“Eight!” the television blares. “Seven!”
Lo’s fingers comb into my hair as he holds my face. “You always ran out of breath.”
I smile. “I wanted you to catch me.”
His amber eyes dance along my features, like he’s engraining every detail. “I thought so.”
“Five!”
“Catch me,” I whisper.
“Four!”
“I already have,” he murmurs.
Our bodies press together, as though they’ve never drifted apart, not for three months or years or any moment’s time.
His lips touch mine, his hand gripping my hair. I pull even closer to his body, the kiss magnetizing me to him.
“One!”
In this moment, everything else is just background to our story.
It takes a few minutes to actually hear the cheers from the television, the people in Times Square celebrating with confetti and more kisses.
Connor and Rose are full-on making out. Like passionate, powerful kisses that would occur after pent-up emotions from a fight. He’s in control, one hand on her ass, their lips never disconnecting as he walks her backwards. Her shoulders hit the wall.
“Whoa,” I say. Before Lo covers my eyes, I shift my gaze. I don’t want to be aroused by that. How embarrassing—on my part.
“Do you guys realize what this means?” Daisy asks, drawing my attention to the couch.
At first I think she’s talking about Connor and Rose. To me, it means that their nerd love is in full orbit. Where it should be.
But her eyes aren’t on them. She’s staring at the TV screen, and Ryke has his hand on the couch behind her head. They don’t look like they shared a New Year’s kiss, but I wonder if they thought about it. Even for a second.
“What?” I ask.
She stares off in thought, neither excited nor scared. “In a few days, we’re going to be filmed.” She pauses. “For a reality show.”
Oh.
Shit.
PART TWO
“That's how I survived. Time and time again. That's my secret. I survived because I willed it to be ... How did I survive apocalyptic fire? I simply refused to feel the flames.”
– Emma Frost, Dark Reign: The Cabal Vol 1 #1
12
0 years : 05 months
January
LOREN HALE
“So you have to film everything we do?” I ask the short, pudgy camera guy. Brett can’t be any older than twenty-five. When Lily explained the reality show, my first thought was f**k no. Why would we voluntarily participate in that kind of torture? And then she started stammering about how this might relieve the guilt and how people might see us as a real couple.
She only sold me when she said, “I’m doing this, Lo. With or without you. So if it’s without you, then we’re not going to be seeing each other all that much for six months.”
Six months without her.
It’s never happened before.
I try to wrack my brain for a memory that doesn’t consist of Lily for that period of time, and I can’t come up with a single one. The only future I want is the one that ends with her.
If it means participating in a reality show, I can do it. Easy. All the drama will be supplied by us.
I stand outside of our bedroom door. In the Princeton house. Staring down a Canon Rebel and the stubby cameraman behind it. Lily clings to the door frame, shielded by my body.
Exactly where I want her in this moment.
Brett remains quiet, but my glare must motivate him because he finally says, “I can’t talk to you. You know…” He clears his throat. “The fourth wall.”
I raise my brows. Interesting. “So you’re just going to stand there silently—no matter what?”
He nods.
Maybe I overestimated how terrible this was going to be. No probing questions? No heckling from the cameramen? We can do whatever we want.
Huh.
I glance back at Lil, who wears a black romper and gold necklace. An outfit chosen by Rose. Apparently the girls have to wear clothes from the Calloway Couture line—for promotion.
Thankfully she doesn’t look like Rose.
She still has that delicate round face, the gangly arms and legs. She’s adorable. In every sense of the word. And she’s all mine to take care of.
I take a step closer to Lily and rest my hand above her head. When I stare down at her, she parts her lips in questioning like are you flirting with me?
I force back a smile. Yes, I’m flirting with you, Lil. I shove any concerns towards the back of my head. She can handle this without having sex. She has to. Because we can’t f**k every time I touch her this way.
With one hand over her head, my other falls to the hem of her romper. I slip my finger in the belt loop on her hip and pause.
Her breath hitches, her gaze flitting from my lips back to my eyes. And then her neck flushes. She glances at the goddamn camera.
Thing is—we have more free reign where PDA is concerned now that the cameras follow us. Instead of Rose thinking we’re having more sex, we just blame it on hamming it up for the viewers at home. Rose rarely scolds me now.
As long as Lily can handle it, we should be fine.
I clutch her waist, still hooked to her belt loop. My fingers dip below her hipbone, the romper’s fabric a lot softer than the jeans she normally wears.
Her back arches against the door frame, and her arms fly around my neck. I lean in to kiss her, and she tries to meet me halfway. I pull back a little and she catches air.
Her mouth falls, breathless. “No fair.”
“Didn’t you hear?” My lips curve upward. “I’m the biggest tease in Princeton.” I pause, smiling wider. “And Philadelphia.”
She lightly punches my arm.
My brows rise. “Is that a love tap?”
She hits me harder.
I rub my arm and mock wince. “Are you working out, Lil?”
She raises her arm and flexes her “muscle” which is a very tiny bulge. “Ryke gave me a five-pound weight for my birthday, remember? He said I needed to bulk up.”
I remember. “That was a shitty birthday present.”
“Yours was better,” she declares with a warm smile. It was a belated present, on purpose. During Comic-Con, I managed to get some of the artists to sign Lily’s favorite X-Men issues. It helped that we split up when she went to the director’s panel. I returned to the convention floor just for their signatures.
The nearby camera fills the short silence, groaning as it zooms in on us. Lily freezes again.
Brett asks, “What did you get for Lily?”
I glare. So much for not asking questions. “You told us that we can’t talk to you, but you can talk to us?” How the hell does this work?
“Yeah,” he says evasively.
I grimace and scowl at the same time.
Brett takes one step back. “You don’t have to answer,” he mutters under his breath.
He’s probably scared that I’m going to slap the camera out of his hands. Something Ryke has done to paparazzi before and been severely fined for it.
I stare right at Brett and ask, “You want to know how I satiate a sex addict?” When I shift my gaze to Lily, she already holds her breath. I tilt her chin up, forcing her eyes to mine.
And then I kiss her. Deeply. Passionately. Like we were born to share oxygen. I part her lips with my tongue, tasting her, and then focus on her bottom lip. I suck gently, and her leg instinctively rises up to my hip, silently craving for me to fit between her thighs. I almost harden, especially as she clings tighter to me, blanketed with strong, feverish need.