“It needed to end.”
“What if I don’t want it to end?” He holds my stare and my heart starts to race. “What if for me it hasn’t been fake? What if every moment spent with you has been me falling for a girl I never intended to? What if it started out as a show to get that asshole to leave you alone, but somewhere along the way I stopped pretending?”
“Finn.” I sit up and shake my head but he doesn’t allow me to interrupt.
“What if for the first time in longer than I can remember I felt lighter and more full of life? What if you make everything better, even though you had no idea you were doing it?”
“I think that we just need to go back to the way—” he cuts me off by moving in and pressing his lips to mine. His hand holds the back of my neck and his tongue grazes over the seam of my lips.
“I don’t want to go back to the way things were before,” he confesses still holding me close, the heat of his breath fanning out over my now freshly kissed lips. “I also don’t want to fake date you anymore either.”
Slowly he moves back further so that we are now looking directly at one another.
“I think we should forget the fake part and do this for real.”
“That’s a bad idea,” I say without thinking it through and all he does is smile at me, which seems like a crazy reaction.
“Why would it be a bad idea?”
“Because we failed so badly at the fake part, what would make you think we’d be good at it for real?”
“I think us failing is the exact reason why we would be so good at it without the rules. I think you and I, we work well together, and the holding back was exactly what got it our way.”
“And I think you are crazy.” I laugh. How did we get to this place?
“I might be a little crazy,” he confesses. “But I’m right,” he adds and I roll my eyes.
Finn cups the side of my face and makes sure I am looking at him and nothing else. “Sophie Powell, will you go on a date with me for real this time?”
“I hope you know that this is going to blow up in our faces.”
“I don’t think so.” His gaze shifts to my lips. “But I want to make something perfectly clear this time around.”
“What would that be?”
“There will be lots of kissing.” He leans in and gently kisses my lips. “Lots,” he adds with a smirk and all I can do is laugh.
“So what do you say, pretty girl?” He drops his hand and it comes to rest on my legs as he slowly rubs the side of my leg, then pauses. I swallow hard, harder than I intended to, focusing on his hand. “You ready to give this a go with me?”
“No more games?”
“No more games,” he repeats.
“I hate games,” I confess, feeling like I can finally breathe.
“It was a ridiculous suggestion from the start. Faking dating you was so hard.”
“What?” I ask with a laugh.
“The no kissing part was awful, because every single time you smiled at me it was all I wanted to do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sophie
“Where are we going?”I ask Finn as he leads me through a clearing in the trees.
“You’ll see,” he tells me looking back over his showing and tossing me a smile. I regret ever mentioning aloud what that smile of his does to my stomach. Like a million little butterflies fluttering about leaving me a little winded and my mind gets slightly foggy.
