Chapter 9

Kellan was kissing Shiloh. Kissing her. On the lips. Full-on kissing, the kind that swamped a man’s entire body. And he wasn’t sorry.

He’d lie under oath if anyone asked how it had happened. Accident. The moment had gotten out of hand. Ex-girlfriend had thrown him off-kilter. Any of those excuses would do. But the cold hard truth was that he’d one hundred percent made the decision in a quarter of a second and all it had taken to fulfil one of his top three fantasies involving Shiloh was to flex the tiniest of muscles in his neck.

Her lips opened under his, warm, inviting, so lush and soft. His senses flooded with the sweetness and light of her spirit and reality was such a far cry from his imagination that his knees went weak.

He should pull away. They were in public. Theresa was still standing there. Probably. He didn’t care. This was his kiss, stolen in the name of this fake relationship, and he wasn’t going to apologize for reveling in every last second of it.

Ivan would hear about it, no doubt. But what did his buddy expect, that an engaged couple would never have the need to put on a display of affection? This was strictly to shut up Theresa and her arrogant, self-absorbed belief that he’d actually ask another woman to marry him simply to spite her.

Shiloh made a little noise, and everything drained from his mind. Except her. It was Shiloh. He shifted her deeper into his arms, and when she settled into the grooves, his soul nearly cried out at the perfection of how she fit. How she smelled. How she filled him to the brim with nothing more than a kiss.

Not good. Okay, good. But now he didn’t want to let her go. Ever. How was he supposed to stop letting himself drown in a fantasy that had just come to life?

He couldn’t. Actually, this might be the most brilliant thing he’d ever come up with. What better way to flush out his unholy attraction to this woman than to finally indulge himself? He could absolve his curiosity, enjoy an enthralling kiss and move on.

With that in mind, he deepened the kiss. Brazenly. Drank Shiloh in. Let himself carouse in the sensation of having exactly what he’d dreamed of for so many years.

When Theresa cleared her throat—loudly—he crashed back down to earth. With extreme reluctance, he let his arms fall away and lifted his mouth. Shiloh’s face was glowing and gorgeous, and her hair was slightly mussed as if he’d run his fingers through it. Definitely he didn’t remember that part and wasn’t that a shame.

Her eyes were the best surprise though. Sparkly. The deepest ocean green he’d ever seen. And they were fixed on him as if she couldn’t tear her gaze away. He was having the same trouble.

“I’m still standing here,” Theresa said crossly. “That little display was completely unnecessary.”

Oh, Kellan heartily disagreed. It had been incredibly necessary.

Without sparing her so much as a glance, he mumbled, “Sorry.”

He wasn’t. Theresa deserved whatever discomfort that kiss had given her. He had bigger problems to deal with, like what he was going to do with the discomfort it had caused him.

Finally she stomped away without another word. Great. He had never liked the sound of her voice anyway.

Shiloh was another story entirely. He loved her voice. If she hadn’t vanished last night after he’d hugged her, he could have listened to her talk in the dark for hours. Days. Good thing she hadn’t stuck around, giving him time to get a few walls erected between them this morning.

Which he’d just smashed to smithereens with a sledgehammer. Too bad.

As a bonus, Shiloh still stood there close enough to encircle with his arms again and it took a supreme act of will to not indulge himself a second time. But he didn’t have a good excuse now and also, maybe Shiloh wouldn’t welcome it now that they had no audience.

“Did I mess anything up with your old girlfriend?” she asked somewhat breathlessly and he didn’t mind being responsible for that state one bit.

“Nah. She’s not important.”

Understatement. He had no interest in getting back together with Theresa and wouldn’t have even if the fake engagement gig hadn’t come up.

But the fake engagement did exist, and some of the kiss euphoria had started to wane, leaving him with a big puddle of mud in his gut as he contemplated all the ways he’d screwed up. There was no way to unring the bell. He’d kissed Shiloh.

And he wanted to do it again.

