Stupidly, his cheeks had gone hot.
He had never, never known what to say. Who to be. How to act.
How not to disappoint.
But he had to give her something, something real and true, since appearances alone didn’t interest her. Even their undeniable sexual chemistry wouldn’t be enough to keep her, not if she didn’t see anything in him worth keeping. And maybe their years of online friendship weren’t enough to entrust her with a career-destroying secret, but they were enough to entrust her with this little hidden corner of his heart.
So he forced himself to continue. “One of my favorite things about what I do”—his tongue was so damnably thick all of a sudden—“about—about acting, is how it pushes you to learn new skills. Like, this one terrible pilot taught me the basics of sailing.”
In his peripheral vision, he could see her face turned toward him. Her absolute attention focused on him and him alone.
“The series was supposed to be called Crime Wave. Because I was a crime-solving dude on a boat? It wasn’t the world’s best concept.” No network had wanted to touch that pilot. It had rightfully sunk beneath the surface of television history without a trace—except when it came to his sailing skills. “A complete flop of a rom-com helped me learn how to handle a chef’s knife and chop like someone who knew his way around a professional kitchen.”
“I saw that!” she exclaimed. “Julienned by Love, right? And your love interest was actually named—”
“Yes. Julienne. Julie. My plucky sous chef, who thought she was dying but wasn’t, and who eventually became famous for her jambalaya-cheesecake fusion dish.” He winced. “I apologize. I’m more than happy to refund your money personally.”
Her laugh echoed in the expansive space. “Oh, I didn’t pay for it. I streamed it during a free trial, just out of morbid curiosity.”
That sounded about right.
“For Gates, I studied ancient shipbuilding and military tactics. Swordplay too, like you said the other night.” He fixed his eyes on the signage ahead, awkwardly scratching the nonexistent stubble on his jaw with his free hand. “If you, um, ever wanted to hear about that. Maybe it could help with some of your fanfiction?”
When he fell silent, she slowed until he turned back toward her.
Then she eyed him up and down in frank assessment and appreciation, her teeth sinking into her lower lip, and Jesus. Flicking his hair and flexing hadn’t bought him that kind of interest, that heat in her gaze. Not once.
“I do want to hear about your swordplay. Trust me.” Her fingers tightened on his. “In the meantime, though, if you want to know more about the Loma Prieta earthquake, ask and ye shall receive.”
So she told him as they walked, and she was so fucking smart, and made things so damn clear and interesting, without an ounce of condescension.
Shit, it was sexy. Which wasn’t actually what he’d wanted from a discussion about a deadly earthquake, but there it was. There he was, tugging down the hem of his henley to ensure it disguised his reaction to her.
“So it was an oblique-slip rupture,” she explained, reclaiming her hand so she could gesture gracefully with her arms in illustration, and he both grasped—at long last—what that actually meant and wanted to grasp one of those blunt fingers and slip it into his mouth. Sink his teeth into the pad of her thumb and watch those alert brown eyes turn hazy.
When her tongue wrapped around a technical term, he wanted that tongue wrapped around him too. Anywhere. Everywhere.
His desire to have his mouth on her, hers on him, wasn’t oblique. It was direct. And yes, he was certain that didn’t make a lick of sense in seismological terms, but he didn’t care, because he wanted to lick her.
In the end, the planetarium was packed for their particular showing, so he behaved himself, despite the way she rested her hand proprietarily on his thigh. His upper thigh.
In person, everything he’d come to adore about Ulsie online seemed impossibly more intense. Her plainspoken pragmatism and calm, her kindness, her intelligence, her easy humor, her self-confidence—they all radiated from each gesture, each word, and the glow was as blinding as the lights in the planetarium when they came back up after the show.
The only time she seemed hesitant, unsure of herself, was after lunch, when they exited the museum and lingered outside the entrance in the spring breeze.
“Was this . . . okay?” A strand of her coppery hair had worked free of her ponytail, and it fluttered against her cheek. “I know it wasn’t exactly a water park, but . . .”
Carefully, he took hold of that silky lock, moving it away from her face.
“I told my parents I hated museums,” he told her. “I refused to go, after a while.”
Her head bowed. “I’m sorry. I should have—”
“It wasn’t true.” He played with the end of that loose tendril. Stroked it between his thumb and forefinger, watching the way it shone in the sun. “Saying that was easier than saying I couldn’t read the tiny text on all those signs as quickly as they wanted.”
Easier than saying, Your impatience makes me feel as small as those letters.
“Marcus . . .” Her brow was pinched. “I’m sorry.”
As he followed that red-gold strand of hair down to its end, he brushed his thumb along her jaw and down her neck. Lingered in the dip of pale skin between neck and shoulder, her flesh giving and soft and getting warmer by the moment.
He stroked that shadowy arc. Traced her freckles, connecting one to another to another. “Don’t be sorry. I’m trying to say thank you, for showing me I could love museums.”
She was gripping his hips now, head tilted to ease his thumb’s path, lips parted, eyes half-closed behind her glasses. With every breath, she edged closer. Closer, until—
He couldn’t stand it. He had to know.
Leaning forward, he pressed his mouth to the vulnerable curve of flesh beside his thumb, so his every word became a caress of his lips against the fragrant skin of her neck. “Thank you for a perfect afternoon. Thank you for being so patient. So smart. So gorgeous. Thank you for . . .”
Her fingers sifted through his hair, her capable hand cradled his skull and urged his mouth harder against her, and he shut up and obeyed the unspoken order.
Against his tongue, she tasted like roses and sweetness, salt and sweat. He cupped her nape to steady them both as she shuddered, then fitted his mouth more tightly to her. When he drew on her flesh and grazed her neck with his teeth, she gasped and arched against him.
That would leave a mark. Good.
And then, just as her thighs parted to let one of his in between, and he groaned in heedless want—
He heard them.
“Marcus, look this way!” one of them called out. “Is that the girl from Twitter?”
When Marcus raised his head, another man was moving closer to April, his camera lens enormous and expensive and trained entirely on her. “What’s your name, sweetheart? How long have you two known one another?”
She stiffened, and Marcus didn’t blame her for shifting away from him under the onslaught, but she had to know: this was just the beginning.
The paparazzi had found them at last.
JULIENNED BY LOVE