I turn onto the long stretch of road that leads toward my house. “Before Griffin and Blair got together, Lily did the same thing with them,” I say slowly. “And with Dallas and Poppy. She thinks she’s this quiet mastermind, nudging people toward their happily ever after.”
Her brows lift. “She’s matchmaking?”
“She thinks we don’t notice.”
“And what does she think she’s doing with us?”
I can feel her stare on the side of my face. I shouldn’t answer that. I know saying it out loud will make it real in a way the cameras haven’t yet.
I exhale. “She thinks because you’re staying on my property, it’s fate. She’s trying to speed it along.”
I take my eyes off the road for just a moment to see herreaction. She blinks once, and then two times. Her lips part like she wants to say something, but close again.
Suddenly, the air between us feels heavier, like a door we didn’t realize was cracked just swung open.
She turns away from me, facing out the window as she whispers. “Oh.”
She’s not disgusted or annoyed.
Just…shocked.
And there’s something that resembles hope in the sound, even if she didn’t intend it to come out that way. Or maybe it’s just me wanting to go back to the first time I met her, when she didn’t loathe me.
When I turn into the driveway, the crunch of the tires on the gravel breaks the quiet. I wish she would say something more. But she doesn’t. We both get out of the car and she’s already retreating from where I stand in front of my truck. I watch her, scanning her body from head to toe, and fully plan to watch her until she disappears up the stairs and inside.
But she stops, turning around to face me.
“She’s wrong, you know,” Scottie says across the driveway. “About us. I mean…we’re just?—”
“Working together?” I offer.
“Right.” She nods, biting down on her bottom lip. “Working. Fake it in front of the camera. But that’s…yeah. Nothing more.” She says it like she’s convincing herself as much as me.
My chest tightens for a second. Not painfully, just sharp. Like a reminder that she isn’t mine.
Closing the distance between us, I stop in front of her. “Lily doesn’t think she’s wrong,” I say softly. “But she never considers the parts she doesn’t know.”
“What parts?”
I lift my hand before I can talk myself out of it, slowly, like I’m giving her every chance to pull away. My finger slides beneath her chin just enough to tip her face up toward mine. The contact is light, but it lands heavy. She freezes, not startled, butaware as her lips part on a breath she didn’t mean to take, and I swear I feel it everywhere.
“Like the fact that you’ve spent enough time with me to learn I’m not actually as unbearable as you pretend I am.” My hand moves from her chin to cup her neck. Her pulse jumps under my touch, but she doesn’t move. “And you still look at me like this.”
“Like what?” she asks with an unsteady voice.
I lean in, hovering close to her lips. “Like you’re trying to remember why you decided I’m off-limits when the camera isn’t on us.”
I want to kiss her. Hell, I want everything with her right now. I’m completely sober and clearheaded enough to know exactly what I’m feeling—and that somehow makes it worse. Being this close to her again sends a rush through me that I can’t explain. It’s like a high that only she can give me.
I feel her hands lift at my sides, but she drops them. Like she’s afraid if she reaches for me or touches me, she won’t stop.
“We’re not supposed to be blurring the lines,” she breaths against my lips.
I press my body into hers without even thinking, and every part of me lights up. Tipping her head to the side, my lips find the shell of her ear. “They’ve already been blurred,” I whisper, letting my hand move from her neck to the back of her head, tangling my fingers in her hair, before pulling her hair lightly to allow me full access to her neck.
She releases a breath that sounds like a muted moan.
“You haven’t backed away, Scottie. Tell me one more time this doesn’t mean anything. Tell me your body doesn’t remember mine, and I’ll walk away right now.”
