“Your punch is sloppy,” he grates out.
Brandon steps around me. His expression is still that of a vast ocean, but a current of electricity now builds beneath. Brandon doesn’t break our eye contact as he lowers his knees to the mat in front of me.
“Punch from your core, Kate,” he murmurs, tapping my abdomen. “Like this.”
His calloused hands come up to bracket my hips. He twists my body in example, and it only takes a few repetitions before I trust myself to relax into the movement. I let him manipulate my hips as I sink into my stance, tighten my abdomen, and punch. He twists in time with me, and my glove sinks forcefully into the bag.
It sways harder than it ever has, and I can’t ward off a tiny grin. I throw right hook after hook in the safety of Brandon’s grip, only stopping when he draws away. He drags his thumbs across my bare stomach as he lets go. A shiver courses through me as he stands.
“Better.” His voice is cracked desire, and it fans a flame across my cheeks.
“Thanks.” It’s all I can say.
It takes all my willpower to not throw him to the mat for an entirely different reason. I’m craving his skin against mine. My body is begging for him to soothe away my stress in that expert way of his.
Brandon is temptation personified, body and soul, and my willpower is dwindling.
“I’ll do it,” he suddenly says, taking my eyes captive until I’m lost in a sunlight-dappled forest. Although his voice is rough, the soft smile tipping his mouth distracts me before I wander the trees again.
“Do what?”
“Come to Marisol Bay. Be your fake boyfriend.”
Tears spring to my eyes, but I bite the inside of my cheek. “Brandon, you don’t have to. I shouldn’t have let you get roped into all of that. Whateverfriendshipis fixing between us isn’t worth messing up just to…get my parents off my back.”
Brandon is quiet for a long moment. “Then that’s all the more reason for me to come.” He steps closer, and the air practically crackles. “I made a promise to be there for you, Kate. Plus”—his lips twitch—“I’m yourfriend.”
I roll my lips to keep from laughing, because friends donotundress each other with their eyes—a crime we are both guilty of at the moment.
Brandon’s lips curl into a whisper by my ear. “So take me to Marisol Bay. Idareyou.”
I swivel my head toward him, and my lipsalmostgraze his. I’m satisfied when I hear his own sharp intake of breath.
If I want something I’ve never had, I’ve gotta do something I’ve never done, right? Perhaps keeping a friend like Brandon in my life has been the missing puzzle piece all along. It could become my new-New Year’s resolution.
Even though the word tastes like a bad idea, it rolls off my tongue.
“Okay.”
thirty-three
PRESENT DAY
KATE
“For the last time, Anthony! I’m on a call!” Amantha yells.
I wince, holding my phone away from my ear as I peruse my closet. My suitcase lays blown open on the bed behind me, already brimming with more swimsuits, sundresses, and sandals than I could ever use for a week-long vacation.
The mosh pit of butterflies throwing a rager in my stomach is making me nauseous. They’ve been nonstop since two nights ago when Brandon agreed to come to Marisol Bay.
“Amantha, helppp,” I whine.
“Sorry, girl. I’m focusing, I promise. I’m also trying to do laundry before the work week starts tomorrow, and Anthony won’t stop bugging me about a science experiment.”
Amantha regroups. “Okay. Let me get this straight. You got snowed in with Brandon at a motel, you guys slept together, you asked him to be your fake boyfriend, he got weird, you guys fought in the boxing ring, then he agreed to come on your family vacay?”
My mouth flaps. “There was so much wrong with that.”
