Page 60 of The Wild Card

“You’ve disarmed bombs. You can handle a kiss.”

“Bombs are predictable.” His voice drops lower. “You’re not.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I’m not sure I could form words right now even if I tried, because he’s leaning closer, his hand sliding from my hip to the curve of my waist, and I can feel his breath against my lips.

“Tell me if this is okay,” he murmurs.

He lowers his head and his mouth brushes mine. Barely a touch. Testing.

I inhale sharply, and he pulls back just enough to look at me, checking. Making sure.

“That was—” I start.

He kisses me again. Harder this time. His hand comes up to cup the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair, and I melt into him like I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.

He tastes like wine and something warm, and when I part my lips, he makes a sound low in his throat that sends heat racing down my spine. My hands find his chest, fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer even though there’s nowhere left to go.

This doesn’t feel like practice.

This feels like drowning and not wanting to come up for air.

His other hand grips my waist, pulling me flush against him, and I gasp into his mouth. He swallows the sound, tilting my head back to deepen the kiss, and I’m gone—completely, utterly gone. My lips part and his tongue touches mine and sparks fly across my skin. A simple kiss has never felt like this. Never.

When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard.

His forehead rests against mine. His eyes are still closed. His hand is still tangled in my hair like he forgot it was there.

“So.” My voice is wrecked. “That was, um.”

“Yeah.”

“Good practice.”

His laugh is low and rough. “Yeah. Good practice.”

We don’t move. Don’t pull apart. Just stand there, breathing each other in, pretending this is something we can walk away from.

“We should probably…” I don’t finish the sentence because I don’t actually want to do anything except kiss him again.

“Probably,” he agrees.

Neither of us moves.

His thumb traces along my jaw, and I lean into the touch without meaning to. His eyes track the movement, dark and hungry, and I think he’s going to kiss me again.

I want him to kiss me again.

But then Murphy yowls from somewhere in the apartment, loud and demanding, and the spell breaks.

Crew steps back, lacing his fingers behind his head, elbows wide. He stares at the ceiling for a long moment, chest heaving. When he finally looks at me, there’s something almost helpless in his expression—he looks like a man who just watched his whole plan go sideways and doesn’t know what to do next.

He looks as wrecked as I feel—flushed, breathing uneven, like he just ran a marathon instead of kissed his fake girlfriend.

We don’t talk about the kiss for the rest of the night.

But I feel it every time our hands brush when we load the dishwasher. Every time he stands too close. Every time his eyes drop to my mouth like he’s remembering.

Just practice, I tell myself.