Page 50 of False Start

A cool hand sliding into the crook of my arm made me blink and release the tension in my jaw, and then I looked down in time to watch Madelyn nuzzle into my space. She looked up at me with a heart-stopping smile, one that slapped me with more memories of the past.

“Never felt safer, actually,” she said.

Then, she tilted up onto her toes, trailed her arms up around my neck, and pulled me down into her for a kiss.

Time slugged like a train pulling into a station, steam erupting from the depth of my being when she pressed her lips to mine. They were warm and soft and perfect — just like I remembered them.

And this kiss put the one I’d given her in front of her house to shame.

That had been brief, a little peck of a greeting that I did without even thinking. Bradenknewthe truth. I didn’t have to put on a show for him, but damn if that was going to stop me. I’d stolen that kiss. I’d kissed her like we were used to it, like we’d done it a thousand times.

But this…

This was Madelyn fitting every inch of herself to me in a seam. It was her arms around my neck, and us both inhaling when my hands found the small of her back and pulled her even more flush against me.

It was her hands trembling where they tangled in my hair.

It was a low and throaty groan I didn’t mean to let loose when I wrapped my arms all the way around her, when I felt her shaking in my grasp.

She didn’t just hold her lips to mine and then pull away. She kissed me once, twice, a third time, each one more sensual than the last. And I met her kisses eagerly, nipping at her bottom lip until she opened her mouth on a slight gasp — one I captured with my mouth on hers again.

My hands trailed up over her rib cage, her arms, sliding north still until I cradled her face in my hands.

I didn’t give a fuck if Leo was there anymore.

I didn’t care about putting on a show.

I knew Madelyn initiated the kiss because that was her role. She was here pretending to be my girlfriend.

But nothing felt fake about this.

I deepened the kiss even more, ready to let that woman consume me for all eternity. But she pressed her fingertips against my chest gently, just enough to tell me she wanted me to stop.

I pressed my forehead to hers, breaking the kiss even while my heart battered my rib cage and begged me to carry her upstairs to the first room I could find.

Madelyn’s eyelids fluttered open when she pulled back, and then she flushed a dark crimson, burying her face into my chest like she’d just realized we’d put on a show.

And what a show it must have been.

Because when I looked back at Leo, he was smirking and shaking his head like we’d proven our point.

And he wasn’t alone.

Everyonewas there.

Zeke and Riley, Clay and Giana, Holden and Julep, and now Mary was hanging on Leo’s arm. Braden was walking over from the lobby desk with an intrigued grin.

Everyone else was silent, shocked, and gaping at us.

“Well,” Holden finally said, breaking the silence as he put an arm around his wife. His grin was the kind only a superstar quarterback could have — all teeth and dimples. “Seems we have a lot of catching up to do.”

It was absolute chaos after that.

Madelyn

My face was on fire after that kiss — along with every other inch of my body.

I hadn’t allowed myself long enough to think before I made the move. All I could process was how Kyle had looked when he’d first proposed this absolutely insane idea, how he’d said I’d be doing him a favor by coming to this wedding with him.