couldn’t help it and he wished she would just rip it off and climb him, damn the dinner party. “What’s wrong?” She laid a tentative kiss on his chin. “Are you nervous?”
“No.” Travis turned his head and caught her mouth with a kiss. It was only meant to be a brief one, but her head fell back and he dove in, pressuring open her lips and rubbing their tongues together. “No, I’m just not sure what I was thinking. This plan. This . . . showing you off in order to get a job.” His thumbs stroked the hollows of her cheekbones. “I don’t like it. I didn’t think this far ahead.”
She was breathing with her eyes closed. “People do this kind of thing all the time.”
“Believe me, I know. That’s why it feels wrong with you.”
Those green eyes popped open. “I don’t understand.”
Travis searched for the right words. Ones that wouldn’t reveal this struggle he was having over tonight being the end. Georgie’s mouth distracted him, though, and all that would come out was the truth. “I don’t want you on display. I don’t want . . . us on display.”
The pulse in her neck visibly jumped. “Us?”
On the other side of the door, the limousine driver honked. Just a light tap, intended to let him know if they didn’t leave now, they wouldn’t make it on time. And thank God for that honk, right? He’d been about to tell Georgie he wanted their relationship to last beyond tonight. That he wanted it to be real. Wanted the right to kiss her, take her out, sit beside her at family dinners. Fuck her into the next stratosphere, take her jogging, show up when she performed at birthday parties, and, most importantly, tell other men to stay the hell away. Wanted the right to do it any time, any day of the week.
Ridiculous.
He didn’t know the first thing about being someone’s boyfriend. Jesus, though. “Boyfriend” sounded so much more accurate than “thing.” With her sweet body pressed up against him, possessiveness flowing in his blood, they were so far beyond a thing, he almost laughed. Almost. He was too unnerved by the ultimatum he was giving himself. He couldn’t just be her indefinite hookup—she deserved better than that. The prospect of letting her go made him feel submerged in quicksand, but she deserved someone who had a healthy outlook on commitment. Marriage. He was not that man. He would never, ever be that man.
Say good-bye tonight or ask Georgie for more. Those were his only two options.
“Travis?”
Taking one final sniff of her hair, he stepped away. “We should go.”
Georgie scrutinized him for a moment and nodded, letting him open the door so they could step onto the porch, before she turned and locked up. Despite reminding himself he and Georgie couldn’t be together, he found himself taking hold of her hand on the walk to the limo, cataloging her blush, her silent Oh God, oh God when she realized the neighbors were staring. A gust of summer wind blew a strand of hair across her mouth and he almost tripped off the sidewalk where it ended.
God, she was gorgeous.
Despite Travis’s inability to stop staring at her, there was a definite strain between them on the ride to Old Westbury. He continued to hold her hand nonetheless, as if letting it go would make time go faster. They remained silent, facing forward in the rear seat, humming down the Northern State Parkway for half an hour before Travis couldn’t take the distance anymore and dragged Georgie sideways onto his lap. She went without protest, tucking her head underneath his chin with a wince.
The weight of her in his lap caused his eyelids to droop. “What was that about?”
“I did lunges this morning. A whole lap around the high school track.”
“More Tough Mudder training?”
She nodded, bumping his chin. “We have thirty-one new members and they seem to have made me their unofficial leader. I have no idea why. But now I feel compelled to set an example.”
Travis’s hand slipped under her skirt and ran a thumb along the outside of her right thigh. He decided not to be offended that her reaction was more rapturous than it was during orgasms. “First of all, thirty-one new members?”
“Yes,” she moaned, shifting in his lap to give him better access to her sore muscles. “My sister-in-law led them to believe we were starting a manless utopia. You should all be seriously alarmed how many women