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“Calming you,” she murmurs against my chest, her fingers stroking the tops of my shoulders softly, a shudder running through me. “Come on.”
She leads me back over to the couch, settling herself behind me, kneading the stiff muscles once again.
I go boneless under her touch, the tension melting away, my eyes closing as I exhale slowly.
“I understand about everything moving fast,” she whispers, her breath warm against the back of my neck. “One day I was engaged to Gabriel, and the next, I’m kicked out of my apartment and married to you.”
My stomach twists at the reminder of what I did- Wait, did she say kicked out?
Before I can ask her to clarify, she continues, “But we can make this work. You said you didn’t want to embarrass your family after what happened at the wedding, that you wanted this marriage to seem real to others. And pictures are even easier than in-person events. You only need one photo to make it look real.” She sounds like the opposite of Dad.It only takes one photo to ruin everything. “If you feel unprepared, maybe we could… practice.”
“Practice?”
“Yeah. Like getting comfortable with one another. So it seems more natural.”
She continues rubbing my shoulders, my body relaxed now, enough to agree to her proposition. “What do you have in mind?”
“We need to seem like we want to be next to each other. Our body language can show everything without us having to say a word. That’s the whole point of ThousandWords, right?”
I nod. Our slogan isA picture is worth a thousand words. That’s why you’re not allowed any captions when you post. You’re supposed to tell a story with your picture.
And I call myself a successor to Dad’s company? I’ve been missing the entire point of our app the last few days.
“Come on, let’s try again.” She slips out from behind me and settles into my side, holding up my phone. “I won’t take any pictures right now. I just want to study how we appear.”
Our image shows on the screen, her hair bright against mine, her skin porcelain against my natural tan.
“See, we look good together.”
Yeah, we do.A power couple, as one tabloid labeled us.
“So when we take our picture, we’ll keep our shoulders dropped, face relaxed, body loose.” She touches each place she mentions, soothing something inside me. “And it’ll seem like the most natural thing in the world.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I was reading a book on body language when you came in,” she admits, setting the phone on the coffee table next to her Kindle. “I thought it might help.”
Well, at least she’s taking this seriously. Unlike me. “When that guy said to kiss you… I froze. Like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” she murmurs. “Not at all.”
I focus on her lips, how lush they look, how soft. “Do you think anyone else will ask us to kiss?”
“They might.”
I lean in, inhaling her perfume. Is there rose in there? “Then we should be prepared. And redeem ourselves for that photo.”
“Okay.”
Maybe if it’s me initiating, it’ll be different. No one watching us, expecting anything. We can take our time.
My lips meet hers, as soft as I remember, a strange waver in my stomach distracting me as I increase the pressure. She returns the kiss, her hands moving to rest on my shoulders, and I try to focus on making itappearas if I’m into it.
Except the longer we continue, it’s not a problem getting into it. If anything, I’m too into it.
Her fingers curl around the nape of my neck, chilly against my heated skin, and my hands automatically reach for her waist, tugging her in closer to me.
She complies, her breasts pressed against me, and my mind flashes back to the glimpse I had of them last night as she bent over my desk to hand me my drink. Surprisingly full considering her slender frame, the valley between them deep, the contrast between her pale skin and the black lace stark.