She’d be terrible undercover. She looks like a deer caught in headlights, frozen and unmoving.
Our unit moves jerkily, stopping and going as they load other riders into the seats. Bailey still doesn’t look at me, even when we reach halfway up one side of the massive circle.
“Bailey.”
“Mm-hmm.” She crosses her arms as though that could keep me out.
“Come here.”
“I’m fine. My trash panda and I have heard worse. It barely hurts anymore.” She turns now, giving me the stiffest smile I’ve ever seen on her face. “Gets easier to brush off every time.”
Her eyes peek up and to the right. A dead giveaway that she’s lying.
In fact, I get the sense this shit is getting harder to brush off all the time. And I’m not sure if our arrangement is making her feel better or causing her more distress because people still seem to think it’s open season for insulting her.
“Come. Here.” I fold my hand, ushering her forward.
“No, thanks,” she replies, not taking her eyes off the horizon.
“For crying out loud, Bailey,” I grumble as I stand, grab her by the waist, and fall back into my seat with her straddling my lap.
“What are you doing?” Her expression is one of shock as the pod swings back and forth wildly. They mentioned not standing, but fuck that. She needed to be held.
“Holding my fiancée.” I settle my hands on her hips, fingers splaying dangerously low over the top of her ass. We both glance down, acutely aware of the way we’re lined up right now. Her thighs on either side of mine, the hemline of her dress edged up over them.
She swallows, hands on my shoulders. “I said no.”
“Okay.” Her chest rises and falls as her breathing picks up. I know what I do to Bailey. I’m just so fucking torn about whether or not I should be doing it. “Then go sit back over there, if that’s what you want.”
She clears her throat and stares at the view like there’s something fucking interesting out there when we both know it’s just a lot of flat farmlands. “We’re not supposed to stand up.”
I almost laugh. We both know what’s going on here. Age difference be damned. Bet be damned. Bailey and I like each other. We want each other. But we both know we shouldn’t complicate things when this agreement has a pretty firm end date. There’s a pretty obvious parting of ways on the horizon. One that doesn’t feel very amusing at all.
So, I don’t laugh. I dip my head forward and press a soft kiss to the center of her chest, just beneath where her collarbones meet.
She sucks in a breath, arching in toward me. “What are you doing?” Her fingers fist the collared shirt I put on just for her tonight.
“Kissing my fiancée.” I drag my close-cut stubble over her chest, dotting her collarbones with kisses as I go.
“Why?”
“Because I want to.”
Her fingers extend over my shoulders, sliding up my neck as a shiver racks her body. “But no one’s watching.”
I flick the flimsy strap of her dress and watch it fall away, dangling limp over her bicep. “Why does anyone need to be watching?” I kiss the spot where her strap was and glance up at her. With the low sun behind her, her silky hair blazes like a dark fire.
Her tongue darts out over her full bottom lip as her mouth parts on a shaky breath. “Because this is meant to be for show. Right?”
I watch her watching me. Her question hangs between us like a line I know I shouldn’t cross. A line she knows I shouldn’t cross. A line that is becoming consistently less stark the more time I spend getting to know Bailey.
The more time I spend with my hands on her.
“Well, Bailey.” Her face dips closer, as though she’s struggling to hear me over the noise of the fair. “We can give them all a show when we’re at the bottom and just enjoy ourselves when we’re at the top. We can walk off this ride looking a little tousled. How does that sound?”
She flushes, cheeks bright pink, just like her parted lips. Her body hums in my hands, and the surrounding air is downright electric.
“Sounds good,” she whispers.
“You tell me if there’s something you don’t like, okay?” I slide my palm over her elbow, wanting nothing more than to give her pleasure after the earlier altercation made her crumble. She went from vibrant and happy to locked down and wounded.
I never want to see that look on her face again. I want to patch her back up and send her out into the world with confidence, knowing she deserves respect and is strong enough to demand it.