The part of him that was used to doing as he pleased found no issue with that plan. The part of him that had yearned for a place he could settle stood in constant opposition to his lack of interest in rules. Because while he could possibly pass off the kiss as a prop to ensure Theresa wouldn’t cause any more problems—and she totally would have if he hadn’t given her Exhibit A—Ivan’s voice suddenly crowded into his head.

You’re the one guy I’ve never had to warn to stay away from her.

“We need to head to the police station,” he said, brusquely, because his voice had gone hoarse and he didn’t trust himself to speak.

“In a second,” she said without moving out of touching distance, and since he still craved whatever of her he could inhale, he was okay with that. “I just want to be sure I’m on the right page. She was an ex-girlfriend, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And she cheated on you.”

Was that where she was going with all of this? “Not really. We weren’t all that serious.”

He skipped the part where Theresa had started going out with another guy to make him jealous. It wasn’t the first time a woman had tried to play him to get his attention, up his interest level, force his hand.

And the reason they all felt they had to resort to tricks stood right in front of him.

He ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t exactly tell her that. All of the women I’ve dated in the past? They were trying to compete with you.

And failing. Miserably.

“Well, she certainly seemed like she wanted to get back together with you,” Shiloh said. “Not that I blame her. But she had her chance and she blew it. Now you’re mine.”

The sentiment slammed through him with enough force to make him flinch. If only.

“This is fake, Shiloh.” The reminder was more for himself. But still. The passion threaded through her voice—it did something to his insides that he liked far too much and felt entirely too dangerous.

“Is it fake?”

She lifted her eyebrows in a way that instantly replaced everything going on inside with panic. Was she onto him?

“One hundred percent.”

“Which is the same thing you said to Theresa about being happy with me. They can’t both be true.” And then she stared at him as if she could see right into his soul. “I don’t believe you can kiss a woman the way you kissed me, only to have her immediately decide she needs to start seeing someone else. Which means you never kissed Theresa like that. You saved your best for me.”

Geez. If this wasn’t happening to him, he’d be super impressed that she’d figured that out in the span of thirty seconds. His own brain was still fuzzy from Shiloh’s complete invasion of his faculties. Except it wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t grudgingly admit she was right. He’d never kissed any woman the way he’d kissed her. Because he’d never wanted to.

Scrambling to salvage the situation, he narrowed his gaze and went on the defensive. “I could say the same about you. If you’ve ever kissed a man like that, you’d have no need for a fake fiancé. The line of men wanting to marry you would wrap around the block. How come you saved your best kiss for me?”

When her eyes widened and went a little damp with emotion, he replayed that in his head. Probably not his smartest move.

“I didn’t think you noticed the chemistry between us,” she murmured. “It’s nice to know I’m wrong.”

If he started laughing hysterically, would that get him out of this situation? It was news to him that he’d pulled off the greatest acting job of his life.

“Also, it was sweet of you to pretend there’s even the remotest possibility of there being a line around the block of men who would want to marry me.” She smiled at him wryly. “But I live in a world where my brother has to coerce his best friend into playing that part. There’s a reason for that.”

Because every other man in the world was an idiot? “He did not coerce me. I am totally committed to ensuring you stay safe.”

Among other reasons that he refused to admit. Even to himself.

“Who’s going to save you from me?” she said with a laugh but it came out a little pained. “I’m waiting for them to name a new communicable disease after me. That’s how quickly I shed men. As if I have something they don’t want to catch. It’s a pattern I’ve had to deal with for a long time and it makes me pause when it comes to men every time. Except with you. So yeah. I guess I did kiss you differently, because none of this counts. You’ll stay with me even if I push too hard. I was free to just do whatever came naturally and you know what? It was nice.”

So nice. Blinking, he stared at her as her point filtered through his beleaguered senses.

None of this counted.

He would absolutely stay with her no matter what.

He was free to do whatever came naturally.

This whole fake engagement—he’d been doing it wrong. Instead of backing off, he should be taking full advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to get Shiloh out of his system. Once and for all.