Page 70 of The Cuddle Clause

I couldn’t tell her. If I told her, she’d think Ihadmanipulated her. Cornered her. That none of it had been real.

I couldn’t lose her.

I dragged my hands through my hair as I paced the living room once, twice, then spun and faced her, heart threatening to tear out of my chest.

“You really think I did that forher?” My voice was too low, too tight. “To make her jealous?”

Maggie flinched. “I don’t know what you did it for. But I know how it looked when we got back to the table.”

That hit harder than I wanted it to. She wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t make it fair.

I stepped toward her, jaw clenched. “You think I’d touch you like that,lookat you like that, just to get under Seraphina’s skin?”

She crossed her arms like a shield. “I think you don’t know what you’re doing anymore.”

My temper flared. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, I’m very serious.”

“You think I’d fakethat?” I snapped. “You think I’d put my mouth on you for thedrama?”

“I think you’re a walking contradiction, Roman,” she shot back, eyes flashing. “One minute you’re reminding me of our fake-dating rules and using me as an escape plan, and the next you’re acting like I’m yours. Which is it?”

I didn’t have a straight answer. What I did have was rage and confusion and an aching, clawing need to make her understand.

“You scare the shit out of me, that’s the problem!”

The words cracked through the silence. We both froze. Breathing hard. Eyes locked across the room like we were on opposite sides of a canyon.

She stared at me, lips parted, chest rising and falling too fast. “What did you just say?”

“I said,” I ground out, taking another step toward her, “you scare the shit out of me.”

I didn’t raise my voice this time. The words hung there, bare and honest and ugly.

Because it was true.

I didn’t know what to do about how she made me feel. I didn’t know what to do with the part of me thatneededher—not as a fake girlfriend, not as a strategic out from Lucien’s mating mandate, just her.

IneededMaggie.

I stepped closer. She didn’t back away.

“Say it,” I growled. “Say you don’t feel it too.”

Her lips parted, but nothing came out.

That was all it took.

We collided like magnets, mouths crashing together in a kiss that was more war than peace. Her fingers dug into the collar ofmy shirt, mine found her waist and hauled her closer. I couldn’t stand there being even an inch of space between us.

We stumbled toward the couch, bumping into the corner of the table, still half-arguing through the kiss. Still wrapped in tension and heat and things we didn’t want to say.

Maggie shoved me down and straddled my lap, hair wild, breath ragged.

I looked up at her, dazed and laughing through my disbelief. “So, this is how we’re handling things now?”

Her only answer was another kiss. Fierce. Deep. Reckless.