“You look tense. If we weren’t faking things and I saw that, I would probably do this,” he says as he steps towards me and spins me around. His hands cup the outside of my arms, moving them upwards, slowly—painfully slowly—as tingles erupt where his warm palms meet my bare skin. His hands move to my shoulders as he begins to massage me. His skilled fingers both releasing tension and creating more.
I bite my lip to stifle a moan building in my chest. It feels way too good. I need to end this now. I roll my shoulders and step back from him, pivoting as I go to face him.
“Okay, don’t show if I have tension in front of others, so you don’t need to rub your grubby hands all over me, got it.”
He chuckles darkly, as if he knows exactly how much I enjoyed having his hands on me.
“Holding hands, me putting an arm around your shoulders?” he asks.
I let out a sigh and stare at the ceiling of his log cabin. I can’t think of any logical reason to say no to that. “Fine. Only when we are around pack members though.”
“Kissing? Pretty sure if we weren’t faking things that I would be kissing you at every opportunity I could.”
“Fine. Kissing. In public only.” I let out a sigh because this physically pains me, but it is necessary to make this whole fake mating thing work. “And… I guess you can scent mark me in the mornings if I’m going to be around others.”
Surprise flares in Luca’s eyes at my agreement, and the way I brought up scent marking. It’s what shifters do when they can’t give a permanent mark. Like in a relationship where one hasn’t yet turned twenty-one.
“Deal,” Luca agrees, his eyes sparkling and his wolfish grin letting me know how much he’s enjoying this.
“We’re not done yet. And no, don’t go getting any ideas about what else I’m going to let you do to me. We need to work out our story. How are we going to say you got me to go from wanting to reject you to moving in with you?”
“No one is going to question it. You may not have noticed, but your mate is roguishly handsome and has many great qualities.”
I roll my eyes and cross my arms. That’s not enough. I don’t need anyone thinking I let him walk all over me after treating me like crap for the past few years. “Yeah, that’s not going to work for me.”
“What do you want to say? I begged? Pleaded? Offered you the moon?” he asks, dropping to his knees in front of me and wrapping an arm around my thighs, and dropping a kiss on my bare stomach.
“Something like that,” I huff.
“Fine, you can say I did all of the above,” he says, as he pulls me towards him. I lose my balance enough to fall on my ass. Except I don’t land on my ass. Nope. I land in Luca’s muscular arms, and I hate the butterflies that erupt in my stomach at the closeness of our contact.
“The physical contact is forin publiconly, dipshit,” I say, pushing away from him and sitting on the floor beside him.
“You don’t think we should practice?” he asks. His smirk is wicked; his grip is unyielding. “Get comfortable with each other?”
“I don’t see why that would be necessary.” I snap, dizzy from the proximity to him. His heady scent intoxicates me, and the electricity dancing across my skin has my mind ready to throw caution to the wind completely.
Fuck. I am so screwed.
Chapter Eighteen
Luca
“Are you afraid?” I ask with a teasing lilt to my voice. I know exactly what I’m doing. Sofia—like all alpha wolves—never backs down from a challenge, and baiting her into one is the quickest way to get what I want. “Afraid you might enjoy it too much?”
Her lips twist into a stubborn smirk, and her eyes roll to the heavens in that way that drives me half-mad. Damn it, I want to pull her over my lap and spank her ass every time she does it.
“Afraid? Of you? Please.” She scoffs out a breath like it is beyond ridiculous to imagine she would enjoy kissing me. As if she didn’t bless me with the delectable scent of her arousal when I kissed her earlier. “Not in this lifetime, asshole.”
“It might surprise you.”
“It won’t.”
“Then prove it,” I press, lounging back on my hands, legs stretched out like I don’t have a care in the world. The picture of ease. Inside, though? My wolf is pacing, tail lashing, teeth bared with need. “It’s just a little kiss. No big deal.”
She glares at me, her eyes turning to molten golden lava as she hears the challenge in my words. Good.
“I’m not scared,” she grits out.
