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"I, um, I need a picture of us kissing."
His eyebrows rise to his hairline. "Is this an excuse to get me to kiss you?"
"No!" I shout way too aggressively. I suck in a breath. I knew this wouldn't go well. "A percentage of my followers love the idea of this romance between us and they want cutesy, lovey photos." What they really want are more videos of us making out, but they aren't going to get that.
"Nope." Asher turns and heads for the trail. "I'm not lying to thousands of people."
I follow him, picking up my pace to a jog when he does. "It's not lying. We've kissed."
He keeps walking. "We aren't a couple. There's no romance according to you."
"Ugh. Why do you care? You're never going to meet any of these people."
"I'm not a liar. If you want to admit there's more between us than physical attraction and go on a date with me, then I'll give you your romantic picture. Otherwise, no go."
"You're blackmailing me?" I thought he'd jump at the chance to kiss me and this feels like a rejection. Is he pretending attraction to me to get in my head? Is this ruse about a date just another way to prove his interest in me without having to touch me?
His laugh rolls over his shoulder and onto me like a breath across my skin. How can he drive me out of my mind with nothing more than a deep, husky laugh?
"I'm not blackmailing you, Empress. I just don't do lies."
"Bullshit. Everyone lies. That's the only way there's ever any peace in the world."
"Well, I don't. Honesty is better than peace."
I snort, because he can't be serious. Lies are the oil that keeps the world running smoothly. On another level, though, respect creeps in, because aren't I the same in some ways? I view airbrushing and promoting products I don't believe in as lies I won't participate in, but I'm more than ready to fake a romance for my followers.
The difference is Asher and I really do have a physical relationship, sort of. And as far as I'm concerned, that's close enough to a romance to not be a lie. He only views it as a lie because he claims to want more than the physical.
To my surprise, Asher is able to keep up with me for most of the first hour. When he starts to flag, my knee is already aching and I welcome the opportunity to slow down.
We started our run at four, which means we should be done at six, but the cloud cover is thick and the trail is hilly enough that we've had to walk more than I anticipated. It's looking like we won't get back to the trail head until closer to six-thirty and it'll be full dark by then.
When we come up to the base of another steep climb, my knee aches just looking at it. I don't know how I'm going to keep doing this for another hour and a half.
"Hold up," I say to Asher as he starts up the hill. "Let's take a break."
He stops immediately. His shirt is plastered to his very fine body by sweat and his cheeks are slightly red from exertion. I want to feel his hard body under my fingers so bad my head spins.
Running all day next to this man and breathing in his pheromones hasn't been good for my resolve not to jump his bones.
"You okay?" he asks, glancing at my knee.
"I'm great. It's just that at the rate we're going, we aren't going to be back to the trail head until well after sunset and I'd rather not be jogging through the woods in the dark."
He slumps a bit. "I'm slowing us down."
The urge to reassure him takes me by surprise. "It's not your fault. The hills are steeper than I anticipated. I couldn't have gone any faster if I wanted to."
He steps closer. "Could we just turn around and go back?"
"Maybe." I pull the trail map from my running belt. "But we're both tiring and going back is going to be a lot of steep downhills. It's likely to take us just as long to go back as to go forward." I scan the trail map and find what I'm looking for. "Here," I point out a trail, "Doesn't this look like it'll be quicker? We'll have to jog the last bit on the road to get back to the trail head, but it should work."
Asher studies the map. "Except we have no idea how steep or difficult the trail might be. Or how well-traveled. We're close to the edge of park land here and it's easy to get lost on less-traveled trails."
"You think we should stick to the original plan?"
"How's your knee holding up?"
