Marriage For One

I swore I didn’t breathe for a few seconds and just stood there gawking up at him, entranced.

Finally, finally his mouth curved into a smile. It had only taken us a bit more than a month. It was probably my own fault, but my God! It’d been a long wait, a pretty long wait that had been worth it because when he smiled…when the skin around his eyes gently crinkled, turning his expression into something completely different than what it was when he was frowning…I simply couldn’t stop staring. My heart soared as if I had just accomplished something big, and for me, it was big—so big that I couldn’t stop myself from beaming up at him.

“Is that a smile I just saw, Mr. Hawthorne?” I asked, still a little stupefied. “This is the first time you’ve smiled at me. I’ve been trying to count them since week one, and this is number one. A smile…I can’t believe it. I wish I had my phone with me so I could capture this moment. We need to have cake to celebrate.”

I looked to my right and left to confirm that I wasn’t the only one witnessing this, but even though I was glancing around, I didn’t see anyone. The entire room could’ve been staring at us, including Joshua, but I didn’t see a single person other than Jack Hawthorne. This was actually not good news for me, the fake wife, but I didn’t care one bit about that. I’d consider that later, much later, when I was over that smile.

His smile softened, but it was still there. “You’ve been counting my smiles?”

“Trying’ being the operative word here since you like to hoard them like a squirrel hoarding his nuts.”

“I’ve smiled at you, Rose.” He lifted his hand and tucked my hair behind my ear. I didn’t think much about it because I was busy shaking my head at him.

“You haven’t.”

“Maybe you weren’t looking.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been looking nonstop.” I lifted a finger between us and his gaze dropped to it. “One time—there was one time I thought I saw your lips twitch, but it was a false alarm, and that’s it.”

I was still grinning, but when I looked at his lips, he had lost the smile and the expression on his face was much more intense. He took a step forward into me and my pulse quickened. When his big, warm hand cupped my face, covering almost the entire left half, I noticed the shift in the air and stood still.

Oh, this is not good.

Eyes locked on mine, he lowered his head just a few inches away from my lips and whispered, “I’m going to kiss you now, Rose.” His eyes were still open and on mine.

I swallowed.

“What?” I croaked, and then I cleared my throat, stuck in place, staring into the depths of his eyes. His gaze moved from my eyes to my lips. “I knew this was a possibility tonight, of course,” I whispered. “But is someone looking?” We needed to put on a show and I supposed the time had come, but why was I suddenly freaking out on the inside? It wasn’t like we were gonna suck each other’s faces in the middle of a charity event.

“Do you care if someone is looking?” he asked.

I mean…that was the whole reason for the kiss, wasn’t it? But did I care? Not really, I supposed. A peck on the lips was nothing. I took a deep breath and nodded, letting it out in a whoosh. “Okay. Right. Lay it on me. Let’s do this.” As his eyes swept over my face, I steeled my voice. “A little faster than that,” I whispered, keeping my voice as low as possible. “Not like a turtle, remember?”

A smile danced on his lips again as if he found what I said extremely funny, but he managed to drop his forehead against mine and our noses touched.

My heart started beating in my throat when his arm rounded my waist and he pulled me just a little closer. Made sense too, I supposed, because I couldn’t just keep my face close but my body away. Closing my eyes, I swallowed hard. My hands were instinctively resting on his chest. This was going to be one epic peck, and I hoped the people around who were watching—whoever they were—appreciated our acting.

His hand was still covering my cheek. “Are you ready for me, Rose?” Jack whispered in a low, insistent voice, and I smelled the whiskey and mint on his breath.

“You’re still taking it too slow—you need to—”

I didn’t get the chance to utter another word because Jack’s lips were on mine, and we were not sharing a nice little romantic peck. No, his tongue was already sweeping in and teasing mine. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what I should do. We hadn’t done this even on the day we’d said I do. My eyes were still open, and I felt a little desperate to end whatever he had started. I even tried to, twice, both times thinking Okay, this is it, he is stopping now so you need to stop too, but the more he teased me with the way he slowly coaxed me into the kiss, pulling me deeper, the more I felt myself slipping. Finally, my eyes started to close on their own. It wasn’t that I wasn’t responding—I was, had been from the moment his lips touched mine—but up until that point, I’d been doing it reluctantly, thinking the entire time it would end in the next second, thinking he’d stop after just one more beat. I was doing my very best to hold myself back, trying my very, very best not to enjoy our kiss.