Page 157 of Fake it ’Til Fall

Forrest’s mouth on mine. His hands were careful until they weren’t. His voice against my skin, rough with restraint and need. Forrest inside me, forehead pressed to mine like the whole house, the whole town, the whole fake relationship had vanished down to one impossible room and the sound of us breathing.

No.

Absolutely not.

This morning has been ongoing for less than thirty seconds, and already I need legal counsel, hydration, and maybe a priest with modern views.

Behind me, Forrest’s breath shifts.

“Stop thinking so loud,” he mutters, then kisses my back.

One warm, sleepy press of his mouth against skin he knows now.

Terrible.

Horrifying.

Sexy, unfortunately.

That mouth should be illegal. Not because it is pretty, though obviously it is, which is deeply annoying. Because it remembers things. Because last night it learned me with an attention I am not prepared to file under fake anything.

“I’m not thinking loudly,” I whisper.

“You stopped breathing.”

“That is a private respiratory matter.”

His arm tightens by a fraction.

Not enough to trap me.

Enough to remind me that I am with a man who knows what I sound like when I stop making jokes.

“You okay?” he asks.

I turn my head just enough to glare at him over my shoulder. “That question has become your brand.”

“Answer.”

Bossy.

Warm.

Naked.

Fake boyfriend.

Real problem.

“I am processing.”

“Processing what, Day?”

His mouth moves along my shoulder, slow and sleep-soft, and my brain starts deleting whole categories of concern. Breakfast. My mother. The contract. The fact that Puck was banished from the room and probably knows everything.

“The collapse of several systems,” I say.

“Which systems?”