Page 16 of The Marriage Deal (Sunset Falls #1)
JUST FOR SHOW
LILAH
Briggs leans a shoulder into the wood post of the boardwalk, green eyes fixed on me as he lifts his to-go coffee cup—white with The Tasty Rise’s pink heat-buffer band—to his lips.
He takes a long swallow of what I know must be burning hot coffee because Dad wouldn’t serve anything less, and Dad’s on shift this morning.
Briggs gives a slow nod as a noise of pleasure crawls up his throat. “That’s good coffee.”
A shiver of awareness I really shouldn’t be feeling curls around my spine.
I cast my eyes back to the pot of petunias and the dead heads I’ve tossed into my little bucket.
I’ve been at this pot for the last ten minutes, and I’m thoroughly ready to curse Agatha Willerby and her love of these flowers.
Maybe I’m ready to curse Briggs and the annoying shivers he comes with.
Or maybe I’m just ready to curse.
I’m in a mood today. I’ve been in a mood since dinner with the man last night, and I don’t know why.
Tucking my pink scissors into the back pocket of my shorts, I nab the coffee Briggs brought me. “Did you tell Dad this was for me?”
Briggs dips his chin in answer. I take a sip and shutter my eyes in a moment of pleasure at the familiar taste of my favorite creamed honey latte.
Then I warm. I’m not sure if it’s because the coffee is hot, the sun is hot, or Briggs’ gaze is hot.
I sigh, relaxing before tensing as the man pushes off the post to prowl closer.
Inside my chest, my heart is a wild mess that I’m careful to play off with disinterest as I pluck the scissors from my pocket to continue deadheading.
“You’re beautiful when you like something, you know?” His voice is low where he stands at my back. That shiver that’s been curled around my spine tightens like a snake. Deadly.
“I thought I wasn’t your type.”
“You can still be beautiful.” Goodness, the man is close.
I can feel the heat of him at my back. The man is hotter than the Okanagan sun beating down on Canada’s desert.
“You are beautiful, Lilah.” He dips his head over my shoulder, speaking close to the sensitive skin of my neck.
I wonder if he can see the gooseflesh that rises on my skin.
Wonder if he knows he’s the cause. “People are watching, little lunatic.”
I tense before I force myself to relax. Briggs leans forward to set his coffee next to mine on the lip of the stone flowerpot. I twist to lock eyes on him. “Why do you call me that?”
“I’ve told you.”
I roll my eyes but flash him a flirty smile, so no one thinks there’s even a hint of trouble in our paradise. “Right. Because it fits.”
“It does.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
“It’s a perfect explanation. You are little and you are a lunatic. Ergo...”
My flirty smile twists into a scowl. His eyes drop to it, but there’s laughter edging the green that only serves to rile me up more.
“Careful,” he warns.
I feel my brows bounce high on my forehead. “Careful? Of what?”
“Keep scowling like that and I’ll have to kiss it off your lips.” He drops his pitch just a hint. “Maybe I’ll even bite, but just a little nibble.”
I whirl around to fully face him at the same time I try to step back, to put space between us.
Only, I step into my bucket of dead petunias and stumble.
I just know I’m going to land on my ass when a strong band of iron hooks me around my waist, yanking me into something harder and hotter than sun baked steel.
“Oomph.” My palms slap against Briggs’ broad shoulders as my body—my entire body—is plastered to his.
Heat unlike any I’ve ever experienced surges inside me. I swear, there’s real fire in my veins. And breathing—when did breathing become hard?
“Steady, now.” There’s that infuriating grin that curls his lips. I’m about to open my mouth to give him the what-for when he adds, “Come home with me tonight.”
My body jerks in his arms. I barely manage a, “What?”
He tightens his hold on me. I feel a lot. Too much. The man is all hard, sharp lines under his jeans and white T-shirt. And he’s a lot bigger than me. Too big.
