Chapter Four

Liz

It happens so fast. One minute, we’re talking, and the next, his hand is on my nape and in my hair, and…he’s kissing me. I would be lying if I said I didn’t see it coming, because I did. From the way he was looking at me, his eyes filled with such unfiltered desire, it was like nothing I had ever seen before.

What changed?

As far as I know, Sebastian Foster forgot I existed the moment he got his record deal and left Valor Springs. It was something I had to come to terms with. A small country girl like me was never going to end up with someone like Sebastian.

In all the years we were neighbors, he never looked at me as anything but the little girl next door. To be fair, we have a nine-year age gap between us and it would have been inappropriate if the man had ever looked at me as anything more than that. And until now, he hasn’t been back to Valor Springs in nearly to a decade.

I knew the man didn’t have feelings for me but that never stopped me from crushing on him and secretly hating him for never coming home.

Sebastian ruined my life. Well, I ruined my own life, but it brings me comfort to blame him.

It’s because of him that no one other man stands a chance. I have always compared every other man to my hot neighbor, and not a single one could live up to the man. None of them ever made me feel the way he does, and with his mouth pressed against mine, I realize that no one ever will.

My first real kiss.

I should stop him before he ruins me further. Remind myself that I am not actually dating this man. Those feelings I harbored for him are a thing of the past. Just a teenage girl crushing on her hot neighbor. Those feelings don’t belong here, because then…

How will I ever want another man after feeling Sebastian’s lips on mine his hand gently caressing my hair and slowly coaxing me to let him in?

I shouldn’t let him in!

“You are trembling,” he rasps against my lips, and I don’t realize it until he mentions it. “Open up for me, kitten.”

“We shouldn’t be kissing, or touching,” I try.

“Isn’t that what people do in a relationship? Everyone will be expecting public displays of affection, and we don’t want them to think you’ve never been kissed before.”

“What? I…I have been kissed before!” I argue, and in response, Sebastian pulls back to look at me, a single sexy brow raised and that sensual mouth lifts in a smirk. Damn him for looking so good!

“You don’t have to lie to me, kitten.”

“Stop calling me that, and I am not lying. I have been kissed before.”

Technically, I am not lying. There was Peter in elementary school who stole my first kiss. I punched his mouth with my little fist, and our parents had to be called in to the principal’s office, but I am counting that as a kiss!

“Kitten…”

“I said stop calling me that!”

“What would you rather I called you then? I can’t go calling you Lizzie in public.”

He can’t call me kitten either. The way he drawls it, his eyes firmly on mine when he calls me the forbidden nickname doesn’t do me any favors when it comes to reining in my desire for him.

“Call me something else,” I whisper.

“Fine, I’ll reserve the pet name for our private moments,” he teases, and I read the amusement in his eyes. “So, about your first kiss…”

I palm my face and let out a groan. “Can we talk about something else, please?”

“Fine,” he says thickly. “One of the things people will be looking to observe is how you react to my touch in public. If you flinch when I touch you, then that will be the topic for days. We need to look like two people who are madly in love with each other.”

Well, I don’t know about him, but I am halfway there already. It’s hard for someone to not fall in love with this man. There is a reason he is the most popular band member, and it has to do with more than just his talent.

One look at us in public, and everyone will know I have feelings for this man. God, how mortifying would that be? Loving this man in secret was bad enough.

“I’ve seen celebrity couples simply hold hands, and that’s it. I don’t have to do something extreme in public, do I?”

“Well, if the paparazzi ask for a kiss, and you respond to my kiss as you did a minute ago, then people will know something is wrong,” he says, and I flash him a glare, causing him to chuckle deeply. “How about I show you how we should do it, kitten?”

“I… Don’t call me that,” I argue weakly, slowly losing my grasp on reality every time he says it. I need to resist this man, but every part of me wants to push up against my childhood crush and give him everything. God, I want to touch that body just to know if it feels as good as it looks.

I’ve spied his perfect body through my window so many times, and when I got older and touched myself for the first time, it was his hands I pictured on mine. It’s his breath I imagined brushing my skin as he kissed my body.

It was Sebastian I saw every time I closed my eyes and thought about my future, and now, he’s here, asking me to be his fake girlfriend. I should at least lock up my heart and body from this man if I am to survive unscathed, but…

He smells so good, like earth and musk and all male. His muscles are firm under my fingertips, and with his calloused hand in my hair, I find it hard to resist him.

