For a moment, I stop and assess the situation. That’s what I do best. I apply numbers and reason. Numbers don’t lie. I’ve felt quantifiably more first-date tingles with Cameron, and more intense ones too, than I have on other dates. Certainly far more than I’ve had on any cheese-making or carrot-pickling outings.
Obviously.
I set down my glass. He does the same.
Numbers wash away, and I let chemistry take over as I press a quick kiss to the sandpaper five-o’clock shadow stubble on his cheek. When I dust my lips to his face, I close my eyes, and a whole new zip of pleasure races across my skin, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake.
I love the scratch of his cheek.
I love the feel of his skin.
I love what it does to me.
He moves ever so slightly, and then we’re looking at each other, not like two people playing a game. Not like a man and woman orchestrating a crazy idea.
We’re lingering like two people who want something else.
Something we both crave. The reason we date. The reason we sift through online profiles, the reason we let our friends and family set us up, the reason we seek out another person.
For connection.
For chemistry.
And the cherry on top . . .
The prospect of a kiss.
“Kiss for the camera?” I ask. It comes out breathy, betraying all my inner longing.
I don’t care.
“A kiss for the camera is necessary to pull off this caper.” He makes the first move, inching closer to me. I watch him until I can’t watch him anymore, until my eyes cross, and then I shut them and feel the soft whisper of his lips across mine. I gasp quietly, savoring the first touch from this man who’s maybe two men, or maybe he’s half of both men I liked. But even though the seesaw of LuckySuit and ThinkingMan threw me off, there’s nothing confusing about the way his lips feel against mine.
Even though it’s a staged kiss, it feels wholly real, especially as he lingers and I taste him on my lips.
He tastes like the one man I want now. The man I want a second date with. A second date we won’t be having.
But oh, how I wish we could.
It’s a good thing I’m sitting, because I’m melting from his lips brushing mine, from his scent flooding my nostrils, and from his hand cupping my cheek.
By all accounts, it’s a modest kiss.
But tell that to my body.
To my body, his kiss feels dirty and delicious all over, like it could lead to hotel rooms after dark, to wrists pinned, to up-against-the-wall escapades.
To all night long.
We break apart.
He whispers, “Wow.” All of those sparks turn into a fireworks show in my chest. Exploding, bursting. A wow from the barest kiss.
That may be the most unexpected part of today.
Because it’s a wow for me too.
When we arrive at our destination, we scurry to a nearby palm tree, and we point upward. I know the Welcome to Vegas sign will be lit up and neon in our shot.
We high-five.
“We’re pulling this off.”
“We are seriously kind of amazing,” I say.
He shoots me a look. “Kind of? We’re just plain and simple amazing.”
“Fine, fine. Have it your way. We’re absolutely amazing.”
“Are you ready for what comes next?”
I nod. “I’m absolutely ready.”
“Positive? You don’t want to go roller skate or lie on a blanket under the stars instead?”
I narrow my eyes. “I want to do both. Right now. All the time. But I want to do this too. Do you?”
“Just making sure,” he says with a smile.
“Are you sure?”
Cameron laughs, and the sound makes my heart vault. Why do I like the sound of his laughter so much? I wish I knew. But I really, really like it.
“I’m very sure,” he says with a smile, then loops his arm around my waist and yanks me close. “By the way, have I told you you’re a whole lot of fun? Like, more fun than monkeys in a barrel?”
“But how does anyone know how much fun monkeys in a barrel really are?”
“I don’t know. Has anyone ever put monkeys in a barrel and tried to have fun with them?”
“I hope not. That doesn’t seem like it would be fun for the monkeys.”
“And we really should be nice to monkeys,” he says, then presses a kiss to my nose.
I sigh into the kiss and whisper, “I’m having fun too. More fun than if I was watching Cupid stream online.”
He arches a brow in a question.
I wave a hand. “It’s this old TV show. I keep hoping someday it’ll stream online. Let’s skedaddle, and we can discuss Camus, you philosophy major, you.”
His eyes twinkle. “Don’t get me excited, Kristen.”
“Camus gets you excited?”
“Almost as much as Descartes.”
As we hop in the car, racing to our next destination, I flash back over the night. Over the kiss and the champagne, the fun and the conversations. The way we get along so weirdly well, the way we both jumped on this crazy idea.
And it wasn’t an algorithm that brought us together.
It was a person.
Or maybe it was us.
At the chapel, we say hello to an Elvis impersonator and we snag a photo with him. Then he does the deed.
“I now pronounce you man and wife.”
With those words, all I can think is we are getting so even they’re going to need a new word for “even.”
“You may kiss the bride.”
“Take our picture, please, would you, Elvis?”
Elvis nods as Cameron hands him his camera.
Cameron cups my cheeks, brings my face to his, and plants the most delicious kiss on my lips.
He’s gentle at first. A tender sweep of his lips. A brush against mine. Just enough for tingles to spread down my arms, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.
