Page 194 of Faking the Goal

UNKNOWN

Break up with him. Now.

Then another message appears almost immediately.

UNKNOWN

Think it over carefully, Kitten. My patience has a limit.

I haven't heard from him in over two weeks. Two whole weeks of silence, and stupidly, I'd started to think maybe he'd finally given up. Maybe seeing me with a boyfriend had actually worked. Maybe he'd realized I wasn't available anymore and decided to move on.

Clearly, I was dead fucking wrong.

CHAPTER 26

KENTARO

By the time I get back to the apartment after dropping Taylor off, I'm still not entirely convinced my brain made it home with the rest of me.

I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, elbows resting on my knees, staring at absolutely nothing while the same moment plays through my head for what has to be the hundredth fucking time.

Taylor kissed me.

Not a quick kiss on the cheek. Not some awkward peck meant to satisfy whatever audience happened to be watching. She wrapped her arms around my neck, pulled me down to her, and kissed me on the mouth like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And then I kissed her back.

Really kissed her.

I can still feel the pressure of her lips against mine, the way her body melted into me when I pulled her closer, the soft sound she made when I deepened the kiss. It keeps replaying in my head with such perfect clarity that I'm beginning to wonder whether my brain has permanently erased every other memory just to make room for this one.

I can't think straight.

Hell, I can barely remember anything else that happened today. We played our first home game since winter break. We won. I know I stopped a shitload of pucks and my teammates were obnoxiously pleased with themselves afterward, but every other detail has somehow been shoved aside by thirty seconds of Taylor's mouth on mine.

All I know is that Taylor kissed me, I got one taste of her, and now every part of me is demanding more like I've developed a fucking addiction from a single kiss.

I've wanted to kiss her for as long as I can remember. But Christmas Eve was the night the feeling became impossible to ignore. I'd watched her sit across from my mother and pretend that horribly oversalted cod was the best thing she had ever tasted simply because she knew the truth would hurt her feelings. Taylor hadn't hesitated. She'd taken another bite, smiled through it, and praised the dish so convincingly that Mom had glowed for the rest of dinner.

Then later, I'd watched her cry while talking about growing up without anyone who made her feel wanted, about moving through foster homes and never knowing what it was like to truly belong somewhere. She admitted that all those reckless decisions I'd judged her for weren't born out of carelessness at all. They were the desperate attempts of a lonely girl trying to get the attention and affection she'd been denied her entire life.

That realization fucked me up.

It made me feel like an even bigger asshole for how quickly I'd assumed the worst about her, but more than anything, hearing everything she'd been through made me want to protect her from ever having to feel that alone again.

I remember looking at her then and wanting to close the distance between us so badly it physically hurt. I wanted to hold her face in my hands, wipe away every tear, and kiss her until she forgot every person who had ever made her believe she was difficult to love. But I didn't. I forced myself to stay where I was because she was emotional, because our relationship was supposed to be fake, and because the last thing I wanted was for her to think I was using our arrangement as an excuse to take something she had never truly offered me.

I grunt under my breath.

This fucking arrangement.

I had spent days convincing myself I could handle it. That I could stand beside her, call her my girlfriend, touch her when people were watching, and keep this growing need for us to become something real under control.

Then she kissed me.

No kiss has ever felt like that. I've kissed women before, but those memories suddenly feel distant and insignificant, like they happened to someone else. This one feels like my first real kiss, as ridiculous as that sounds. The first one that has ever reached beneath my skin and lodged itself somewhere permanent. The first one that made my entire body feel awake while simultaneously stripping every coherent thought from my mind.

I'm still trapped inside it. Still feeling her fingers tighten at the back of my neck. Still tasting her lipstick. Still hearing the sharp breath she took when I pulled her against me.