“You’re a raging fucking asshole, Aidan Burke.”

“So they tell me, baby.” I get in and jam my key into the ignition, twisting harshly, and the engine roars to life.

“Seriously!” She slams her hand against the dashboard. “Who the hell do you think you are, grabbing me and manhandling me into your truck for whatever the fuck reason you have? That is not an okay way to treat me, no matter who you are!”

“Could I drive in peace? Your bitchin’ is kind of distracting.”

“My bitching? Oh my God!” She drops back in the seat with a huge huff. “That’s it. We—this charade—it’s done. Over. You can even tell the media I’m dying a thousand deaths over our breakup. I don’t care. I’m not dealin’ with your pseudo-hero asshole complex for another damn day!”

I swerve the truck into a dimly lit turnout and kill the engine. What is it with this chick pissing me off when I’m driving? “One day you’re gonna piss me off so much I’m gonna accidentally swerve off a fuckin’ cliff,” I grind out. “Now that I’ve safely stopped, why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”

“What? So you can just kiss me to shut me up again? I don’t want to waste my breath.”

“Excellent choice. Let’s just skip straight to the kissing.”

“I’d rather cut off my tongue with a bread knife than kiss you for one more second.”

I unbuckle her seat belt for the second time tonight and clutch her hair, turning her face—including her red-hot, blazing gaze—toward mine. “Tough shit.” I lean over and bring my mouth down onto hers harshly.

She grasps my collar with one hand, and with the other, she shoves me away from her.

I’ve barely opened my mouth before she’s climbed over the center console and is straddling me. She’s closed the distance between our mouths before I’ve had a chance to think. Her fingers slide up my body and into my hair and her kiss tastes like anger and hatred and everything so wrong it’s verging on right.

Her body is against mine and I reach down the side of my seat, pulling the lever to lay my seat back as blood pumps through my body and ends up in my cock. Jessie pushes her hips into mine, making me harder, and nips at my bottom lip.

I slap my palm against her ass, squeezing it right after. She gasps into my mouth, the sound as sweet as the tiny moan that escapes her throat when I tug lightly on her hair. If only her fucking shorts were a skirt—I’d have my fingers beneath them and inside her before she could touch her tongue to mine. If only she was in a dress, never mind my fingers, I’d have my cock buried inside her and I’d be fucking the fight right out of her.

I’d be fucking her until the only shout coming from her would be my name.

But now, the kiss is long, deep, angry. It’s hard and forceful and unrelenting, her hips almost grinding against mine as I can’t help but palm her tight ass. Can’t help but pull her farther into me as our tongues battle and my heart pounds ferociously against my ribs.

“Aidan Burke, if I take three steps forward and there’s a young lady on top of you in that truck, I’m arrestin’ you.”

“Shit!” I sit up, taking Jessie with me and lifting her into the other seat. “Belt up!” I pull my seat back up into an upright position and roll my window down as a familiar figure comes into view. “Sheriff. How are you this fine evenin’, sir?”

“Hmm.” He flits his eyes between me and Jessie. “I’m well. What are you young folks doing out here, parked by the side of the road?”

“Well, sir, Miss Jessie has a habit of taking her frustrations out on me while I drive, so I thought I’d pull over so I don’t accidentally spin the passenger side of the truck into a tree.”

“Real thoughtful of you, Aidan,” he replies, nodding. “I’d advise against it. Criminal charges and all that.”

“I’ll do my best to remember that, sir.”

“I’m sure you will. Remember to wipe the lipstick off your mouth before you lie to me next time, boy.”

I slap my hand to my mouth, and Jessie giggles, biting her hand.

“Now I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just fall for that line and send you on your way. But if I have to pull over and check on you again, I will hand you a ticket. Do you understand?”

“Fully, sir,” I mumble, dropping my hand. Fuck. Smartassed old man. “Have a good evening, Sheriff.”

Jessie is still laughing as I push the button to close the window, and I look at her. “What?” she asks. “He got you.”

“And you.”

“But I wasn’t the one who fell for his lipstick trick.”

“How was I supposed to know? You always wear lipstick.”

“But it’s almost nine and it rubbed off hours ago. Shows how much attention you pay.”

“Should I wait a moment before I drive again or are you saving some bitchin’ for tomorrow?” When she glares at me instead of saying anything, I figure she’s saving it. Good. I don’t think I can handle any more of her bitching tonight.

We make the rest of the drive without saying a word. The only noise comes when she turns on the radio, but the rapidly growing tension doesn’t ease at all. In fact, it just tightens, the low hum of the DJ only making our silence more obvious.

I pull up outside her house and shut off the engine. We sit for a long moment, her hand hovering over her seat belt before she unbuckles it and lets it snap back.

“Thanks for the ride home,” she says quietly, opening the door and jumping out.

The door shuts softly behind her, and I get out after her. “Jessie.”

Her step falters, her hand coming up to her hair as she turns her head back to me just a little. “What?”

I walk to her without another word and step in front of her. I curl my fingers around hers and pull her hand down, pushing the hair from her face myself. Her eyelids flutter before she lifts her gaze to mine, and the softness I see in the depths of the blue hue staring at me warms me from head to toe.

Gently, I kiss her, letting my lips brush against hers, over and over. Letting them feel and taste her. Test her. To see if she’ll respond just as softly. She does, and our lips meet in one long, easy kiss that I feel everywhere.

“Goodnight, Jessie,” I whisper, teasing my thumb along the lower curve of her mouth.

“Goodnight, Aidan,” she whispers back, stepping around me tentatively and resuming her walk up the path toward her front door.

She pauses right before she opens it and looks back, her eyes colliding with mine for a brief second.

I grin and walk on air back to my truck.

Jessie

Real.

That’s all I can think.

It feels way, way too real.

I imagine this is how Maine felt when it finally stopped snowing last winter after weeks of dreaming about it.

It’s the real you never expect to happen—the real that isn’t supposed to happen. The one that’s supposed to be the thing that niggles but never gets past that. The thing that just doesn’t happen. Ever. Ever. Ever.

I wish it was how it stayed. No, fuck that. I wish I’d never agreed to this in the first place. I wish I didn’t have Aidan’s name trending on all my social media. I wish his name didn’t link to articles where he’s kissing a red-headed girl with a sleeve of flower tattoos.

I wish that girl weren’t me.

I wish the Internet didn’t know my name. I wish I was just Jessie Law, art graduate, trying to save enough money to take the tattoo artist’s course. I wish I was just Jessie Law, South Carolina native who’d been cheated on by her asshat boyfriend, serving coffee every morning.

I wish I weren’t Jessie Law, fake girlfriend to Aidan Burke, and absolutely everywhere you could imagine online.

Maybe that’s it, why it feels real. It looks real, and now that it’s shoved so deep in my face that I can’t unlock my phone without finding a message from someone I know in capital letters with way too many exclamation marks, it feels real.