palm around my wrist. His touch ignites sparks as he tugs me close. We’re face-to-face, a foot away, and his eyes lock with mine. “You thought I wouldn’t recognize you, didn’t you?” he asks.
I shiver, my breath ghosting across my lips as I answer, “I didn’t think you did.”
“I did. I definitely did,” he says, his voice warm and rumbly.
Possessive too.
So is his touch. He’s not letting go of my wrist, and I don’t mind the strong hold, the tight grip. “How? How did you know it was me from a distance?” I ask, breathier than I expected.
“The way you walk. I’ve been memorizing it for years.”
The trembles spread across my body, heating me everywhere and anywhere, and most inconveniently between my legs.
Maybe Nadia was right.
Maybe we should play our roles.
8
Daniel
She’s Scarlett, but she’s also not Scarlett.
She’s this entirely new creation, stitched together from bright, bold cloth and silken flaming red hair.
She’s as alluring as ever, maybe even more so, but she’s also reinvented herself.
She smells different too—a heady, enticing perfume.
That is intentional.
And it’s a deliberate invitation.
I step closer, inhale the lush scent of this woman, then run my thumb along her wrist. “You wore that to wind me up, didn’t you, Mrs. Dickens? That’s the one I sent you? The perfume?”
She shivers as I touch her. “Yes. It was such a lovely wedding present from my husband,” she says, sliding right into the pretend.
Becoming this character.
Entering from stage right.
Playing in our theater of make-believe.
“As soon as I inhaled it in the store, I knew it was perfect for you,” I say, and offer another drag of my thumb over her soft skin, eliciting another shiver from her under my touch.
But she doesn’t simply receive touch.
She initiates it. She lifts her right arm, sets it on my biceps, and curls her palm around my muscle. It’s possessive, the way she touches me, and a thrill that sends lightning bolts of lust through my body.
“You shopping for me. That’s so sexy,” she purrs.
“Buying you gifts is easy. Especially when you smell like this,” I say, inching my face even closer, catching another scent of her.
A soft murmur falls from her lips.
Here we are, on the platform, surrounded by travelers. And yet it’s like we’re in a cocoon, all alone with our wishes and wants that are now transparent.
“You know me so well, darling,” she says, soft and sensual. Deliberate too, like she is aware of exactly what her words do to me. “And I think I know you well also, since I suspect you got me this perfume because you wanted to bury your nose in the crook of my neck and inhale me on the train. I think you wanted to be driven mad with lust on the ride to Giverny.”
Yes, what she does to me . . .
I groan.
A nearly savage sound.
This woman.
Who knew she would slip right into this role-play, this alternate version of us, as naturally as if we truly were together?
But then, maybe that’s been our intention all along, ever since Cole set us this challenge—to play at being a couple. Now we’re simply, and finally, giving in.
That’s exactly what I do as I clasp my fingers tighter around her wrist, stepping closer.
A current charges between us. The air vibrates with atoms and ions, molecules shimmying with desire. I drop my face into the crook of her neck and breathe in the scent of dirty heaven.
My eyes fall closed to honeysuckle, falling rain, and a hint of vibrant Scarlett underneath it all.
This brilliant, witty, incredibly sexy woman smells exactly like desire, and as I linger there against her throat, my head goes hazy and my body heats. I record every moment of her reaction as I move even closer.
Her breath catches.
Staggers.
Most of all, the feathery sound she makes reveals the thing I’ve perhaps known about us all along.
Since I met her that day in London at lunch, I’ve felt it, and now I’m certain she has too.
Attraction.
Undeniable, powerful attraction.
I want this woman badly. The sight of her, the feel of her, the smell of her—they do wicked things to my senses.
They crank them up, driving wild sensations through me. Perhaps through her too, judging from the telltale signs—the hitch in her breath, the goose bumps on her skin, and the slightest whimper that seems to tumble from her red lips as my nose brushes her earlobe.
Should I resist?
Screw resistance.
Right now, she’s my wife. I draw the soft skin of her earlobe between my teeth, and I