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“Back to the country music thing. Why don’t you like it?” I ask, shifting the spotlight to her.

She waits for me to hold her shoulder before guiding us into a gentle sway. One step to the side and then back together before doing it again and again.

Her body is fit and slim but still muscled. I noticed it before when she came home from pole in her workout clothes but also when I sat on her lap earlier tonight and felt the way her thighs contracted beneath my weight. And now, as my fingertips dig into her shoulder with an exploratory touch, her muscles bunch and strain with her movements.

It’s wrong of me, considering our fake relationship status, but touching her this freely, the way I’ve been doing over the last few days, has made it hard to keep from wondering what she feels like elsewhere.

Above the cropped hem of her band tees and the edges of her tight jean skirts. Where her tattoos disappear, hidden from the public eye.

Obviously, Bryce is ridiculously gorgeous. I’ve known it from the moment Johnny introduced us three years ago.

Back then, she was more intimidating than anything else, with her startlingly blue eyes the colour of cracked ice deep below the surface of a glacier and full, peach-shaped lips that she kept stretched thin. One minute in her presence was all it took to feel the raw power that ran below the surface. How in control of herself she was and confident in both her appearance and attitude.

There’s not a person alive, man or woman, who isn’t secretly struck stupid at the sight of her. I’m no exception to that, and I wouldn’t want to be.

Bryce is a woman that anyone would be lucky to have in their life. Stunning in the way that doesn’t seem real or possiblesometimes, protective to a fault, and passionate. Her art is masterful, and I’m itching to see more of it. Not only what’s on her skin and hung on her walls, but the stuff in her mind and soul. The ideas she’s waiting to put to skin and the ones that haven’t been discovered yet.

“It feels surface level. I like deeper music. The kind that rips emotion out of you.”

I blink the glaze away from my vision and smile timidly. “What?”

“You asked why I don’t like country music.”

The humour in her tone makes my stomach swoop.

“Right. It makes sense. I think there are country songs out there that portray emotion, though. You just have to find the ones that speak to you.”

“Which speak to you, Daisy?”

“What if I write you a list?”

“Like a playlist?”

“Yeah. I can never think of my favourite songs off the top of my head, but if you think you’d actually listen to them, I can put together a playlist.”

Her thumb sweeps along the curve of my waist. “Do you listen to rock at all?”

There’s a hidden question in there that I don’t miss. No, I reach for it with desperate hands instead.

“I’d love a playlist of all your favourites, Bryce.”

“Alright,” she replies, voice hushed but pleased.

“Have you always liked that genre of music?”

“Despite how badly my mom tried to brainwash me with classical jazz when I was an infant, yeah. I think so.”

“Classical jazz?” I ask, baring my teeth in a winced smile.

Bryce huffs a laugh and turns us around the dance floor, guiding us in another direction. “It’s fitting, considering how boring she is when she’s not busy complaining about me.”

“Did you ever used to get along?”

“When I was really young and didn’t know myself or what I wanted yet. I wore the dress-up gowns and plastic heels with thepink puff balls on top. Asked Santa for tea sets and fairy-tale books and spent hours brushing my Barbie’s hair.”

“Everything a little girl is told she should want,” I say with a weighted sigh.

Bryce rolls her lips and fixes her features, closing her emotions off. The sight of her hiding herself from me is a kick to the stomach, even though I know she doesn’t owe me honesty in that way. It’s intimate being familiar with someone’s innermost thoughts and emotions, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to see them. If anything, every little look inside of her mind and heart has me craving more.