The Decoy Girlfriend(66)
He knows it’s working when Freya’s tongue darts out to wet the seam of her lips. “What about your rules? Because if you’re going to blow hot and cold again . . .”
He cups her jaw, lets his thumb nestle into the soft part under her chin.
“Pretty sure that counts as touching without warning,” she says with a Cheshire smile.
The air between them becomes more electric.
How had he ever allowed himself to believe all these years that compromise was the only way in which he could succeed?
The answer, he realizes, is obvious. Before, he didn’t know Freya.
“Are you going to kiss me or keep me waiting?” Taft tips her mouth up and hovers an inch from her lips, eyes seeking hers. Letting her know in no uncertain terms what he wants.
Freya brings her hand up between them, tapping her chin as she pretends to think. “I mean, seems fair?” She shrugs prettily. “Wasn’t me who was the holdout. I did spend a lot of lonely nights in your bed.”
There’s no way she doesn’t know what a sentence like that does to him.
“Fuck the rules,” Taft says vehemently, more growl than speech.
“I could have told you that,” she says, voice surprisingly prim for a woman who is unrepentantly crushing the collar of his Tom Ford button-down dress shirt to bring him closer.
They’re close enough to share the same breath. He’d swished with an aggressive amount of Listerine before they left, and he knows Freya brushed her teeth so they’d be extra clean and stand out against her Dior lipstick, but between them they’ve probably eaten the equivalent of two regular-size shrimp sandwiches, and what that means for their combined breath is . . .
Actually, he doesn’t care. He’s contrived enough reasons to stay away from her, there’s no way he’s going to talk himself out of kissing her tonight.
“So we’re clear,” he murmurs against her lips. “You’ve upended my entire life.”
Freya, he notices, never looks so smug as when she’s won.
“Good,” she says. “That makes two of us.”
Taft gently brushes her cheek with his knuckles. “I’d really like to kiss you.”
Her eyelids flutter as she tilts into his touch, covering his hand with hers. “Now, please.”
Can he deny her anything when she asks him so sweetly?
With a wolfish smile, he leans in. Just as he’s about to give Freya what she wants—what they’ve both been waiting for—the overhead lights come back on.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Worst. Timing. Ever.
Freya blinks owlishly as her eyes adjust to the brightness. The first thing to come into focus is Taft: brown hair curling over his ears; the faint pucker of his mouth; and a rounded, stubbled jawline begging for hands and lips. If anyone were to turn around, they’d spot Freya’s and Taft’s heads leaning in so close that there’d be no doubt as to what they were seconds away from doing.
Taft groans, a sound that could be mistaken for disappointment at the movie ending, but she knows better. They lock eyes and both unsuccessfully try not to laugh.
“Soon,” he avows, and every inch of her leans into the rough rasp of his voice.
There’ll be other chances, she knows that now, but she can’t deny how much she wanted this one, both of them aglow from the screen, the thrilling juxtaposition of hushed secrecy in a public place heightening their desire and desperation. It isn’t their first kiss, but now that they know what they mean to each other, it deserves to be special.
The murmur of the crowd grows as people start to move around, bringing Freya back to reality. A group of reporters make their way to the front of the theater to get some quotes from Bowen and her team.
“Let’s stretch our legs?” asks Freya, shifting against the scratchy seat. “Grab a drink before our required after-party appearance?”
She doesn’t know why she suggests it. She’s already flushed and her dress is sticking to her skin, and alcohol will only exacerbate the issue, but it’s something to do, striding toward a new scene instead of delaying in the cliffhanger of an old one.
“Sure.” Taft stands and offers Freya his hand.
As he helps her up, she gives his fingers a squeeze to convey that this isn’t over. To make her point, Freya’s fingers chase his when he’s about to let go. Surprised delight flashes across his face as she keeps them together. If they couldn’t kiss, holding hands is a close second.
As they sidestep their way through the row, a voice cuts through the chatter with enough enunciated buzzwords that it’s impossible to miss.
“Your former costar’s name is conspicuously absent from this project. He’s always spoken very fondly about the show, so can we assume that Taft had scheduling conflicts that prevented him from signing on to reprise his role in the Once Bitten reboot?”
Taft falters, coming to an abrupt stop.
Freya glances back at him immediately, clocking the uneven pink patches that have sprouted on his cheeks and the wild look in his eyes. His fingers dig into hers almost painfully, but she doesn’t pull away. Her intestines tighten and twist like a balloon animal, blood rushing to her ears, as Taft’s frozen body starts to cause a pileup in the aisle.
“There he is over there! Taft! Taft! Can we get a quote about—”