I feel a little swoony, a little shimmery, as flutters race across my body.
Then, he kicks it up a notch. He’s more insistent, a touch greedy.
And holy hell, I like greedy from him. I like it a lot. His kiss becomes demanding as his hands clasp my face, and his mouth explores mine. Tongues, lips, teeth. He kisses with an ownership, like he wants me more than he ever expected.
It’s the same for me, I want to say. It’s absolutely the same for me.
And I don’t need to speak those words, because our bodies are talking. He tugs me closer, deepening the kiss.
The game is all the way on, and his lips devastate mine as he kisses me with a delicious intensity.
I rise on tiptoe, thread my hands around his neck, and kiss him hard. Like he’s mine. Like he belongs to me tonight. And that’s how this feels. Like I get to have him in this moment.
A fevered, frenzied moment punctuated by moans, and groans, and needy sighs. By kisses that can’t possibly end. By a connection neither one of us wants to break because it feels so damn good.
Everywhere.
He doesn’t just kiss my lips. His mouth travels along my neck, visiting the hollow of my throat. Dear god, that’s spectacular. His lips on my throat send an electric charge straight through me, and I’m operating at a high voltage. He senses my reaction. I can feel his naughty smile against my skin as he kisses his way up my neck now, on a path for my ear where he nibbles on my earlobe.
And I squirm.
The good kind of squirm.
The kind where my knees are jelly from the nip of his teeth right there.
This kiss hits me all over—toes, knees, belly.
It sizzles through me, frying my brain and filling it with thoughts of where it could lead to.
Kiss me everywhere. Kiss me all over. Kiss every inch of my skin.
These thoughts run rampant in my brain, surprising me.
Stunning me with the depth of my response to him.
We hit it off instantly online, and in spite of all the mix-ups and all the puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit earlier, I feel far more connected to him in person than logic dictates I should.
Than the strange circumstances of this most bizarre date say I should.
I feel connected to him. I like him. And I don’t want this to end.
But we have to disconnect.
I break the kiss, pressing a palm to his chest. “We should stop before . . .”
“Before it goes too far?” he asks.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“We better. Because far would feel far too good.”
“It would feel amazing.”
Later, much later, it rains.
It seems fitting, especially since it’s time to say good night. There’s an empty ache in my chest.
I didn’t expect to feel a hollow spot as I said goodbye to Cameron.
But the ache is real, and it hurts as I stand curbside. The rain falls, so I grab my red umbrella from my purse and open it, holding it above us.
“One more picture. Just for me,” he says.
I smile faintly, and he tugs me closer and snaps a close-up. He tucks his phone away and hands me a rose.
“Where you’d find a rose?”
He wiggles an eyebrow. “I have my ways.”
“No, seriously. Where did you find a rose?”
Laughing, he tells me, “Elvis gave me one to give to you.”
“Well, thank you to Elvis.”
Cameron runs a thumb across my jawline. “One more kiss? Just for me. No cameras.”
I smile, and it seems to reach to my toes, the ends of my hair, my fingertips. “No cameras. Just us.”
“Just us,” he echoes as he slides a hand into my hair, brings me close, and whispers, “I’m so glad she tricked us.”
“Me too.”
As I hold the rose, he kisses me goodbye, and this one is bittersweet.
It’s full of promise. It speaks of where those kisses could have led. To how far they would have gone. To the kind of nights that might have unfurled between us.
But it also tells stories that must end, since the story of our one and only date is marching toward its inevitable final line.
His lips linger on mine, the barest of touches, like he can’t bear for this to end.
Same for me.
“One more,” I whisper, and I’m the greedy one.
But he obliges, banding an arm around my waist, hauling me close, and planting one helluva goodbye on my lips, like the kind a sailor gives his woman when he leaves.
Then he does just that.
He leaves.
He takes off on a plane to Vegas for real this time, and I run my finger over my lips, remembering.
I go home, set the rose in a vase, and crash. I’m glad too that Grams tricked us, but I’m also not, because I wanted to believe this was something real.
14
Jeanne
Earlier that day
As she finished up the Camaro, her phone dinged.
Wiping her hands on a red bandana, she took the device from her back pocket, clicked opened the text, and nearly squealed when she saw that Kristen and Cameron were having such a good time.
Kristen: We had a blast! We’re going to spend the whole evening together since we’re taking a little trip.
Jeanne had never been so pleased.
Grandmas always knew best. With seventy-five years on this earth, she was simply right.
They were so dang perfect for each other. All they needed was somebody to bring them together, even if it took a little subterfuge. No harm, no foul. Besides, they were both so stubborn in their own ways. That was why they’d needed her—to smush them together as only she could. So what if she’d had to pretend to be Cameron for a few nights? All for a good cause, and clearly she’d made the right call.
Jeanne: I knew you’d hit it off! So thrilled. I won’t say I told you so.
Kristen: You did tell me so. I have to turn my phone off now, but we’ll be there in five hours and I promise to send you a barrage of photos!
