This thing between us might not have been fake any more, but it wasn’t real either. We weren’t together in any meaningful way.
But it meant something to me.Hemeant something to me. Sometimes Patrick felt like the realest part of my life, the only part in colour, the only part with a soundtrack. The brightest part of my life I really loved.
Patrick stepped forward as I handed him my jacket. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I could never have imagined this – you – happening all because of Butterflies and a stupid dating contract.’
I grinned. ‘You know, I think we’re a bit beyond the contract.’
‘Oh, Jessy. We are way beyond it now.’ Patrick’s voice was low, and he couldn’t know how he was making my whole body thrum. ‘And it doesn’t matter what the internet thinks, or the paps, or any of them. We know the truth. We know that this is real,’ he whispered, his eyes darkening as they flickered over my face. ‘That we do care about each other.’
My lungs struggled to take a breath. ‘I thought – when –’
My stomach fluttered. I couldn’t believe I was hearing the words I’d been longing for.
‘Since the tattoos.’ Patrick smiled ruefully. ‘Or maybe before that. But that was when I really knew, for definite, that I didn’t want to lose you. Not for anything.’
Overwhelming joy burst though me as I laughed, reaching out for his hand, hating even the tiny distance between us. ‘I thought – I thought maybe the way you felt about it was all in my head! But the way you look at me sometimes –’
‘Can you blame me? Damn, Jessy, you’re beautiful.’ Patrick’s voice sizzled through me, lifting my spirits, burning my affection for him into my heart like a tattoo. ‘And you’re clever. And you’re kind.’
I couldn’t bear it any more, not being in his arms. I stepped into his embrace and pressed a swift kiss on his lips. ‘I’m not the only one. Clever fingers.’
His groan was enough to propel me to kiss him again, the heat flowing through us one that I recognized and so desperately wanted to experience again.
Who wouldn’t?
The kiss deepened. I needed his hands on me, everywhere. And I needed us naked, like, yesterday.
‘Come on,’ Patrick muttered against my lips, pulling me towards the nearest door.
His bedroom was as sparse as the hall. It had a bed, untidy duvet and three pillows scattered across the top, and a small bedside table with a lamp without a bulb.
But none of that mattered to me.
It had a bed.
‘God, Jessy.’ Patrick panted, like we’d been doing more than just kissing. ‘Do you have any idea how mad you’ve been driving me?’
He pressed fluttering kisses along my shoulder beforehe lifted the hem of my sundress and pulled it over my head.
There I stood, in nothing but my pants. The delicate bandage covering my tattoo was so small I could barely feel it –
But then I couldn’t feel anything, save heat and longing and need as I stood before Patrick Tetlow, my celeb-crush-turned-fake-boyfriend, almost completely naked.
Almost.
‘You know, I barely kept control of myself, when you were getting that done,’ Patrick said nonchalantly as he pulled his T-shirt over his head.
And I barely managed to keep control of myself as those perfectly sculpted abs were revealed. ‘What?’
‘When you were getting your tattoo – I wanted to drop to my knees there and then. Audience and all,’ he breathed, stepping closer to me and dipping his head to bring one of my nipples into his mouth.
Oh, fuck. The way his tongue swirled before biting –
The cry of need that escaped my lips was a strangled one, but it only seemed to spur Patrick on.
‘Fuck, Jessy, I need to be inside you,’ he muttered, kissing my lips hard as his fingers fumbled at his trouser belt.
Before long the offending items were off, and there we stood, naked save for our underwear.
