Page 44 of Goal Line

“Exactly. Which is why we can’t kiss like that again, unless absolutely necessary.”

He lifts an eyebrow, and his lips quirk up on one side. “Define absolutely necessary.”

“Are you suggesting...” My eyes narrow as I try to figure out if he’s teasing me, or if he really needs the clarification.

“That we should put some boundaries in place so I don’t make you uncomfortable again? Yes.”

I want to explain that what made me uncomfortable wasn’t the kiss itself. It was how badly I wanted it to be real. But I can’t tell him that because I’m not sure I could handle the same we’re-just-friends-and-this-is-just-an-act conversation I had with Christopher only a few months ago.

I am perfectly capable of reminding myself of this fact.

“Unless there are other people around and we need to convince them that this marriage is real, I think we need to keep our hands off each other.”

He tilts his head to the right as he studies me, and eventually his gaze is too much. Looking at Luke Hartmann is like staring at the sun—beautiful and blinding at the same time. If I don’t look away, I’ll get hurt.

“I guess what I’m trying to figure out,” he says, his voice quiet in the cabin of this small private jet, “is if the way I normally touch you, as a friend, is off limits now? And if so, what changed?”

Alarm bells are going off in my head. I’ve never read too much into or made a big deal out of the way he’s always touched me. It’s just how he is. It would be weird if I suddenly had a problem with it. It would raise questions, like the ones he’s asking right now:what changed?

What changed is that he just kissed me like no one else ever has. Like he wanted to take his time and savor me. Like he wanted more, but didn’t want to rush things. He kissed me like he cared, like it was a promise of forever.

And that’s the kind of thing that could make a girl hope, when she absolutely shouldn’t.

“Of course that’s fine, Luke,” I say with an exaggerated sigh. “Nothing’s changed. We’re still the same friends we’ve always been.”

And with that lie on my lips, I close my eyes and lean toward him, resting my head on his chest as he wraps his arms around me and I drift off to sleep.

Chapter Nineteen

LUKE

“Uhhh,” I say as I stand in Eva’s living room, looking down at the loveseat that’s apparently replaced the significantly larger couch that took up the middle of this room the last time I stayed here. “Did your couch shrink?”

“I—” Eva sighs. “I didn’t even think about that. Yeah, the old one really was just too big for the space, so I got the loveseat and chairs last month. There’s actually more seating this way, but it’s not ideal for overnight guests. You take the bed, and I’ll sleep here.”

Eying the loveseat, I try to picture Eva being able to lie on it without being curled up on her side. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not sleeping in your bed while you’re scrunched up on this tiny thing.” I glance at the two seat cushions on the loveseat and then each chair. “I could probably take all the seat cushions and make myself a mattress on the floor.”

“Yeah,” she scoffs. “Thatwould be comfortable.”

“At least I could stretch out that way.”

“Luke,” she says, and then covers her mouth as she yawns. “Just take the bed for tonight, and I’ll take the couch. It’s fine.”

“Like hell is my pregnant wife sleeping on a loveseat while I take the bed.” I grind out the words and cross my arms over my chest.

Eva lets out a deep sigh that has her shoulders drooping. “It’s too late to be having an argument about who’s sleeping where.” She glances at the alarm clock on her nightstand, and I follow her gaze to see that it’s after two in the morning.

“Then stop arguing,” I say, reaching down for the loveseat cushions, but before I can pull them off, she flops down on it. She’s curled up on her side, with her head on the throw pillows that lean up against the edge.

“I’ve taken plenty of naps on this thing. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re being utterly ridiculous. That doesn’t even look comfortable, and you’re going to wake up with a kink in your neck.”

“Well, if you try to sleep on the cushions on the floor, you’re going to wake up with a sore back.”

She’s not wrong. Whichever one of us doesn’t sleep in the bed is going to get a crappy night of sleep.

Still, neither one of us mentions the possibility of sharing the queen-size bed wedged into the small alcove of her studio apartment.