Falling for Your Fake Fiancé (Love Clichés, #3)

by Emma St. Clair

speaks. “I don’t have a jacket, but I have myself.” The man is so smooth. So smooth that before I can even blink, his arms are around my waist and his lips meet mine in a kiss that is sigh-soft. It’s a brush, a question, maybe even a plea. And yet it’s also charged and electric, a lightning strike sending 300 million volts through me, causing a rolling blackout of every other function of my body until there is only this, only Thayden’s lips and mine.

I am somewhere between wanting to slap him and ordering monogrammed onesies for our unborn children.

I want to twist my hands together, but Hilda shoves a fake bouquet into them, humming the bridal march. I am frozen as Thayden sets down the takeout bags and crosses the room to me, a terrifyingly determined look on his face. His mother and Hilda fade away. There is only Thayden. When he reaches me, we’re almost nose to nose because of the platform I’m standing on. For a moment, all time hangs between us, weighty and heady. In a move so swift I can only draw in a shallow breath, Thayden lifts the veil away from my face. With that tiny barrier gone, the moment is even more intense, the very air alive and electric. It’s what I felt between us the night of our kiss, but more. His eyes, so green. His expression, so earnest and so full of longing. I want to sweep my hands over the full stubble on his cheeks, the light beard that almost hides the dimple. “You’re breathtaking.” His voice has a low rasp to it that makes me shiver. “You like the dress?” I ask. “What dress?” he says, and I can’t help it—I grin. And then I laugh, even as a tear escapes. “Shut up.” “That’s not hard. You’ve got me speechless.”