His thoughts gradually drifted into dreams until a couple of hours later a dip in the mattress unexpectedly roused him from a deep and restful sleep. Eyes bleary, he rotated over to see Josie’s shadowy outline perched at the corner of the bed. She sat in the empty space, knees tucked underneath her, hand outstretched as if about to tap his shoulder. “Seth?” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Are you awake?”
He bolted upright. “Josie. What is it? Is everything okay?”
“I can’t sleep.” There was a frustrated quality in her tone. “I’ve been tossing and turning—”
Seth moved to roll off the mattress. He grabbed his pillow and shoved it under his arm, then nodded toward the vacated space. “Go ahead. You can have the bed. I’ll take the couch.”
“That’s not it.” Her hand touched his hip in a halting maneuver but it did just the opposite. He flinched, not to recoil, but from the mere shock of her hand on his skin. “I can’t stop playing our last conversation in my head.”
He hadn’t been able to stop either. It was on permanent repeat. “I’m really so sorry about that, Josie. I shouldn’t’ve said anything. It was stupid.”
“It’s not that you shouldn’t’ve said anything. It’s that I should’ve said more.” Her hand stayed on his muscled side just above the drawstring on his pants. He tried not to let her touch affect him but that just wasn’t possible. The sharp intake of breath couldn’t be helped, no matter how hard he worked to keep it in.
Josie’s eyes found his in the dark and she shifted closer.
“What should you have said?” Seth’s brain knew he shouldn’t encourage it, but his flesh and blood won out. It needed to know. He swallowed thickly and prayed she would respond.
“I should have told you that you make my heart race, too. And that I’m not sure if it does that because it’s just caught up in this game we’re playing, or if it’s because it’s you that I’m playing the game with,” she admitted. “But I think I want to find out.”
“Yeah?” He swallowed. “How do we do that?” He abandoned his pillow back to the mattress, tossing it near the pine headboard. He was not about to leave this room.
“You could start by kissing me.”
Seth didn’t need to be told twice. That once unreadable gaze was long gone, her eyes now alight with nothing shy of absolute expectation. Seth wanted to kiss her, of course, but he didn’t want to rush the moment. There was something to be said for a first kiss. It would become a memory; a turning point. The before and the after.
This was going to be a marker in their relationship—fake or not—and Seth wanted to make it a good one.
He sank to his knees on the bed and moved toward her across the covers. Reaching out, his hand slid to her jaw, his thumb and finger hooking under her chin to angle her face up to his. While he kept a light hold there, he curved his other arm around her waist to pull her flush, chest to chest. Her back readily arched to meet him and their bodies drew together. Just the feel of having a woman against him was a unique and beautiful form of torture.
“I’m a little nervous.” Her words met his lips as a warm breath.
“Me too.” And he was, but not because he worried it wouldn’t be good. He knew it would be. Too good, probably, and that was the real trouble with it all. He’d never be able to come back from this and he knew it. He moved his hand from her chin and swept her silky hair from her eyes with the backs of his fingers. “You’re so beautiful, Josie.”
She seemed ready to protest, so Seth silenced that denial with his lips pressed to hers.
A surge of rain rolled over the house, a wave of nature’s music that pummeled the roof as it ebbed and flowed across the rafters. With one hand, Josie reached up to grab his shoulder, and then their kiss took on its own rhythm like the rain, a back and forth of lips pressing and retreating, teasing and playing. Her fingers slid down and dug into the flesh on his bicep to grip him in place like she never wanted to let go.
Seth hadn’t realized how much he’d craved this. Josie had intrigued him from the first moment they’d met and this kiss was a culmination of all the energy that steadily grew over the last week. She was a stubborn woman, yes, but there was no stubbornness to be found here. No battle of wills, just a reciprocation of the desire that built between them. A slow kindling that had turned into a full fledged flame.
“Is this okay?” Seth pulled back only long enough to utter the words. She nodded quickly and their mouths found one another again. Breaths ragged and pulse fitful, Seth tried to stifle a groan but when Josie pushed him onto his back, he couldn’t keep the wind from rushing out of him.
She came over him, straddling his waist as she dipped her head low to kiss his forehead, his cheek, his neck. She ran her lips across his stubble-lined jaw and took his mouth in a kiss that created its own version of lightning behind his eyes. The weather outside had nothing on the storm brewing between them in their dark, powerless room. They created their own electricity.
“Josie.” Seth said her name in a guttural sound. “Is this real? Or—”
“You tell me.” She cut him off with another fierce kiss but the unanswered question suspended between them, an ellipsis that strung one kiss to the next.
Did it even matter? He tried to tell himself it didn’t, but the more they kissed the more it felt like falling. Falling for Josie, this beautiful, complicated, unexpected woman.
Seth slid his hands up her bare thighs, stopping at the hem of the sweatshirt that covered her, relishing in the smoothness of her skin that was so very different from his own. She was toned and muscular, but that did nothing to diminish her femininity. Josie was this incredible dichotomy of womanhood and he was powerless to resist.
In one motion, he traded places, bringing her onto her back as he pressed his body down, bracing on his elbows so as not to crush her under the brunt of his weight. Her fingers trailed up and down his back and shivers followed the path of her nails that raked across his bare skin.
“If this is fake, I never want to join reality again,” he spoke in a laugh against her mouth. He could feel her lips curve into a smile as he went in for another slow kiss.
“It’s not fake, Seth,” she said. “It’s not fake for me.”
That confession was like a splash of gasoline on their already roaring flames. Seth strained to keep his cool but he was a red blooded male. He wanted her in more ways than he even felt comfortable admitting.
“Seth.” She nearly moaned, which did nothing to keep Seth from losing all control. “I want you so badly.”
“I want you, too, Josie.” He did. He wanted it all. Her body. Her attention. Her heart.
That last thought should’ve tripped him up, but it didn’t. In fact, he wanted her heart most of all.
They kissed for what felt like both hours and only seconds, drawn out and equally rushed, until Seth finally pulled away and rolled to the side, then turned her so his body cocooned hers. His arms slunk around her middle and tugged her tight. With his nose pressed into her hair, he brought his mouth near her ear. “You think you can get some sleep now?”
Her body jolted with a disbelieving laugh. “After that? Um, yeah, no. That’s not likely to happen.”