“You don’t wear them,” I point out. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you with one.”
“Checking out my wrists, Remy?”
Well, lately I have been. His forearms. Dear god, his forearms. “Yes, all the time. Wondering why you don’t wear a watch,” I tease, since it’s easier than admitting I catalogue every detail of my fake boyfriend.
“No need. I mean, the time is fucking everywhere,” he says, and that’s so Lake. A thing should be functional for him.
He reaches past me, his strong arm brushing mine, making my skin spark, my heart jump. I swallow as he grabs the titanium watch, tugs it from the velvet box, and flicks the clasp open, dangling it in front of me.
“Give me your hand,” he says.
I stick out my arm.
He takes it. When his fingers graze along my skin, mybreath catches. My chest flips as he slides the watch onto me, inch by delicious inch. He’s not speedy. He’s slow, purposeful, dusting his fingers along my hand as he puts the titanium on me like it’s foreplay. By the time he reaches my wrist, I’m not sure how I’m still standing—every touch is so electric, so charged.
Is it this way for him too?
He meets my eyes, and the look in his is raw and hungry. It’s such a good look that I ache everywhere, a slow, thumping pulse that settles in my core. He flicks the timepiece closed, tightening it on my wrist, but it’s still loose on me. “The case diameter was designed for me,” he says.
An explanation, but one that hardly matters as he takes his time adjusting the loose watch, like he wants to make sure it’s worn in just the right way.
He finishes, then meets my gaze.
“It’s like a bracelet,” I say, holding up my wrist, letting it slide up and down.
Lake stares at my arm like he’s mesmerized, then swallows roughly. “Yeah, it does look like one on you.”
“It’s so light,” I say, then study the timepiece for a beat or two. It’s elegant and sophisticated and fun to play with. But it’s just play. That’s all. These watches are well over five figures. “Thank you for letting me touch it.”
“It’s touchingyounow,” he says, his voice a little husky, and it’s then that I realize Lake’s staring at the watch on me with something like jealousy, or maybe even longing in his eyes.
Like he’s jealous of…a watch?
A watch that’s been kissing my skin.
But that’s a ridiculous thought.
A ridiculous thought that’s making my heart cartwheel dangerously. I really need to focus on the reason I’m here.
I un-hook the watch and set it back in its soft case. “Thank you,” I say, then catch the time. It’s running out. “That’s a reminder I need to get to work picking out your wedding attire.”
I walk toward the back of the closet with the suits. “They’re as pretty as the watches.”
A charcoal three-piece suit. A midnight blue blazer and matching trousers. A maroon suit with a clever plaid pattern that screams cutting-edge-athlete hot.
“You can touch them too,” he says.
There’s a sultry subtext to the invitation. The permission.
He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I coast my fingers along the fine fabric of a dark brown suit, the color of chocolate. I travel along the arm of a forest green jacket with the faintest of checkmarks on it. I move to the pants next, touching the expensive-looking material. My head spins with choices. My pulse thunders with possibilities. I’m picturing Lake in the smoky one, the midnight blue one, the one the color of an evergreen.
I linger on the last one for a few seconds longer, closing my eyes, imagining it on him.
“You like green. You like earthy colors,” he says from behind me.
I turn around. “I do. But that’s for me,” I say, then look him up and down, with his short dark hair, his cool eyes, his strong jaw.
But I’m always returning to his eyes. To the beauty in them, like cool blue gems. “This feels like you,” I say, gesturing to the midnight blue suit.
