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A few more items on the list: the faint, masculine smell of him when he first wakes up. The way he stands at the window of his apartment, mug in hand, pensive and still as the first rays of sun break through the skyscrapers. The way he wears worn-in, soft clothes on the weekend, the opposite of his suits.
Coffee doesn’t improve the distance between us.
He’s great with the twins. Patient. Easygoing. I hear them all laughing about Minecraft after lunch.
But he’s pulled away from me. I’m sure of it by Saturday night.
“I really don’t mind sleeping on the couch,” I tell him, an hour after the twins have fallen asleep.
“I mind.”
He’s just as quiet when we’re under the covers together.
I lay carefully on the pillow. This is what they mean when they sayparalyzed by confusion.I want to roll over and make out with Will Leblanc, but he doesn’t seem to want that. Last night feels like a dream.
“Will?”
“Yeah?”
He’s relaxed, but I get the feeling it’s mostly for show. I close my eyes and focus. When I do, I can feel that he’s breathing a bit faster. And the energy that I thought was cold and distant and professional is…
Tension. The image of an athlete at a starting line, waiting for a gun to fire, pops into my mind. An athlete that looks like Will, with his height and his muscles and the bruise that’s faded from his cheek.
“What’s wrong?”
He rolls over. From the sound of his voice, he’s on his back. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“You’re not a great liar, you know.”
Will huffs a bitter laugh. “Nothing is wrong, Bristol. Everything is just how it’s supposed to be.”
That’s it.
I’m simply not the kind of woman who just lays in bed, fretting. Not when I could be doing something.
I push myself away from the pillow, crawl across the bed, and straddle him. “Pretend,” I order to the dim light caught in his blue eyes.
Will’s hands glide over my hips. He doesn’t push me away. “What the hell are you talking about, Ms. Anderson?”
“I’m in your bed with you. It’sBristol.And none of this is supposed to be happening.” I feel a pang at saying the words, like they’re a lie. Like this isn’t fate. “I wasn’t supposed to steal. You weren’t supposed to blackmail me. Letting me stay with you like this is obviously against the rules. But yesterday…”
“What about yesterday?” Will murmurs, his eyes tracing down my body.
“Yesterday you baked cookies and ordered pizza—”
He’s solid underneath me. Strong. I’m simultaneously desperate to sink into him and desperate to make time slow down.
“And then I covered your pretty mouth with my hand and fucked you senseless,” he points out.
“This is temporary.” I lean down and nip the side of his neck. Will’s hands flex, tensing around my hips. It pushes me down, the heat between my legs brushing against where he’s hard. “We don’t have that much time. Can you just pretend it’s yesterday? Can you just—”
His hands thread around the back of my neck, and Will pulls me into a hard kiss. I taste the tension on him. The endless loop of his thoughts.
And then they short out into the pleasure-pain of his teeth at my bottom lip and the sudden adrenaline of the single movement he uses to roll us over.
Will’s over me in the dark, his lips at the side of my neck, at my ear. “Would I just pretend to be someone else? Just for you, Bristol?”
“Not someone else.”
