Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 32231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
But I do.
Her eyes flick up, half warning, half invite. “What are you doing?”
“Laying down some actual rules,” I tell her. “’Cause clearly mine didn’t get heard the first time.”
“Ohhh,” she says, eyes bright. “The firefighter’s gonna discipline me.”
I lift a brow. “You want that?”
She sucks in a breath, cheeks going warm. “Not answering that.”
“Thought so.”
I plant my hands on the counter on either side of her, caging her in. Not touching. Close. Her breath stutters, lips parting.
“Clay,” she whispers.
“Here’s how this works,” I say, voice rough. “You wanna play fiancée in public? Fine. You wanna make mugs and run that pretty mouth? Fine. But you don’t get to go around telling the whole goddamn town I’m some lovesick hero without understanding what that looks like.”
Her eyes search mine. “And what does it look like?”
“It looks like me showing up,” I growl. “It looks like me in your space. It looks like me making sure you’re okay. It looks like me carrying your shit and fixing your car and replacing your smoke alarms and standing next to you at every town event until this thing is over.”
Her pulse flutters at her throat. I see it. I track it.
“Sounds real,” she whispers.
“It’s fake.”
“Feels real.”
“That’s the problem,” I bite out.
We stare at each other. Tension spikes, electric and hot and stupid.
I look at her mouth.
She looks at mine.
I can smell her—spice and clay and woman.
“Clay,” she says again, softer. “You gonna kiss me or just mansplain the rules?”
I exhale, long. “If I kiss you,” I warn, “I won’t stop.”
Her eyes go molten. “And if I want you to not stop?”
My control snaps tight.
I don’t kiss her.
I do something worse.
I bend low, mouth to her ear, breath hot over her skin. I feel her shiver.
“You keep looking at me like that, firecracker,” I murmur, “and you’re gonna find out exactly how not fireproof you are.”
She whimpers.
I pull back before I do what I want to do—hoist her on that counter, tug those shorts down, finally taste that smart mouth.
I step away. Hard. Like I’m tearing myself off.
She stares at me, eyes wide, lips swollen from nothing.
“You’re evil,” she breathes.
“You started it,” I say, backing toward the door.
“Coward.”
“Smart.”
“Clay.”
“Ember.”
We hold each other’s gaze like a live wire.
Then I nod at the mug. “Keep making stuff like that,” I tell her. “You’re good.”
I walk out before I can wreck everything.
That night I lie in bed, arm over my eyes, replaying it.
The way she looked at me.
The way she swallowed when I told her not to.
The way her body arched, barely, when I spoke in her ear.
I imagine it again.
Again.
Again.
And I know, with a clarity that should piss me off:
This fake thing?
It’s getting real fast.
Chapter Five
Ember
The problem with fake boyfriends is when they almost kiss you like that, it stops feeling fake.
My mind is still swirling with thoughts of him the next afternoon when I step out of my Subaru in front of the Copper Mountain Community Center and the December air knifes straight through my coat.
I know three things:
My hair is finally doing that big swoopy wave thing I saw on Pinterest.
My studio is still a pile of blackened heartbreak.
Clay Walker is waiting for me by the steps in a dark Henley that makes his shoulders look like a public safety hazard.
He shouldn’t look that good for a town fundraiser.
He looks like an apology and a bad decision.
“Firecracker,” he rumbles when I reach him, voice like smoke and late nights. “You’re late.”
“I was glazing ornaments.”
“You were stalling.”
“Same thing.”
His mouth twitches like he wants to smile but refuses to let me see it. “You ready for this?”
“Ready to be worshiped by the town I saved from boring décor? Always.”
He huffs. “You didn’t save ‘em. You just threw glitter ‘n glaze at ‘em.”
“And yet,” I say, leaning in, “they ate it up.”
He looks me over—coat, dress peeking out, red tights, the snowflake earrings I wore to look more wholesome than feral. His gaze drags slow, heated. It’s not fair that a man can look at you like that in front of a building where they do pancake breakfasts.
“Cute,” he says.
I narrow my eyes. “You use that word like it’s not foreplay.”
“It’s not.”
“Then stop saying it in that voice.”
His eyes darken. “What voice?”
“That voice.”
“The one I use when I’m warning you?”
“No, the one you use when you’re thinking about bending me over your workbench.”
His jaw flexes. His gaze flicks to the street, like he needs a second to reel it in. “You’re gonna be trouble tonight.”
“I am trouble.”
“Yeah.” His eyes come back to mine, hotter. “That’s the part I like.”
Before I can react, a herd of women bursts out the community center doors—Mrs. Pruitt from the bakery, Vi from the Gazette, Paisley from the library, Sheila who runs the nature center. They’re already squealing.
“There they are!”
“Copper Mountain’s hottest couple!”
“Get over here, you two!”