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I twist to look through the back window. “Um. This is a little déjà vu, but my house is that way.”
“I know,” August says quietly behind the wheel. “I thought you’d stay at my place tonight.”
What?
I whip back to face him, every last nerve inside me seizing up in a hot flush rushing through me. I stare at him uncomprehendingly, a million things running through my head that definitely should not be.
Hot hands on my thighs, teasing them apart.
Bronzed skin against my paleness, making me feel so fragile as his fingers slide higher, higher.
His rough stubble, his mouth roaming my throat, tasting every moan that vibrates out of me as his fingers push between my legs, tease up against my—
Eleanor Jacqueline Lark, stop.
You stop that right now.
I can mentally see Gran wagging a finger at me, and she’s right.
I’m being ridiculous.
August is so calm, he couldn’t have meant—
Oh, but he glances at me, his brows knit sharply, before he jerks his gaze away with a guttural growl.
“I have a second bedroom,” he says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable with any implications. I simply meant for appearances. Considering the paparazzi jackasses who’ve caught us by surprise before, we have to assume we have a very determined reporter stalking us. Someone who would notice that we sleep apart every night. We could be saving ourselves for marriage, yes. But most won’t find that plausible.”
“Oh,” I squeak. I hope to God I sound embarrassed and flustered and a little uncomfortable, and not disappointed.
Totally not.
Of course, of course it’s a practical thing from Mr. Practicality.
After a breathless moment, I groan and smack my face into my palm.
Calm down, my heart.
“For the record, we’ve got to work on your delivery,” I mutter. “And your planning! You never tell me what we’re doing until we’re in it ...”
“Sorry.” August at least sounds genuinely chagrined. When I glance at him, his face is red and rigid, like he’s trying to force his walls back into place. “You’re right. I normally give my teams advanced notice. I should offer you the same courtesy.”
“Just shoot me a text, tell me to pack a bag, let me know with more than an hour’s warning what the dress code is, something.”
August smiles thinly—but there’s something almost sad there too. “By the time I get in the habit, we’ll be breaking up.”
Oh.
Oh, that’s a high kick right to the feels, and those feels aren’t very good.
“... yeah,” I say, slouching against the door and looking outside. I find a smile somewhere because that’s what I always do, even when it hurts. “I guess ... I guess we will.”
August says nothing. The silence in the car is strange.
I don’t know how to feel, what to think.
I’m bouncing between this bizarre sensation of being completely alone, and this weirder desperation to ease the tingling that started the moment my imagination ran away and filled me with thoughts of August’s hard body between my thighs.
I shift a little in my seat, restless, trying not to be obvious about pressing my thighs together.
