I breathed a sigh of relief. She was putting the ball in my hands for once. And I was about to hurl the riskiest pitch of my career.
First, the windup . . .
“We keep it up,” I told her.
“You can’t be serious.”
I arched a brow. “Do you have a better idea?” I didn’t give her time to formulate a defense. “Think of it this way. The regular season ends in a couple weeks. When we win the top seed—”
“Ifyou win.”
The smirk on her face told me she knew exactly what she was doing. She was lucky we were in public, otherwise I might have put her over my knee until she begged for mercy.
. . . then the release.
“Whenwe win,” I correct. “We’ll have almost a week before our next game. That’s a solid week of handholding, apple-picking, festival-going devotion. The best boyfriend you’ve ever seen.”
“The bestfakeboyfriend.”
I was open to negotiations, but for the time being, I settled on, “Right.”
I waited for what might have been the longest ten seconds of my life. Longer than my first time on the mound or the moment my mom told me that she was finally leaving my shitbag father.
But I had been waiting for Nessa for almost half a year; ten more seconds wouldn’t kill me. She was worth it.
“No more kissing.”
“What?”
“If we do this—”
“Whenwe do this.”
Her mouth twisted, caught somewhere between a smile and grimace. “When we do this fake relationship thing—”
Fuck, that was another one of my favorite tropes. This woman was going to rue the day she’d introduced me to romance novels.
“—it’s in name only. No kissing.” She swallowed. “Definitelyno sex.”
“Who said anything about sex?” I asked cheekily.
“You didn’t have to say it.” Her eyes jumped down to my cock. “I could feel it.”
“Can you blame me?”
She held her hand out to me. “Deal?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Deal.”
When I captured her hand in mine, I lifted it to my lips.
“Jared,” she warned, like my name was a dirty word.
“You said no kisses.” I rolled her hand over and lightly nipped her palm. “You said nothing about biting.”
She yelped and pulled her arm back quickly. “That should go without saying.”
It was a start—more than she had offered me in months—and even though she might not know it yet, it wouldn’t take long to show Nessa that I was a fan-fucking-tastic boyfriend.
