“You said…” he starts too loudly. Stops. Swallows. “People are watching.”
I lift one shoulder, painfully casual, and flick my eyes back to his. I’m so not prepared. My breath catches at his expression, the wicked curiosity shot with confusion, irritation, impatience. He’s starting to realize what’s going on. The decision that I’ve sprung on him, and he’s upset, entertained, and—maybe—impressed. There’s a tiny notch between his brows, thin lines fanning from either side of his narrowed eyes.
He knows.
“Ah,” he murmurs. “You little devil. Warn a man next time.”
His tone makes warmth pool in a part of me I’ve never thought much about, somewhere between my belly button and feet. He thinks I act like a stray cat who bites his hand whenever he’s nice to me? Arthur is a damnmountain lion. Holding his hand feels like I’m offering my life up to the jaws of a hunter, and hoping he doesn’t taste something he enjoys enough to bite down.
But this isn’t real. We’re only doing this to get what we both want.
“Warn you? I’m just helping you with your glove.” I softly fold Arthur’s large hand back so I can reach the strap running around his wrist. There are two flat gray circles near his pulse point, one of them the underside of a button snap. I click it into place, pressing the snapfirmlyinto his skin for leverage. Just enough pain to vent some of the many ways he’s annoyed me since we met.
He doesn’t even wince.
“Is that so?” Arthur tuts. “You’re touching me out of the goodness of your own heart?”
Forget my heart. That thing is racing out of this garage. “I mean, nothing could ever happen between us. It would simply ruin Black & Graywood’s film.”
“And we couldn’t have that happen.”
“Absolutely. Rumors would start flying.”
“And rumors are dangerous things,” he says. “They travel even faster than me.”
We’ve both been watching my fingers on his wrist, as if us touching is some new art film only in theaters for one night, alluring and strange and a little off-putting. I’m touching Arthur. In thegarage. In front of Max, who I can’t bring myself to look at. This is past weird. This is main-character behavior, stupid and careening toward a tragic end.
Realizing how deep I’m in makes my confidence splinter. “Are you sure you want to go with this narrative? I know you have—” A girlfriend. A girl friend. Women? “A lot going on.”
Arthur meets my eyes again. After too many seconds of staring right at me, his gaze drops to my lips, tracing the way my mouth is split open by my rapid breaths. Then he looks lower. At my neck. My shoulders. Lower. He’s touching me with only his eyes, assessing.
Deciding.
“Getting caught with you is fine with me. I like playing offensively better.” He smiles, obviously not at all worried about whoever he’s seeing finding out about our scheme. Stand-up guy, this one. Though I’m not exactly surprised that Arthur doesn’t care about the emotions of whoever “she” is. Caring about interpersonal fallout seems to be a skill reserved for non-athletes.
“Did you know that these gloves track my heartbeat?” he adds.
“Y-yeah?”Ugh.
He hums, definitely and without a doubt biting back a laugh, and turns his hand so his wrist is facing up again. When he angles his arm just right, a tiny sliver of bare skin is exposed between his glove and race suit. And I think this has to be what Victorian-era men felt when they saw a wanton ankle. I’m stunned by that centimeter of Arthur, his skin, the idea that he wants me where he could get hurt—“Feel it for yourself, princess,” he says teasingly.
Right. He’s the worst person in the world. Devil in a race suit. Good-looking, bad acting. I push him and his biometric-tracking hands away, muttering, “I changed my mind. I do hate you.”
There’s that cutting smile. “Right.”
“Ido.”
“I believe you.”
I frown up at him. This isn’t working. I can’t let Arthur and his expert flirting skills overpower me. If he and I are really doing this, if I’m going to prove to the world and his uncle that he’s interested inme, then I need to get him to chase me, whether he realizes it or not. If our “courtship” is going to be remotely believable and contract shattering, I have to make him show everyone in this room that he’s a changed man because of me, not just a lion toying with his prey. This needs to be a love story, not a power imbalance. Otherwise, it’s just sad.
Confidence. I need to be as confident as he is.
So, I nibble at my lower lip. From nerves… and, if it’s at all possible, in an attempt to distract him as much as he distracted me with his wrist.
“Maybe this is too much,” I say, going for the airy surprise of an epiphany.
“What’s too much?” Arthur was about to put on his helmet, but he sticks it under his arm, pausing.
