America's Geekheart (Bro Code #2)(57)

“Oh my god, Beck, only you,” she says with a shake of her head.

“Nobody else would believe that story.”

“Oh, I think they would.”

“That’s what my sister says too.”

“So now I’m like your sister.”

“No, you’re definitely something more.”

Her breath catches, and her eyes go wary again, and I realize I’ve backed her against the wall, my hands on her soft hips, and my face inches from hers.

“I’m in your bubble,” I say quietly.

But I don’t move.

And she doesn’t push me away.

“I didn’t notice,” she whispers.

“I’m that forgettable?”

“That comfortable.”

“I was going for magnetic and sexy, but I guess I can take comfortable. Better than smelly. Or revolting.”

“Beck?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and do something about being in my bubble before I let my trust issues take over again.”

It’s the smile that does me in. That sweet, amused, yes, you’ve talked me off my cliff smile that has me lowering my head and rubbing my lips against hers.

So fucking soft. And plump. And I smell honey.

Her fingers curl into my shirt, and I suckle her bottom lip while her eyes slide shut and a sweet, shuddery breath slips out.

Kissing her is like discovering a new flavor of ice cream. Sweet and perfect, but better. With a deeper flavor, a smoother finish, fresher everything.

She presses her chest against mine and parts her lips, her tongue making a tentative swipe, and fuck, I should’ve googled double orgasm last night instead of jacking off while fantasizing about her, because if I can’t live up to her expectations, I’m done.

Over.

Time to throw in the towel, accept that this is my life, exactly how it is, and I’ll never have anything more.

But I want to be good.

I want to be so fucking good for her. The best she’s ever had.

I shouldn’t. We have a contract. She hates publicity. I can’t escape it.

All of this is a bad idea.

I reluctantly pull back, even though I want to keep kissing her until I can’t breathe or think. “Better?” I whisper.

She drops her head to my shoulder, hiding her eyes, still gripping my shirt. “I need one more minute.”

“Take your time. I’m grounded until Saturday. And if you need more of the kissing, my lips are here all day.”

Her soft laugh is everything I need to know that we’re going to be okay.

And when she lets me wrap her in a hug, this doesn’t feel like a favor to an accidental friend.

It feels like so much more.





Twenty-Five





Sarah



I should not have kissed Beck.

Because now that I’ve kissed him, I can’t stop thinking about him. And thinking about him when he’s sitting right there next to me, on a very comfortable low-back red leather couch in one of the apartments under his penthouse, is making me want to kiss him again to see if it was a fluke, or if my heart would start to flutter and if my nipples would pucker and if I’d get that hard, irrepressible yearning in my lady bits.

“You’re sure you don’t want makeup?” Charlie asks me for the seventy-billionth time.

Beck sighs. “Charlie. Knock it off. She’s gorgeous just as she is.”

“I can see that, and you can see that, but the trolls of Internetlandia are assholes.”

“Put too much on, and I’m a whore,” I say. “Not enough, and I’m trying too hard to make a statement. I’m comfortable just like this. I don’t want to be gorgeous. I just want to be me. Okay? Let’s get it over with.”

“Let’s enjoy it,” Beck corrects. “You’re about to tell ten million gossips that they’re doing their job wrong.”

“I’m about to tell the world that I owl-bombed my high school prom to get myself labeled as a sexual deviant with a thing for deep-throating giant penises and dragon tails.”

“Ohmygod,” Mackenzie gasps.

I gape at her. “You didn’t google me when all I’d tell you was that my prom was awful and got taken wrong in the media?”

“No. Why would I do that? I don’t want to know Serendipity. You’re too awesome as Sarah.”

And now I’m going to cry. I gulp back an emotional land mine, and it sits in my gut like a cannonball that’s sprouting spikes. “You might not want to stay for this then.”

She snorts. “I took the day off work to be your good luck charm. Shut up and take my help. Especially since if you don’t, I’ll have to go be the drooling frozen mime in front of Cooper fucking Rock.”

She ends with a glare at Beck, like it’s his fault she’s obsessed with the Fireballs.

“One phone call and I could get the whole team over, if you’d rather,” he offers.

I shove him lightly when all the blood leaves her face and maybe her shoulders and arms and abdomen too. Her feet are probably swelling up like overinflated punching balloons and any second now she’s going to explode toes-first and save me from doing this video.

Okay, yes, I have problems.