The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            “Hal,” he murmured, still not looking at her.

            “Hmmm?” she replied.

            “I’m great with you doing that,” he said, squeezing her hand a little tighter. “But just know that if you’re still doing it when we get past the guy scanning boarding passes, I’m kissing you.”

            “What?” she squealed, a little too loudly.

            He looked at her then, his lips sliding into a dangerous smile. “I like this game. I’m a big fan. What could make this day more fun than a one-up challenge?”

            She grinned. “What’s a one-up challenge?”

            “A truth-or-dare of sorts. One-upping each other. I hold your hand, so you stroke that thumb of yours in a way that makes me fucking crazy. I kiss you, and you . . . one-up me, somehow.”

            “Somehow.” Hallie couldn’t look at him, turning her warm face so she was looking at the line in front of her. “Interesting.”

            “Isn’t it, though.”

            They both stood in silence, her thumb still moving over his skin, as they got closer to the front of the line. She kept telling herself to stop, that it wasn’t a good idea, but she was giddy with an electric anticipation as they stood in line to embark upon their vacation.

            She swirled her thumb across his skin, making a figure eight, just as the man in front of them got his boarding pass scanned. Her heart was pounding as Jack let go of her hand so they could each hold out their passes to be scanned, and she realized he’d been kidding, because they’d reached the front and he hadn’t kissed her yet.

            “Thank you,” she said to the TSA official, shoving her phone into her coat pocket.

            “Thanks,” Jack muttered.

            Hallie had taken one step toward the area where they’d be removing their shoes when Jack grabbed her hand and turned her around. She looked up at his face, at those intense blue eyes, and before she could formulate a thought, his hands were on her face, his lips on hers.

            She thought she heard him growl as he angled his head just a little and bit down on her bottom lip, and then she might’ve made a sound as he opened her mouth with his own and did something wicked with his tongue. Her hands came up to squeeze his upper arms—or grasp for leverage, she wasn’t sure—as his tongue dipped into her mouth and he kissed her like he was sampling dessert, dessert he’d been denied his entire life and now he couldn’t get enough of it.

            Was starved for it.

            He pulled back, looked down at her in a way that made her knees weak, and said, “We better move before we clog up the line.”

            She nodded. “Yeah. Um, yes.”

            Once they passed security, Jack grabbed her hand and pulled her off to the side of the foot traffic. He looked down at her with an unreadable expression, his eyes serious, and he said, “Are we okay?”

            She nodded and said, “We’re amazing.”

            His eyes softened then. “It was a fucking great kiss, wasn’t it?”

            “Holy shit, Jack,” she said, shaking her head with a grin. “I almost passed out.”

            He threw his head back and laughed, a sound that made her want to curl up and take a nap in it, and he said, “I think I’m going to like being your fake boyfriend.”





Chapter

SEVENTEEN



Jack


            “So last I heard, you were messing with him on the app. Now you’re actually dating?” Chuck, Hallie’s best friend and also maybe her relative(?), whisper-shouted to her across the aisle.

            As soon as Hallie and Jack got upgraded to first class, Chuck and his girlfriend, Jamie, had done the same. Which was good, because he wanted to get to know her friends, even if sitting with them made him a tiny bit nervous.

            Feeling unsettled was quickly becoming his default state.

            Because he had a lot—huge fucking heaps—of guilt about how things went down with Alex. He’d fully intended to mess with the guy, but he hadn’t meant to get Hallie dumped, and he’d never imagined it would make her cry like that.