2

Cash

“That’s actually what we wanted to come talk to you about,” I say with a cocky edge to my voice. “She forgot that we had plans tonight.” I don’t touch her, despite how desperately I feel the need to shield her from this jerk. But I do plant myself directly behind her in a show of protectiveness and gesture between us, so he gets the hint.

I saw the way her face fell when she caught her supposed boyfriend kissing another woman. It gutted her. She obviously thought they were in some sort of committed relationship.

“Huh?” Jerkface grunts, rearing back like my words physically hit him. “Who are you?”

“He’s just a guy I started seeing.” The woman I feel some weird need to protect pipes up, seemingly okay with the lie I spouted for her to save face. “Oh, um. Did you think we were exclusive?” Her mocking tone rises with each word, but I don’t miss the way her body trembles with either silent rage or barely contained adrenaline.

Then she laughs way too loud and aggressive for the moment, making it clear she’s bordering on rage.

“You never mentioned there was someone else.” Bruce rubs the back of his neck, looking more uncomfortable by the second.

“Oh, didn’t I?” she trills. “Well. My mistake. This is…” Her big hazel eyes find mine, pleading.

“Cash,” I supply. “We’re fairly new acquaintances.”

“Right. Cash.” She leans into me, then hooks an arm around my waist. Taking that as my cue, I wrap an arm around her shoulder in an unmistakably possessive move. Bruce, the world’s worst boyfriend, narrows his eyes at me, then flicks them back to his babe .

“Come on, quit playing, babe. We were supposed to celebrate tonight. Remember?”

The woman beside me stiffens. “Sorry, Bruce. Maybe you can celebrate with someone else tonight. Oh.” She puts a finger to her mouth in a dramatic pause, then adds “You should totally ask Tina. I bet she’s free.”

The guy’s eyes widen as his mouth opens and closes. I take the opportunity to slather on another nice, thick layer of guilt and lean down to meet my accomplice’s eyes. “Come on, babe . Let’s go have some fun before the sun comes up.”

With a wicked smile, she reaches up and loops her arms around my neck. I second-guess what I’m about to do in a moment of indecision, but we’re in this now and I’ll be hanged before I let this idiot think he got away with cheating on her.

So I wrap my hands around her perfectly curved waist and tug her against me. “Trying to start the fun early, babe ?” I run my nose along the side of her face, and she giggles. Then I’m somehow unintentionally breathing in the sweet smell of blackberries that clings to her skin. Instantly, I’m transported back to my aunt’s farm upstate, picking blackberries with Jules in some weird blast-from-the-past flashback moment.

Bruce scoffs loud enough to jerk me back to the present, and just when I think we’ve taught him a lesson, my fake girlfriend does something very unexpected. She grabs the sides of my face and brings me down to meet her. Her lips crash against mine. It’s a little awkward at first, but it only takes a second for me to catch up.

If she wants a kiss to finish off the job…who am I to say no?

I move one hand to her throat to angle her head, then part her lips with mine. Slowly, intently. To let her know this doesn’t have to be rushed to show passion. If she wants to make her poor excuse for a boyfriend jealous, it’s slow and methodical that’ll win this race.

With a whimper, she melts under the pressure of my lips, my hands, and admittedly, I get lost in the moment. For who knows how long, there is no Bruce. No Tina from hair and makeup. No random chick who mistook me for someone else. There’s her—the gorgeous backup dancer I noticed from the stage—and there’s me: two strangers making out in a dark parking lot at half past midnight after a subpar performance from an up-and-coming teenybopper band.

When she approached me at the elevator, I recognized her from the performance. She was stunning on stage under the lights but even more beautiful up close and personal. Curvy and edgy. Like a dream come to life. It nearly cracked my heart of stone to hear that she had a boyfriend.

I shove the interfering thought from my mind and try a new angle, turning the kiss from slow and searching to playful and teasing. I nip her bottom lip, and she smiles against my mouth, somehow without breaking contact. Her sweet mouth clings to mine as if she can’t—won’t—stop kissing me even though Bruce sulked away some time ago.

It’s been so long since I’ve kissed a woman. Way too long, if I’m being honest. Letting go like this, being intimate with another person in this way, makes me feel more alive than I have in months.

But too abruptly she pulls back and searches the parking lot. “Oh my gosh,” she mutters, pressing a hand to her mouth. “That kiss was…” She trails off, fingers brushing against her lips.

My thoughts exactly .

I can’t help but smile as I watch her. What we just shared easily dropped into the top five hottest interactions I’ve ever had in my life. And never have I kissed a stranger before. But her smile slips, as does mine, when she turns wide, regretful eyes on me and shakes her head.

“I’m so sorry. I-I think I just got carried away—”

Before she can utter another word of her apology, I release her. “Don’t, please.” A nervous chuckle rattles through me. “I’m just glad he was forced to watch you be kissed the way you deserve. I’m sorry you got cheated on. I’ve been there, and it sucks.”

Her brow pinches, eyes full of empathy. “Yeah. It really does.”

Pursing my lips to the side and scratching a hand down my beard, I consider what the next best step would be. I could ask her out like I want to, but there’s a great chance I’d be a rebound for her if things progressed into an actual relationship and— Wait. Stop.

An actual relationship ? Nope. Not doing those right now. Not after Meredith broke the soft heart I once had and fed it to her older, more emotionally available, boss.

“So…where’s your car?” It’s all I can think of to say.

“Oh, um.” She peers around the few remaining cars. “Just over there.”

“I’ll walk you.”

This time, she doesn’t argue or say she can take care of herself. She lets me walk the short distance to her little red hatchback. Where before it felt there was a buzzing sort of apprehension between us, now there’s only stilted silence.

Maybe she expects me to ask her out? Then again, maybe she wasn’t as thrilled with our make out session as I was. Nah, I can’t believe that. Not when the look on her face as she touched her lips afterward will be burned into my brain for years to come.

“I feel like I need to thank you,” she says, stopping once we reach her car. “What you did, it was…” She shrugs. “Well, it was nice.”

Hands in my pockets, I rock back on my heels. “I’ve always been unnaturally good at paybacks.”

She bursts out laughing at my joke, a little too loud and aggressive, just like before. I wonder if maybe that’s just how she laughs. It’s adorably awkward. If my situation was different, if I wanted my now stone-walled heart to be penetrated again, I might actually ask her out. Just so I could hear her laugh obnoxiously loud at my dumb, offhand jokes.

“If I need any help with my future revenge plots, I’ll be sure to give you a call.”

She gave me the perfect in to say something flirty like, “I can only do that if you give me your number,” but I don’t take it. If I wasn’t so emotionally scarred, so unwilling to hand my heart over to someone again, I might seriously consider shooting my shot. As it stands, I’m just… not ready.

“Have a nice night.”

She shifts on her feet, her dark hair with the brightly colored streaks in it floating in the night’s breeze. “Yeah. You too.”

As soon as she slips into the driver’s seat, I head toward my motorcycle, my sister’s jacket still balled up in my hands. And as hard as it is for me not to turn around, I force my feet to keep moving forward. If only I didn’t know the scent of sugared blackberries would haunt me for weeks to come.