Page 73 of TJ Powar Has Something to Prove

Charlie hesitates. TJ yanks him back, shakes her head, and opens the first door she sees. A storage closet? Good enough.

He follows her inside. The door swings shut. She immediately regrets walking in—it’s crammed in here. He’s right up against her back, and when she tries to turn around, she nearly runs into him, and her butt smacks against some kind of big storage box. Their chests nearly touch in the tiny space. Neither speaks for a moment.

“I—I—I guess this is the part of the movie where we make out,” Charlie says, and laughs at his own joke.

“Oh, shut up!” Her voice sounds squeaky. She can hardly think. She tries to squirm away from him but there’s no space to go—her thighs press against his. Too. Much. Touch.

“Sit up here,” he says, a bit gruff, and then his hands are on her waist. She yelps and grabs his arm in surprise. But he just hoists her up onto the storage container, putting her above his eye level and a tiny amount more space between them. His hands don’t drop from her waist. He doesn’t look amused anymore.

TJ tries to find the words to explain but her brain keeps short-circuiting when Charlie looks at her like that. It just does not compute. Despite her disheveled state, Silly String remnants gumming up her hair, he’s looking at her likethat.

“Y-y-you’re,” he stutters in a ragged voice, hits a block, and stops. He touches the corner of her eyebrow the same way Liam did, right before he said,You look really pretty.

“You’re,” Charlie begins again, but she freezes him with a look.

“Don’tsay I’m pretty.” She grips his bicep tighter. She doesn’t want to hear lies from him. Never from him.

His golden eyes darken. “ ‘Pretty’ is thelastword I’d use to describe you.”

And then, like he can’t help it, like he’s falling, he kisses her again.

All thoughts of explaining dissolve right there.The intent in this kiss is dizzying, but she won’t be outdone. She wrenches him in by his shirt and gives back as good as she gets. The darkness seems to make both of them bolder, and the more they kiss, the more frantic it gets. She becomes greedy. It’s total instinctwhen her legs wrap around his middle to draw him closer than he’s ever been to her. His body responds in a way that is both thrilling and terrifying.

Here Charlie pauses, his mouth pulling slightly away. TJ leans closer—she’s enveloped in the small world between them and doesn’t want to ruin it by opening her eyes—but her lips only graze his jaw. His breath stutters.

When he turns his face back to hers, the kisses are slower. Deeper. He moves, one knee balancing on the storage container ledge as if he might join her up there, but no farther. Their harsh breathing fills the silence in between, harsher still when TJ wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder. He doesn’t smell like ironed linens today; he smells like the sea, but it’s just as overwhelming. Her blood heats and heats and heats with every second until it seems impossible it hasn’t evaporated. She’s so ensnared in the sensation, and his hands guiding her movement, that she doesn’t think at all, at least until there’s a crash from right outside the door.

They jolt apart. Whoever’s right outside laughs, and someone else swears, laughing, too. Footsteps pound down the hall and then, just as quickly as they were interrupted, they’re alone again.

But the spell is already broken. Ohno.

TJ unhooks her ankles from behind Charlie’s back. “Stop, stop, stop.”

Immediately, he backs up until he hits the door. Which is really only a half-step back. “I—I—I—I’m sorry. I’m not trying to—I wasn’t—”

She shakes her head. “It’s not that.” She shakes her headagain, more vigorously now. What is she doing? She came into this closet to explain herself, not to pounce on him and—and—

She can’t even finish that thought, she’s so embarrassed.

And how is she supposed to explain now that this was all for show? He’ll never buy it. Liam wasn’t in this supply closet with them, after all.

“TJ,” Charlie breathes, but she’s already surging towards the door, shouldering him aside to reach for the handle. She has to get out—

But he grabs her arm. “Oh, no, you don’t. Not this time.” She tugs but his grip tightens. “I don’t want to hear the rehearsed speech you come up with a week later. I want to know what’s going on in your headright now.”

Shit.

She debates making a run for it anyway. But he’s rightfully pissed. She owes him answers. Taking a deep, terrified breath, she turns around and presses her back against the door. Charlie hops onto the storage container and leans back on his hands. His hair is falling over his eyes. She fights the urge to brush it back in place.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to go so far.” Words are failing her, despite her ability to spin speeches out of nothing in impromptu rounds. This is different. She can handle Charlie’s piercing gaze across the floor in a debate, but not when he’s a foot away, his lips still reddened from her mouth. “I asked you to kiss me out there for a reason.”

“Which was?”

She swallows to work a little moisture into her mouth. Shecan do this. She’ll explain, and they’ll laugh about it and move on. “Because Liam—my ex—was there. Watching.”

She dies inside a little as soon as she says it—it sounds even more laughable out loud.

“You kissed me to make your ex jealous?” Charlie asks slowly.