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“No,” I agree, laughing.
“Give me a minute to touch up my makeup?”
I smile. “Of course.”
I park within view of the gathered horde, sneaking glances at her as she strokes mascara onto her lashes and smooths a raspberry gloss over her already soft, bright mouth. That mouth. I want things from that mouth.
You told her kissing might be on the table.
Not the kind of kissing you want to do. The kind that goes on for hours. The kind that explores every last inch and curve and fold.
She catches me looking and raises her eyebrows. “Never seen a woman putting makeup on?” she teases.
“Of course I have—I’ve just never found it so hard to avert my eyes.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Uh-huh.”
“It’s true,” I insist, and she rolls her eyes again.
When she’s done, we exit the car and walk up the street arm in arm toward our fan club. No evasive maneuvers, just a slow stroll, drawing a rush of photographers who circle in front of us, calling questions. “Smile,” I remind her under my breath, and she does.
I sneak glances because it’s that slight secret smile like she knows something about you but isn’t telling, and she’s aglow. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of beautiful women. I feel a sharp rush of pride in her: this woman is mine?—
But of course she’s not.
She’s just pretending to be.
I make myself look away, giving the photographers and journalists my best movie-star grin. I consciously tone down the bad boy factor. I’m a family man now—or that’s what I need them to believe. The more the world believes it, the harder it’ll be for Weggers to fight it.
Flashes pop and photographers jockey for space, and we wait it out patiently, letting them ask us questions, telling the story of how we met. We’re both fumbling through the story, but it works perfectly because it means we have to keep turning to each other for confirmation, bouncing our tale back and forth like two people who are so in love they can’t remember how they got there. It feels like magic.
It feels like truth.
“Let’s see the ring again!”
Ivy holds her hand out for them. The ring looks so good. For a moment I have an impulse: to turn her elegant hands into a garden, flowers on all her fingers.
Silly.
But I can’t quite put it out of my head.
“Kiss her!” someone calls.
I don’t look at her. I can’t.
“Kiss her! Kiss her!”
It’s a chant now.
This moment was always going to happen. We both knew it.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs, and the intimacy of her low, husky voice breaks through my resistance. I bend over and settle my lips on hers. My intention is to linger just long enough for the cameras.
Ivy’s eyes drift close, her eyelashes casting shadows on her high cheekbones, and it’s that, almost more than the sensation of touching my mouth to hers, that tears the rough sound out of my throat. Too soft, too private for the paparazzo to hear, but I know she hears it because she answers with the grip of her hand on my wrist. Under mine, her lips open, just a fraction. It might be surprise. Not surprise that I’ve kissed her—surprise that it’s like this.
Electric.
I don’t know how it happens, but my hands grip her shoulders, one sliding up behind her head, holding her in place so I can take what I crave, which is more of her. Need pins me to the moment and makes me reckless. I forget where we are and who’s watching, and my tongue meets hers. For a moment we’re slick and greedy together, the sensation rolling straight to my cock.