“What are you so afraid of?” he asks, moving closer to me until there’s only a hair’s breadth between us. “We don’t need to do much in public. A few touches should be enough. I just want you to grow a little familiar with my touch, so I don’t startle you when I reach out to you in public. If my touch is something you are uncomfortable with…”

“No, I want you to touch me,” I hurry to say, cutting him off, and I only realize my mistake once the words are out. “I mean…”

Before I can try and cook up a lie, I am plucked off the bed, and he settles me on his lap. Sebastian wraps his massive arms around me before pulling me in close, and I gasp at the feel of his erection pressed against my center.

“Do you want to know why I did not even consider accepting a contracted relationship?” he says hoarsely, his mouth so close to mine, his breath intimately caressing my skin. God, this is not a good start to something that is meant to be fake. My feelings are already too real, and his erection…that’s real too. “The second I saw your photo, I haven’t been able to think about any other girl but you.”

“Sebastian…”

“You can say no, kitten,” he offers, sliding his hands under my sweater, moving them up and down my waist, sending a storm of heat licking up my skin. “I will not be upset if you decide you want nothing to do with me.” A whimper slips out when his hand drops to my hips and he rocks forward, rolling his erection over my sex. I gasp at the delicious friction of his hardness brushing my sensitive core. I wonder how it would feel without the clothes between us. “Of course, the choice is all yours.”

Choice… What choice?

I never stood a chance from the second he walked into the hotel, and he has to know it. My brain is slowly losing its grip on reality, and I feel like I will die if he takes his hands off me.

“Do we really need to do all this for a fake relationship?” I ask weakly, contradicting my own words by rocking my hips forward and pressing my sex over his hardness, surprised by my own wantonness. I curl my fingers into his shirt and tug hard, trying and failing to rein in my need for this man.

He’s not mine, though. Not really.

What Sebastian wants to start is fake at best, but my heart and body don’t seem to have gotten the memo.

“Let me kiss you, kitten,” he says thickly and my eyes drop to that sexy mouth. I wet my lips as longing swells my heart. “Let’s work on that chemistry. We’ll be doing a lot of touching in public, shouldn’t we at least test the water to make sure we are compatible? It will be easier if your body is familiar with my touch and mine, with yours.”

God.

“Sebastian…”

His hands slide up my backside, and he slowly grinds me on his lap, lifting his hips slightly, and I whimper at the heat that builds in my core. The sensitive spot between my legs throbs, and I feel myself grow lightheaded from everything this man is doing to me. “I want to kiss you, properly this time,” he says huskily, leaning in so his lips are a few inches from mine. So close, I can feel his warm breath brush my lips, and whatever shred of control I was grasping onto slips through my fingers as need swims through my system. “Let me, kitten.”

How can I say no to the man when he says things like that? Words meant to send my pulse drumming and my body heating up with the need for his touch, craving I have never felt for any other man! I shouldn’t let this man touch me like this. It’s not going to end well for me, and yet, I find myself humping his erection and nodding frantically at his words.

“Okay.”

Sebastian takes that as a green light as he presses his mouth to mine, softly at first, nudging me to open up for him. I clench his shirt in my fist, a little nervous and insecure from my inexperience, but he is patient. His lips brush over mine slowly, giving me time to relax, and it’s not until the need in me is bursting and I’ve opened for him that the kiss takes a sudden turn.

The first graze of tongue is hot, and it causes my sex to grow wet with arousal. I moan at the sensation, wrapping my arms around his shoulders as he deepens the kiss, twisting his mouth hungrily over mine and stroking my tongue in the most erotic of moves.

It’s meant to be a test, right?

We’re not supposed to be kissing like this, and yet, I am possessed by the need to get all of this man. I return the kiss with as much fervor as he gives it. I don’t care that it’s a little sloppy and awkward on my part.

I want all of him!

This man that I have loved from a distance. I am delirious for him and everything he can offer. I moan into the kiss, rocking my hips forward and working my aching sex over his erection. Sebastian growls into the kiss, his hands digging into my ass as he motions me forward, encouraging my movements over his lap.

