Paige isn’t being coy, but sincere. It’s unbelievable she doesn’t think she deserves something special. Whether I ever find a woman I want to spend the rest of my life or not, Paige is due every consideration from me.
“It’s not a ‘waste.’ My fiancée deserves the very best.” I pull her hand closer, take the ring and put it on her finger. “So-called fashion critics are going to dissect the hardware. I don’t want you humiliated over something like this. When people look at this, they’ll know you’re loved.”
I lean closer until the tips of our noses are almost touching. Her sweet scent is all around me.
She looks down at the ring. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
My throat is tight, and my voice thickens. “Then thank me with a kiss.”
Before she can react, I press my lips against hers.
Chapter Thirteen
Paige
A barrier inside me cracks. A small tremor starts in my chest.
When I was growing up, there was a confectionary shop owned by a Japanese couple on the way to school. Everyone in Sweet Hope knew about the shop because Asians were unusual in town, and it had the most gorgeously decorated cupcakes and miniature cakes.
I often stared at the displays on the other side of the clear glass wall and admired them as my mouth watered, imagining all the ways they would taste and smell. But I never went inside to buy one. I never had the money to blow on such pricey treats, especially when I was saving for college. So looking was all I did for several years.
Then Simon bought one for me on my seventeenth birthday. Purple, pink and yellow frosting swirled into a gorgeous night sky full of stars and the crescent moon. It must’ve taken the baker hours to create it.
“For you,” he said, and he didn’t have to say it again. I gave him half the treat—insisted that he eat it or I wasn’t touching it either—then devoured the most moist, delicious half-cupcake I’d ever had in my life. And when it was gone, I sighed with longing, but I never had one again, just admired them from the other side of the glass.
Ryder has been like one of those cupcakes ever since I started working for him. Look, admire, even pine…but don’t touch.
And that’s how I’ve been able to keep our relationship so professional. Mira’s advice to focus on his flaws helped some, but that was never the main thing. Someone that gorgeous always comes with a very high price.
But his lips on mine… They change everything.
The emotional glass that kept me firmly on the other side is gone.
And my brain short-circuits.
I’m melting into the kiss like that ice cream on the apple pie, savoring the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met in my life.
Ryder doesn’t ravage my mouth like he owns me. Instead his lips moves over mine with delicate finesse…and it’s so sweet that it makes me ache for him. I flick my tongue over his lips, taste something uniquely sweet and perfect. He’s surprisingly soft there, and I feel oddly safe.
I dig my hand into his hair and open up to him, silently giving in to the kiss. His breath shudders, a soft moan vibrating against my mouth.
He seduces me, his tongue and lips pulling me closer until I lose all my senses. One hand rests at the nape of my neck and the other on my waist, holding me close. He leads me deeper and deeper into him, our kiss becoming a dance, a long, drawn out appetizer to something even hotter and sweeter. He’s better than I ever imagined, and I’m going mad with a tight longing, liquid heat pulsing through my veins.
My heart pounds until my chest hurts, but the only thing that matters is him, the wanton heat rushing through me, pooling between my legs.
I’ve been kissed before, but never like this. I feel like I’m floating, but at the same time drowning in him. Searing desire sweeps me away in an irresistible current, but at the same time I’m anchored, pressed against him.
My body tightens, and I ache for more. The need pulsing through me has already soaked my panties. He smells so good, tastes so perfect, I can swear off everything…for him, forever…
And when the year’s up, he’s going to leave me, forever… I’ll pine for him, and the intensity of it will destroy me. Ryder’s far too addictive, far too real, and far too bigger-and-better-than-life.
The thoughts crash through me, one after another, like a bucket of cold water. I freeze, then pull back. I glance away from Ryder, suddenly shy, and in the distance notice a man with an enormous telephoto lens standing behind a jut of rocks on the beach.
The paparazzi. Ryder said we were putting on a show for a year with him as a besotted husband.
This kiss is part of the act, nothing special. Or is it?