Page 12 of Love Arranged

“You just enjoy listening to it, then?”

“Guilty as charged.” She winks, and all hell breaks loose in my stomach as—I can’t believe I’m saying this—butterflies take flight.

The memory shimmers away, but that same wild feeling in my stomach remains as my past and present blend together.

“Well, well. Look who decided to show up after all.” Lily traces a line up the center of my chest with her index finger, leaving a path of heated skin in her wake.

I stay quiet because I’m unsure if she’d be able to recognize my voice from all the mayoral ads playing on local TV.

“Are we playing the silent game?” She teases the bottom of my mask with her thumb while her pinky tickles my throat.

I shiver, the reaction far from subtle.

Her smile grows impossibly large. “Fine. It’s a good thing you don’t need to talk while dancing.”

She laces her fingers with mine and drags me onto the dance floor, making me forget all about my boundaries as I get lost in the music.

As I get lost inher.

I hand over my control for ten minutes. Ten all-too-short minutes that fly by before I’m promising myself another five. But then fifteen turns into thirty, and next thing I know, Lily is fully in charge of our ruin as she tows me through the crowd and down a back hallway.

All she needs to do is throw me a secretive smile from over her shoulder, and every previous reservation I had about taking this further disappears.

People don’t pay us much attention, either because they’re too busy hooking up or too distracted by their friends while they wait to use the restroom.

I have no idea where she is taking me, but we somehow end up outside. The emergency exit door slams shut behind us before she cages me against it.

Since when are you the type to relinquish control?The anxious voice bleeds into the moment, threatening to destroy it.

This isn’t you, my instincts scream.

Run now before it’s too late, the voice reminds me as Lily closes the gap between us until our chests touch.

There is a playful glint in her eyes as she slips her hand under my mask and teases my bottom lip with her thumb. A tingle erupts from a single pass, and before I think better of it, I nip at the pad of her thumb.

Her smile is captivating as she cups my chin and drops a kiss on my plastic mask, proving that she doesn’t even need to touch my lips to send a zap shooting down my spine.

At first, it is a pleasant tingle, but soon the sensation transforms into a full-blown paralyzing shock as I process how I want to rip my mask off and crush my mouth to hers, devouring her in a way that leaves her desperate for relief.

A relief I desperately need as well.

An image of her in my bed, wrapped up in my sheets, wearing nothing but my marks on her neck brings my fantasies to a screeching halt.

A fake relationship can’t work between two people who desire each other. Too many lines would be blurred, and every limit I’ve set would be challenged.

Maybe even destroyed.

So, no, I can’t pursue a real relationship. I don’twantto, even if I tricked myself into thinking it was a possibility for the last couple of months.

Not even with someone as incredible as Lily.

Especiallynot with her.

I’m about to put a stop to all this, but then she traces a path of kisses down the column of my throat, stealing my breath and the words right from my mouth.

Pathetic, the same voice returns, louder than before.

My hands find her hips, not to keep her at a distance like I originally intended, but to drag her closer.