Jeanne: Wait! Five hours for what—
A new message landed, and she clicked on it, opening a photo. Her eyebrows lifted. They were toasting each other on a plane? In first-class seats? What was that all about? And where were they going that took five hours to get there?
Yet they were having fun and already flying together.
Perhaps she was a better matchmaker than she’d thought.
With a satisfied grin, she went inside and prepped for her own date, grateful that Joe had had the gumption to call her up after the auction. They’d already gone to a classic car show the other afternoon in South Beach, and they’d had such a fantastic time that he’d asked her to go to the racetrack tonight. That man was a handsome devil, and she was delighted that he didn’t seem to care that she was fifteen years older. Did that make her a cougar?
She roared at herself in the mirror and brandished her cougar claws.
“So be it.”
She swiped on mascara, some lipstick, and headed to the racetrack.
Her phone dinged once more as a hot green sports car cheetahed its way around the track.
“You waiting for a girlfriend to give you an out?” Joe teased.
She patted his leg. “Puh-leaze. If I didn’t like you, I’d tell you to your face.”
He flashed an I’m waiting smile. “Well?”
“You know I like you. The question is, how much do I like you?” She smiled.
“I’d like to know how much.”
“So would I,” she said flirtily then grabbed her phone. “Let me see if it’s Kristen.”
She flinched when the photo loaded. What were they doing there? Were they truly in Sin City?
“Look,” she whispered, showing him the picture of Kristen and Cameron beneath the Vegas sign.
“Seems they like each other. Just wanted to get away for a night in Vegas.”
She knew Cameron had been heading to Vegas for work, but had Kristen gone along with him? Didn’t she have to work the next day? Vegas was . . . well, a five-hour flight.
Her phone buzzed once more.
She startled.
And what was this? Elvis? And a chapel?
She froze. Kristen, her sweet, darling, clever Kristen, had fallen so quickly she’d eloped in Las Vegas?
She shook her head, like there was water in her ears. “She was supposed to look at urban art, get a cup of coffee, and maybe have a kiss,” she blurted out.
Joe cocked his head, stared at her quizzically. “Come again?”
She shoved the screen at him, showing him the string of texts. “They eloped! They ran off to Vegas and got married.”
Joe nearly spat out his drink as he gawked at the photos. “What is up with kids today?”
“I knew they’d like each other, but this seems a touch extreme.”
“Just a little.”
But at the same time, she couldn’t help but pat herself on the back. It was extreme, but sometimes you just knew.
15
Cameron
As the hotel executive shares his ideas for where he wants to introduce a Lulu’s Chocolates cart in the lobby of The Luxe, a newer Vegas resort, I listen furiously, giving him my undivided attention as best I can.
Because my attention these last twenty-four hours has definitely been divided.
I’m here, chatting in the lobby of this hotel.
But my mind is back in Miami, running around the city as we pranked Kristen’s grandma, making her think we loved our setup so much we’d run off to Vegas to tie the knot.
Photoshop for the win.
Right now, I’m hardly thinking of photo-doctoring software that made us look like we were in a first-class cabin or under the famous Vegas sign. Nor am I thinking of poker chip–themed chocolate, though I know I should be.
I’m remembering that last kiss.
An airport kiss.
The kind that m
akes you want more. That makes you wish one person wasn’t going one way and the other person going another.
Heck, I’d love to be hopping on a plane to Miami again tonight, rather than returning to New York.
When the meeting ends and the exec tells me the deal looks good, I ought to be happy.
Too bad when I hop on a plane that evening, I’m not exactly jumping for joy.
As I fly over the country, I tell myself it was only one date. “Get over it, man.”
16
Kristen
The next morning, I hit the roller rink at the crack of dawn, working out on my skates. I have an hour before I need to be at work, so I skate then return home, ready to shower.
Grams pounces on me the second I walk through the doorway.
She grabs my wrist. “Tell me everything.”
I clasp my hand to my chest, flutter my eyelids, and do my best starry-eyed impression. “Oh, it was magical, and I’m in love.”
Her eyes twinkle. “You are?”
The funny thing is . . . it doesn’t feel far from possible. Not today, but down the road. Maybe in a few months, I could honestly see myself falling for Cameron.
That’s what doesn’t add up.
It’s illogical. It’s irrational. It’s ridiculous.
But it’s also why my heart weighs heavy.
Grams stares at me, studying my hands. “Where’s your ring?”
I walk inside, drop my bag on the couch, set my phone on the table, and turn around. I don’t have the energy to keep up the prank anymore. I’ve pulled her leg and gotten her goat. It was a blast, and yet, I’m sadder than I want to be.
I shrug. “It was a joke. We didn’t go to Vegas to get married. We spent the evening running around Miami, taking pictures under palm trees and then photoshopping them to look like the Vegas sign, an airplane, and so on.”
Lucky Suit (Sexy Suits Book 1) Page 7