The crowd goesnuts.
Whistling.
Applause.
A distant, “Get it, Walker!”
Clay slows it down, easing off like this is his pace, not mine. He nips my bottom lip once—once, hard enough to make me gasp—and then pulls back, breathing steady, eyes not.
He stares at me.
I know I look wrecked.
I can feel my lipstick smeared and my pupils blown and my body begging for more.
His hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck, squeezing, drawing me in an inch. He puts his mouth next to my ear, voice a dark scrape.
“You wanted real,” he says. “Don’t tempt me next time.”
Heat floods every inch of me.
I can’t speak.
I can only nod like a fool.
He straightens, turns us back to the crowd like nothing happened, like he didn’t just immolate me in front of the entire town. He smiles—a real one this time—and I seriously wonder if anyone else in here notices the way his fingers flexed on my neck like he didn’t want to let go.
They don’t.
They see fireworks.
I see gasoline.
Back at my rental, I pace.
Istomp, really.
My coat’s on a chair. My boots are tossed. My heart is still lodged in that kiss in front of the fundraising tree.
Clay’s in my kitchen, because of course he is. I told him to come in, that we needed to talk, that he couldn’t just do that and leave.
He did not argue.
He just followed, shut the door, and now stands there leaned against my counter like some off-duty sin, arms crossed, watching me storm up and down my tiny living room.
“Say it,” he says finally.
I whirl. “You can’t do that.”
He lifts a brow. “Do what.”
“Kiss me like youmeanit.”
He doesn’t move. “You asked.”
“I asked you topretend.”
“That didn’t look fake to them.”