I gasp against his lips when I feel his hands grip my waist before rising higher. I don’t have any clothing under my sweater other than my bra, and his calloused fingers on my bare skin send goosebumps all over me. “W-what are you doing?” I whisper shakily when I feel him tug at the clasp of my bra, freeing my aching breasts from their tight confines. I am panting as he slips his massive hands under my loosened bra and squeezes my tits, making me cry out at the sensation. “Sebastian…”

“Your tits feel so good in my hands, kitten,” he rasps thickly, his erection growing impossibly thicker under me. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” I whimper.

“I can do more than touch you.” He leans in and brushes his mouth over my jaw and down to my neck, and I find myself tilting my head back for him. “I can make you feel more, kitten.”

“How?”

He doesn’t respond but instead grabs the hem of my sweater and tugs it up and over my head. With those beautiful dark eyes locked on mine, he drags the straps of my bra off my shoulders, leaving my top half naked.

Perhaps I would feel embarrassed straddling Sebastian, so vulnerable and exposed, if my body wasn’t trembling with need for the man.

Christ, this is Sebastian Foster.

The man I would watch for hours from my bedroom window, mesmerized by him. And now, he is touching me. His guitar-calloused thumbs pinching my aching nipples between his fingers and causing my tummy to fill up with heat.

“You are so fucking beautiful, kitten,” he says, his eyes dropping to my pebbled nipples. My lips part on a whimper when he starts kneading my tits in his palms. “I have met all kinds of girls in this industry, but none of them hold a candle to you. You are who I want.”

Fake.

This is fake, I need to remind myself of that.

I am the man’s fake girlfriend, and I should not take his words to heart. I fight to grasp onto my sanity, but then he dips his head and runs his wet tongue over my left nipple before closing his mouth over the swollen bud and sucking it gently. I cry out, my back arching as pleasure shoots to my sex, causing it to flood my panties, no doubt staining my jeans.

“Sebastian, what are you doing to me?” I sob, riding my sex over his stiff manhood. His hot mouth shifts to my other nipple, driving me to the brink of madness with the heat he builds in me.

“Fuck, baby, we need to stop,” he rasps, leaning up to slam his mouth on mine, and my head is light with desire for more. I see nothing but him. He’s taken over all my thoughts and senses.

Stop?

It’s a little too late for that, isn’t it?

I kiss him back with so much pent-up need before breaking our connection to run my tongue over his neck, my fingers seeking to pop open the buttons of his shirt when he grabs my hands. “Fuck, baby, if you touch me, there’s little that will stop me from fucking you here and now.”

“No, don’t stop.”

I am too far gone to care, but his hands stay firmly on mine when I try to reach for his shirt once more. My body is burning with desire. He did this to me! Surely, he’s not thinking of stopping now, right?

I am aching. Every last bit of me aches for this man and his touch. He has no right to deny me when he was the one who started this fire in the first place.

“I think we’ve tested our chemistry enough for today.”

His words are like a bucket of cold water from the chill they leave in my system. I quickly withdraw my hands from him, mortified that I allowed myself to forget that this isn’t real. The touch may be, but the emotions behind it are not.

Sebastian Foster doesn’t actually want me. He never has.

He came back here to Valor Springs and to me because he needed a fake girlfriend for the publicity. Hell, he was honest with me from the start, but I let my feelings for him surface.

Stupid.

“Sorry,” I whisper, scrambling for my sweater and bra, suddenly mortified that I let him strip me. And the fact that I was on his lap, shamelessly humping his erection… Kill. Me. Now!

“Lizzy…”

I awkwardly crawl from his lap and completely off the bed, shrugging on my sweater without bothering with the bra. “I need to get back down to the desk. Abby needs me.”

“Hey, let’s talk,” Sebastian calls out, reaching forward to grab my wrist, but I evade his touch. “Lizzy, I didn’t mean for things to go that far. I’m sorry.”

Sorry that he doesn’t want me? That he will never want me for anything more than a fake girlfriend? “Don’t worry, I am not backing out from our deal.”

Sebastian calls out again, but I am already at the door. I don’t wait around to hear what he has to say as I slip out of the room and shut it behind me, cutting off his voice. I sprint down the hallway and don’t breathe until I am in the elevator.

This is all my fault. For a moment, I let myself be seduced by his words and touch. I let myself fall under his spell.

I have met all kinds of girls in this industry, but none of them hold a candle to you. You are who I want.

I hug my arms and fall back against the cool wall as the memory of his words swirls around my thoughts. Maybe he wasn’t lying about wanting me, not physically at least. It’s not his fault that he doesn’t want me in all the ways I want him.

He probably never will.