“We’ve been seeing each other for a couple weeks now. We’re adults. Adults who are seeing one another eventually spend the night together. That’s the progression of the relationship people expect us to take.”
His eyes dip to my mouth and linger. Another surge of heat spills into the core of me.
Heaven, I think my panties might be wet.
Wait, why are my panties getting wet? This isn’t real, Lilah.
Head in the game, girl!
“I told you I wouldn’t sleep with you,” I croak weakly.
That infuriating grin twists into something even more infuriating. “I have a spare room all ready for you.”
“It’s just for show.”
“Just for show,” he confirms.
“Right.” I try to wiggle my way out of his hold, but he doesn’t let me.
I give in, settling into the warmth of him. Something in his eyes softens in a way I should not like. “I’ll pick you up at six.”
“Or I can drive myself to you.”
“You could. But I know for a fact if I picked you up, that neighbor of yours—”
I sigh. “May.”
“Yes, May. Well, she’d see me pick you up.
She’d also wait up for me to drop you off as she has every other time I’ve picked you up.
So, she’d know when I didn’t drop you off, that you’d spent the night with me.
By the time lunch rolled around, everyone in town would know where you’d been for the night.
” He wets his lips and drawls, “And they’d all suspect that we’d been very, very busy. ”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I rasp, dropping my forehead against his hard chest.
The man, evil as I’m beginning to see that he is, laughs. Then he reminds me, “I’ve already paid your debts.”
“I’ll be ready at six.” I lift my head, getting down to business. “How long do I have before you want me living with you?”
“Another couple weeks at most.” His eyes never leave mine. “Remember, we’re madly in love, little lunatic. We can’t fathom being apart.”
“Of course, we can’t.”
His eyes drop to the frown I can’t hide. Then he tells me, “I’m going to kiss you tonight, Lilah.”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you honestly think they’ll buy us being madly in love if you keep tensing up whenever I touch you? Do you think they won’t question the validity of our relationship if I never kiss you?”
“I mean…”
“I’ve seen your parents kiss more times than I can count on both hands, Lilah. Couples in love kiss. They touch. They crave each other.”
“I’ve never been good at acting,” I rasp. My throat feels painfully dry.
“That’s why we’re going to practice.” He smiles gently down at me. “Exposure therapy.”
“Oh, my goodness.”
He chuckles at my expense. “I don’t think you want me to kiss you our first time in public, Lilah.”
“I know how to kiss, Briggs. I’ve been kissed before plenty of times.” It’s not there long, the pinch of a frown between his brows. But it is there.
He doesn’t like that I’ve been kissed. Or maybe he doesn’t like that I’ve been kissed plenty of times. But I am a twenty-seven-year-old woman. I’ve lived. I’ve loved—wrongly—but I’ve loved.
He can’t expect that I be a sweet little virgin. That’s just ridiculous.
Wait—does the thought of me with another make him upset? Jealous?
“So, if I kiss you now, you’ll melt into me like you would if this were real?”
“I—”
“You won’t get even tenser than you are now?” He pushes.
“I’m not tense.”
“Lilah, you’re stiff as a board.”
“I am not!” I force myself to melt into him and loose a sound of frustration when doing so feels awkward. “You’re the one who is stiff. I can’t melt into a chunk of stone, Briggs.”
Briggs laughs again, like I’m the height of amusement. “I’m into you, Lilah. I spend my days chasing you around town. There’s no question where I want to be and who I want to be with.”
My jaw drops. “You’re saying I’m the weak link in our scheme?”
“Absolutely.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, buddy.”
He cocks a brow. “Competitive, little lunatic?”
“You have no idea.”
Briggs’ grin turns smug. “Good.”
He releases me with a promise to see me at six. I realize a touch too late that the man played me right into the corner he wants me.
I swipe my latte and chug it back. Then I head for the vet clinic where I know Madelyn will lend me an ear to vent. Heck, she’ll lend me a whole clinic of ears. Floofy ones I wish I could adopt but can’t, given Dad’s allergies.
One day.