He kissed me with his whole body, searing heat pressed up against me, warming me in the chilly night air, lips soft and only just asking, not demanding anything, not taking. Just giving.
It was different than before. This was Ward making the first move, Ward making me feel like one of the heroines in my movies, pursued and wanted and like it ached not to have me, like he was barely holding back, like he wanted so much more.
Ward’s hand stopped my head from hitting the stonework behind it, but I wouldn’t have cared right now if I’d cracked my skull open. Not as long as I was kissing him.
He pulled back for a moment, eyes dark and focused, looking at me that same way he kept doing. Thatonly thing in the worldway.
I opened my mouth to say something, but it left my head as Ward’s thumb, that same thumb that’d been stroking my knee earlier to comfort me, brushed over my lip.
Ward surged forward again and my insides turned to liquid, whole body melting between him and the column, held up entirely by Ward’s hand curled around my hip and the perfect weight of him pressed against me, not quite hard enough to be crushing.
So gentle. Ward was always so gentle, and I felt so lucky to have him.
His hand moved from the back of my head to my neck, thumb stroking my jaw, coaxing my mouth open so the heat of his tongue could slip inside, andfuck, Ward even did this a little shyly and I was about to vibrate out of my skin at how good it felt.
I wanted, I wanted, Iwanted.
My fingers curled into his shirt, pulling him closer, heat pulsing south as the rest of my body decided we were doing this and it didn’t care who saw or what they thought. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except kissing Ward, feeling him pressed up against me, keeping him close.
I whimpered as the hand on my hip slipped down to my butt andoh fuck yesthe way Ward’s fingers squeezed was incredible and if he kept this up there was a non-zero chance I’d come in my pants.
He pulled away again, lips parted and kiss-swollen, the pretty hazel of his eyes swallowed up with black, hair falling out of place and henley rumpled. I bit the inside of my cheek to stifle a moan at how hot he looked right now.
Whatever was happening, I didn’t want it to stop.
“You okay?” Ward asked.
My heart was pounding and I was positive now that there was something wrong with my knees and I felt a little dizzy.
Was I okay? Would I ever be okay again?
I wasn’t sure.
“What was that for?” I asked, still breathless.
“Saw a camera,” Ward said, nodding across the street. “Thought you’d want to keep this up.”
Right, camera. Of course. We were still…
Faking.
I’d almost forgotten. Just for a second, when Ward’s thumb had been skimming over my lip and I could feel the heat of him pressed up against me.
It’d felt real.
Or I’d wanted it to feel real so badly that I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
“Thanks,” I said a heartbeat or two too slow, once I was sure I could trust my voice. “We should, uh... head inside?”
“Unless you wanna stay out here all night making out for the paparazzi,” Ward teased.
I kind ofdidwant that, but I wasn’t about to say so. My head was a mess right now and I couldn’t risk saying much more at all.
I couldn’t risk telling Ward that I’d come to realize my taste in men had been at its peak when I was seventeen. Or that being with him again was the first time I hadn’t felt constant crushing loneliness in longer than I would’ve liked to admit.
Or that I wanted to take him upstairs, strip him naked, and kiss every inch of his skin.
Definitely not that last part. None of this was real, and I was meant to be a professional. I couldn’t fall for my co-star in the middle of the most important performance of my life.
