Page 42 of Role Play (Off the Books #1)

The question comes at me from far left field.

I didn’t really expect her to come up tonight.

Talking about Hannah pulls me out of the fantasy and right back down to earth.

“Unequivocally, but at least she knows what she wants and won’t settle for less.

Some people would see that as an admirable quality,” I say finally, biting back my unbridled thoughts about Hannah.

“You’re defending her, even after she’s leaving Dakota?”

I rub the back of my neck in discomfort.

“Sora, I’m a country boy at heart. And I was raised by Sam Elliott’s doppelganger who would spit in my face and disown me if he heard me disrespecting the mother of my child out loud.

So, I don’t want you to think that just because I refuse to badmouth my ex, I still have feelings for her.

I don’t. But I am forever grateful she gave me Dakota. ”

Sora blinks at me quietly for what seems like a ridiculous amount of time. She doesn’t say a word and finally the quiet tension unnerves me. I have to break the ice.

“What’s wrong?”

She taps her temple. “I’m just reciting that speech in my head over and over so I can remember it, because that, Forrest Hawkins, is going in my next book. Very hero-worthy. And for the record, I don’t need you to talk shit about your ex to feel secure.”

I smile, warm relief flooding through my chest. “What do you need to feel secure?”

“From you?” she asks. I nod, and her lips twist as she debates a reply. “Nothing. I don’t think I’ll ever feel secure around you.”

Once again, she accidentally wounds me, inviting the elephant I thought we dismissed right onto this ship deck.

“Oh,” she suddenly muses, palming her forehead with an audible smack. “You meant how to make me feel secure on a date with a billionaire?” she concludes, completely misunderstanding my intention. But I roll with it, yet another reminder that this is all just a game.

Dessert eventually arrives—a decadent chocolate soufflé with chocolate-covered strawberries on the side. I pick up one of the strawberries and hold it to Sora’s lips.

“You’re really taking this seriously,” she murmurs, but opens her mouth anyway.

I watch as her lips close around the fruit, and her eyes flutter shut. A drop of chocolate lingers at the corner of her mouth, and I reach across to wipe it away with my thumb.

“Forrest,” she says, voice slightly throaty, “are you always this attentive? Or is this just part of the billionaire act?”

“What do you think?” I counter, enjoying the flash of frustration in her eyes.

She purses her lips. “I think you’re deliberately being enigmatic.”

“And you’re being deliberately avoidant.” I lean back, studying her. “Why don’t you feel secure around me, Sora?”

A server appears to refill our glasses, and Sora relaxes at the interruption. When he leaves, I wait, letting the silence build until she can’t ignore my question any longer.

“Fine,” she sighs. “I don’t feel secure because I never know which version of you I’m getting. The escort? The devoted dad? The wannabe lawyer? The fake boyfriend?”

“Does it matter?” I ask, genuinely curious. “They’re all me.”

“Are they, though?” She leans forward, gaze intense. “How do I know what’s real and what’s performance?”

“We agreed to this arrangement,” I insist. “I didn’t lie to you about being an escort.

I omit details, sure, because I don’t like talking about women like they’re conquests.

I keep intimacy private. Other than me spilling my guts about all the women I’ve been with, I can’t for the life of me figure out what came alive and jumped up your ass after we fooled around.

What is it, Sora? I keep going over it in my mind…

Did I come on too strong while we were painting?

Did you feel forced or pressured? Are you upset because we didn’t fuck? I’m at a loss. Just talk to me.”

Whatever billionaire sophistication I was harboring has gone out the window.

“That was direct,” she remarks with startled eyes. “You’re really not into the miscommunication trope, are you?”

My eyes pinch in confusion. “ What ?”

Before she can answer, the captain approaches to inform us we’re nearing the Statue of Liberty, our turnaround point.

“Want to see the view from the upper deck?” I ask Sora.

She takes the offered escape route, standing gracefully. “Lead the way.”

The night air feels cool as we climb the steps. City lights spark across the water, the stars barely visible above. The Statue of Liberty stands ahead, illuminated against the dark sky.

“It’s stunning,” Sora says, moving to the railing. “I’ve lived here my whole life and somehow never done this.”

“Never taken a dinner cruise?”

“Never been on a yacht,” she corrects. “Not even my dad has money like this. And even if he did, he wouldn’t spend it on romance.”

“I’m starting to understand why your parents didn’t work out,” I joke.

“You don’t say,” she joins in, a flicker of her usual sassy demeanor returning.

“Celeste is a special case,” I offer. “All that stuff you said earlier about taking the world for yourself, hanging your own moon? Even rich women do that. Celeste, and my boss, Rina, both married into wealth. But they weren’t afraid to walk away and carve their own path when love was lost and all that remained was money. ”

Sora nods in agreement. “I respect the hell out of that. My mom was the same. She never wanted to be with a celebrity author. She just wanted to be seen.”

She leans over the railing. Her repaired dress, messengered over this morning, has little sparkles in the tulle now. It wasn’t like that at the wedding. Celeste certainly knows how to enhance a gown.

“I was a jerk to you, and I’m sorry. I felt guilty, so much so, I bought Dakota a lot of new toys. I also stocked the fridge with kid-friendly things, but also healthy stuff.”

I rub my palm in slow circles against her lower back. “You were a jerk to me, yet you’re doting on my daughter?”

“Yeah,” Sora says, eyes fixed on the water. “She’s the way to your heart. Anybody who knows the real you can see that.”

Knows the real me. I like how that sounds. “True. Is that what you’re after? My heart?”

“No,” she squeaks, whipping around. She looks scared, like I just pressed a self-destruct button and now we’re waiting for the apocalypse to commence.

