The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            Hallie’s heartbeat picked up again. She felt a chill on the skin of her neck as she said, “So . . . you want to kiss me?”

            His phone’s display timed out and turned off, and she heard a roaring in her ears as she waited for his answer.

            “Just once,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Jack and Hallie for real, before things go back to normal.”

            She seriously thought she might faint. She struggled for words and all she came up with was, “My hands are shaking.”

            She felt his hands on the sides of her face, and she could hear her own trembly breathing. His mouth came down on hers, but instead of the hot, arrogant kisses she’d become accustomed to since the airport, this was . . . different.

            It was an intimate, sexual kiss, the kind of kiss that was usually shared in a darkened bedroom, with one body stretched out on top of the other. Wide-open mouths, slanting for the perfect connection, the warmth of his breath on her lips, the feel of his fingertips on her skin.

            His tongue tangled with hers and teased, his teeth nipping at her lower lip, and she felt herself rearing up, desperate to meet him kiss for kiss, and to do whatever it took to keep him from ever stopping.

            She reached out and grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket, pulling herself closer to him, pressing her body against his. He grunted, and she felt his hands squeeze her waist, slide down to her ass, and it was her turn to let out a noise when she felt his hardness grind against her.

            “Don’t you dare stop,” she breathed into his mouth, and she let her head fall back as his lips moved down to her throat.

            “I have to, Hal,” he panted into her neck, sucking her skin as he pressed his body into hers. “Before we mess up everything.”

            “Yeah,” she said, agreeing while also moving her hands so she could feel his thick hair between her fingers. “Good idea.”

            “So . . . are we stopping?” He lifted his mouth, but she could still feel his breath on her throat when he spoke, and he sounded like he’d do whatever she said.

            “Yes,” she said, letting go of his hair and saying on an exhale, “I guess so.”

            “Thank God,” he replied, his voice a sleepy drawl. “Because I have a roll on my plate that I haven’t gotten to yet.”

            “The rolls are trash,” she said, her hands still shaking as she fumbled to get herself together in the dark.

            “Why do you have to ruin everything for me?” he asked, his voice teasing in the quiet darkness.

            She touched her hair and said, “How are we going to exit the closet without looking like a couple of horndogs?”

            “That’s easy. Just step out with authority, like we had every legitimate reason to be in here.”

            Hallie touched her lips and then remembered she’d been wearing red lipstick. “Crap, can you see my face?”

            Jack’s face moved closer. “A little . . . ?”

            “I might have makeup smeared all over my face. Shit.”

            “Here.” Before she could stop him, he raised his phone and took a picture from point-blank range, and the flash was blinding in the tiny closet.

            “Gah, what are you doing?!”

            “Trying to help—”

            He didn’t finish the sentence, because he looked at his phone and started laughing. The display illuminated his face, and when he couldn’t stop laughing long enough to explain, he turned it around and showed her.

            The picture of her was positively garish.

            Her eyes were half-open, her lipstick was smudged, her nostrils were flared, and the photo was so up close that you couldn’t see more than her eyes, nose, and upper lip. She looked like the ghost of a drunk clown.

            “I’m not laughing at you—” he tried, but couldn’t finish.

            “I know,” she said, looking at the picture and losing it. She started belly laughing with him, and neither one of them could stop. He rested his forehead on the door above her while he tried to calm down, and she could feel tears ruining what was left of her smoky eye as she cackled.