to turn and watch this sexy-as-hell millionaire drive his sports car, it’skilling mebecause I’ve never felt this way before.
* * *
“This is what I’m wearing?” I speak out, holding the lingerie in my hand by the hanger, my eyes wide in disbelief.
