The Decoy Girlfriend(56)
She peers into his eyes, trying to read him.
He slowly drags his hand up his chest until the glass rests against his heart. And then he waits, holding the pose as though it’s for the photographer’s benefit.
“The tender intimacy between you right now is perfect,” crows August. “It’s all about the subtext.”
Freya struggles to keep her Mandi mask in place. What subtext? Did Taft’s gesture mean that he was afraid of losing his heart? Afraid that she would be the one to hurt him? She’s pretty sure she’d chew off her own arm before she willingly hurt him.
Stumped for a way to convey that to him while all eyes are on them, Freya bites her lip. His attention is immediately drawn to her mouth.
“Can we go for a kiss?” asks August. The other people in the room hum with approval.
Freya’s eyes flick to Taft’s in an unspoken question. It’s not exactly how she’d wanted to share her first kiss with him, but she’d take any opportunity to thaw the awkward subzero situation between them.
“Can we?” Freya asks, skimming her fingertips over the angle of his jaw. If he’s not okay with it, she’ll respect his boundaries. She’ll follow his rules. She’ll bury her feelings, if that’s what it takes.
When Taft hesitates, regret and uncertainty grip Freya’s stomach. This isn’t right. If this is the only kiss they’ll ever share, it shouldn’t be like this. She wants him, burns for him, but she doesn’t want him backed into a corner—she wants him to melt with her.
His eyes are soft, but the rest of his face is unreadable. But then he nods, eyelids closing in tacit permission and body leaning forward as though in invitation. She waits for his lips to close the gap between them, even tipping her chin up a little to meet him. It’s only been a few seconds, but even when someone impatiently clears their throat and August swiftly hushes them, Taft doesn’t follow through.
So Freya does the only thing she can think of.
She kisses him first.
At first, she was going for just a peck, but she wants to prove something. Not to any of the onlookers, but to Taft. That there’s something between them that is growing too big to ignore and he’s not going to win any prizes for trying.
The moment their lips meet, she cuffs one hand around the back of his neck and lets the other curl around his jaw. The kiss is soft and sweet—full of everything she’s forced herself to hide from him—and she’s determined to keep it that way, until she feels him respond. For one searing second, she’s furious—but not surprised—to discover Taft is an unparalleled kisser.
She’d hoped that with her initiating the kiss, she could show him everything he could have had with her if only he’d want it as much as she did. Instead, he’d turned the tables on her—again. It’s getting to be a habit with him, she’s realizing. But this one she doesn’t mind at all.
When his hands frame her face, purposeful and sure, his kiss devours her. He takes her bottom lip in between his teeth, lightly pulling. It stings, but not enough to hurt, and his face blurs in front of her until she thinks she’s gone cross-eyed. She’s never been kissed like that, rough and a little bit feral, and she thinks she likes it, but it’s over before she can examine it too closely.
They separate for a second, and Freya takes the chance to breathe, gratified when Taft takes a sharp breath, looking dazed and a bit like his lungs had stopped working. Vaguely, she hopes August captured those shots, because she’d rather like to see what she and Taft look like. Wonders if the goose bumps scattered all over her limbs and other places will show up.
She’s just resigned herself that their one and only kiss has served its purpose, but to her everlasting shock, Taft dips his face to hers again, leaving no doubt as to what he wants. He kisses her with slow, tantalizing deliberation, and she rewards him with an impulsive nip at his lower lip. He makes an undone sound that’s half growl, half groan, and she smiles against his lips.
Taft follows her every nonverbal cue as though this is their thousandth kiss, not their first. His tongue is impatient, teasing the seam of her mouth until she opens for him, and then claims her mouth completely in an all-consuming kiss that makes her body sing as though she’s been fine-tuned for him and him alone.
As she nibbles at his lips, he pins her against the heat of his body. He’s tall, but his frame has never had this sexy, looming quality before. She arches her back when she feels the firm tug of his free hand plundering her hair with questing fingers, exposing her neck. His lips hover enticingly over her pulse point.
For this one moment, this man is all hers and she’s all his.
“Taft, hold that pose!” August calls out. “Your profile is perfect.”
Well, all mine, and everyone else’s in the room, Freya thinks wryly.
Few things in life are perfect on the first try. Not first drafts, not first orgasms with a new partner, and definitely not first kisses when you’re still learning each other and what you like. But kissing Taft Bamber is pretty fucking close.
It’s hard to hold the pose, and she has to cling to his shoulders just to remain upright, a fact that isn’t lost on him if the small, unruffled smirk playing on his lips is anything to go by.
She scowls back, frazzled and aching for him. “You did that on purpose,” she whispers.
He sweeps his fingertips along her jaw. “I didn’t want to lose something great before I even gave it a proper chance.” When she grasps his meaning, he surprises her all over again. “Freya,” he murmurs into the hollow of her throat. “The next time I kiss you, it won’t be for an audience.”