“What the?—”

Palms in the air in surrender, Sora elaborates.

“I live in my head, Forrest. Day in, day out. Creating scenarios, hopping from one mental vision board to another. And when we did what we did the other day, I think it caught me off guard because while we were playing, the pleasure was very real. I got confused for a minute, but I swear, I think I’ve got my sea legs now.

” She grins goofily, proud of her circumstance-appropriate pun.

“Your sea legs?”

“Right. I need to get lost in the moments, but not lose touch with reality. And I think I have the solution.”

“Great, lay it on me.”

She sucks in her lips, her gaze dropping from mine down to the hem of her dress. “We need to have sex. A lot of it. To the point we’re desensitized.”

Shocked, I blink at her. “While I like the ‘a lot’ part, I don’t think desensitized sex is going to be particularly fun for either of us.”

“No, not like that.” She rolls her eyes and her wrist. “We can finish and stuff, I just mean we should focus on the mechanics more than the emotion. We should have sex the way you do with your other clients.”

Her words hang in the air between us, the casual suggestion at odds with the way her voice trembles slightly. The night breeze picks up, sending a tendril of her hair across her face. I tuck it behind her ear, letting my fingertips linger against her skin.

“Is that what you think I do with my clients? Have emotionless sex?”

She shrugs, aiming for nonchalance but missing by a mile. “Isn’t that the point? It’s a transaction, not a connection.”

I step closer, forcing her to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. “You really think you can separate the physical from the emotional so cleanly? That you can compartmentalize like that? It’s not that easy.”

“Of course I can,” she answers too quickly. “I’m an adult. I understand the arrangement and the end goal.”

Her chin lifts in that stubborn way I’m starting to recognize, but her eyes betray her—wide and uncertain, like she’s trying to convince herself more than me.

“Sora.” I keep my voice low, intimate. “You’re a romance writer. You literally make your living writing about emotional connections. And you’re telling me you can have meaningless sex for the sake of research?”

“Yes.” Her answer is firm, but her fingers fidget with the fabric of her dress.

I study her face, searching for the truth behind her bravado. “You don’t believe that.”

“I do,” she insists, crossing her arms like armor against her chest. “I have to believe that or this won’t work. Us, too entangled…doesn’t work.”

There’s logic in her words, but her eyes tell a different story. They’ve always been her tell—those expressive dark eyes that reveal every emotion she tries to hide.

“All right,” I say finally. “Let’s test your theory.”

Her brows furrow in confusion. “What do you mean?”

I move closer, until there’s barely a breath between us. “If you can have emotionless sex, then surely you can handle an emotionless kiss.”

Her breathing quickens visibly, her lips parting slightly. “Right, right. Of course.”

I tilt her chin up with one finger. “Unless you’re afraid I might prove you wrong.”

“I’m not afraid,” she says, the defiance in her voice betrayed by the flush spreading across her cheeks.

“Then close your eyes.”

For a moment, I think she’ll refuse. Then, with a small exhale of surrender, her eyelids flutter shut.

I take my time, studying the delicate lines of her face in the moonlight—the curve of her cheekbones, the slight wrinkle between her brows, the nervous tremble of her full lips.

I’ve kissed her before, but not like this, never with this strange mixture of hope and fear twisting in my chest. I’m so desperate to prove her wrong.

When I finally lean in, I brush my lips against hers with exquisite gentleness—a whisper, a question, a beginning.

She remains perfectly still, as if afraid to shatter whatever fragile thing is building between us.

I trace the seam of her lips with my tongue, coaxing rather than demanding, and feel the small gasp she tries to contain.

Her hands come up hesitantly, fingers splaying across my chest, neither pushing away nor pulling closer.

I deepen the kiss gradually, my hands framing her face, thumbs stroking the soft skin of her cheeks.

There’s no rush, no urgency—just a slow, deliberate exploration that feels more intimate than any passionate embrace.

When her lips part beneath mine, the kiss transforms. What began as tender becomes something far richer.

Her hands slide up to my shoulders, then to the nape of my neck, fingers threading through my hair.

I taste the chocolate dessert we shared, the wine she barely sipped, and something uniquely Sora that makes my pulse thump like an eight-oh-eight drum.

I kiss her like I mean it—because I do.

Like she matters—because she does.

I kiss her like a man who’s discovering something precious rather than performing a service. And when she makes that small, broken sound in the back of her throat, I know I’ve won this particular battle.

When I pull back, her eyes remain closed, her lips still slightly parted. For several heartbeats, she doesn’t move, as if caught in a spell she can’t quite break.

“Sora,” I whisper.

Her eyes open slowly, dazed and vulnerable in a way that makes my chest tighten. I watch the awareness return, watch her rebuild the walls I just managed to breach.

“Did you feel anything?” I ask, already knowing the answer but needing to hear her admit it.

She swallows hard, then forces a careless smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Nope,” she lies smoothly. “Completely immune. See? I told you I could compartmentalize.”

It’s such an obvious untruth that I almost laugh. Instead, I sweep my thumb across her lower lip, noting how it flinches at my touch. Her cheeks deepen in a familiar red that gives her away so easily.

“Liar,” I murmur, but there’s no heat in the accusation.

She steps back, creating space between us, her smile fixed in place. “It was a nice kiss. A little sloppy, but don’t worry—we’ll get you there.”

I belt out in laughter as the yacht begins its final turn back toward the marina, the city lights growing clearer as we approach.

“This was so lovely,” Sora says, pairing it with a sigh. “I can’t believe it’s already over.”

“Over?” I wrap my arms around her, pecking her cheek as we look out at the dark water, New York City lights sparkling across the surface. “I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”