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Only Gran and Lena have ever protected me this way.
To have this man who barely knows me turn so strong and snarly for my sake ...
It doesn’t feel like an act anymore.
I curl my hand tighter in his jacket, even if I risk ruining the expensive fabric.
Stop, I think desperately. Stop it, Jet Daddy, or I’ll start to want you for real.
But his hand against my back urges me forward.
The silence feels like another presence with us, hovering and oppressive, as he guides me across the plaza. I feel the shift in the light against my eyelids as we fall under the shade of the trees lining the property.
We’re right at the gate now. Just the sidewalk, and I spot Rick waiting in the car on the curb and rejoice at the thought of lying down.
But August stops us just past the gate. I lift my head as much as I can.
He looks down at me with a strange expression before his jaw sets. I think there’s something like determination in the knit of his brows and the firmness of his mouth.
What? I try to say, but all my wires are still scrambled.
Then his fingers graze my chin, gripping lightly yet with that sense of the thinnest leash holding back the strength of his touch.
All my wires burn out in a single explosive instant.
Ferocious blue eyes search mine.
“I’m sorry as hell,” August whispers; only now the purr of it is deeper, this intimate, rough thing. “I do this for appearances. Don’t have a choice, but fuck, I don’t know how to stage a kiss. So this will have to suffice.”
Stage a what?
My mind wobbles.
Then the full meaning catches up to me.
Not fast enough, as August bows over me and slams his lips into mine.
My mind screams for one last second of common sense.
Not real. Not real. Not real.
This man doesn’t feel anything but irritation. It’s not effing real!
My lips tingle with the soft graze of his mouth, the lush tease of his beard. Like every bristling touch peels away layers of armor until each time his mouth strokes mine, I just feel more.
More heat.
More texture, more touch.
Everything from the faint crease in his lips to their firmness, the way they feel just like the silk and velvet and dark chocolate of his voice, the tiny hint of dampness making our mouths cling to each other until we’re like sweet sticky candy.
More, every time he draws back before another slow, tender collision of our lips connects us for just a moment longer before breaking apart with a soft slick sound.
More everything.
He kisses me like I mean the entire universe to him.
Like he’s caught so deep in his need to protect me, to shield me, to love me, that he has to kiss me like I’m fragile and precious.
