I smile back at him like a total loon. The man fucked me silly. I feel like a little girl with a crush. If I were a cartoon character, they would draw me with literal hearts for eyes right now.

I clear my throat, trying not to scare him away with my stalker-staring vibes, then nudge my chin toward the counter. “There’s coffee here for you.”

“Thanks,” he replies as he goes back to admiring my plants, which is the perfect opportunity for me to admire his shoulder-to-waist ratio.

I sigh.

“Julia, if you keep eye-fucking me like that, I’m going to have to do the gentlemanly thing and lend you a hand.” He doesn’t even need to turn around. He just knows. I’m that transparent.

I scoff, feeling my cheeks go warm. “I bet you say that to all the other girls.”

He stills, and then he slowly pivots to face me. One brow is quirked but aside from that, his expression is deadly serious. “What other girls?”

I let loose another scoff. I must sound like I have some sort of affliction.

A nervous, awkward one.

“I was joking,” I tell him flippantly.

“I wasn’t.”

My throat works as I attempt to swallow the coffee in my mouth in lieu of spraying it all over my kitchen.

“We don’t need to talk about this.” My words come out rather choked, and I take a deep swig of my coffee to help—and just to give myself something to do. Because the way he’s looking at me right now is far too intense for my liking.

Emmett and his piercing stares are deadly at the best of times. But the intensity is borderline unbearable when it’s just the two of us standing face-to-face in my small condo. There’s no field or gravel driveway for me to escape to.

I’m just trapped. With him. And the elephant in the room. Romance Ranch.

“I think we do,” he replies pointedly, making his way toward me, prowling like he’s on the hunt. He takes a seat on the stool across the counter from me.

And then he just… looks.

“Are we having a staring competition?” I joke, trying to soften the tension that’s thickening the air between us. I’d rather just have more sex, not talk about the show and all the repercussions of this situation. As they say, ignorance is bliss!

But he doesn’t fall for it. He breezes right past it with a look of concentration on his face.

“No, I’m gauging what’s going on in your head so we can figure out how we’re going to do this.”

I blink. “What this?”

“Us, Jules. You and me. Catch up, would you?” He reaches for his coffee, but not before shooting me a lethal smirk that sends butterflies crashing into my ribs.

Did Emmett Brandt, playboy extraordinaire, just refer to what we’re doing here as an us?

I shake my head as though that will help me gather my thoughts. Because I am not the kind of girl who gets all frilly and excited over boys.

Alas, here I am.

“What’s going to be my reason I’m suddenly chaste? Something that Dick Wad will buy.”

“Chaste?”

“Yeah, they’ve been on my ass all season to be more physical with the daters. But I…” His hand scrubs against the stubble on his jaw as he stares off, considering his next words. He lets loose a dry chuckle. “It’s funny, actually. I came on this show under the pretense of meeting someone. I thought that was an impossible task. But I did.”

His eyes flit back to mine. Piercing. “She’s just not a contestant.”

I try not to squirm. Instead, I gnash my molars against the inside of my cheek.

“Well, she…” I shift my weight, fingers flexing against the warm ceramic mug. “Doesn’t feel it’s her place to weigh in on this particular subject.”

Third person, Julia? Really?

His brows jump up in amusement. “And why is that?”

Dropping my gaze and my voice, I confess, “Because she knows how much is on the line for you and your family and would never get in the way of that.”

When I peek back up, he’s regarding me with a different expression. Something gentler—sadder.

Clearing my throat, I continue—like a fucking dork, in third person, because somehow one level of removal seems to make this conversation easier to have. “I think she would want you to do whatever it takes to fulfill your contract and get every last payment.” I glance down into the cup of creamy liquid, thumb brushing against the smooth glaze before quietly adding. “She would harbor no hard feelings but would rather not know about whatever goes on.”

The longer I talk, the lower his brows drop on his forehead until he’s practically glaring at me. My stomach twists as I wait with bated breath for him to do something other than look murderous.

“Is she here in the room with us?” Emmett asks, voice dangerously low.

God, I regret talking in the third person right now.

“Why?”

He rolls his eyes at me. “Because I need to speak with her.”

A brittle laugh spills from my lips as I tip my head because this is ridiculous. I’m being ridiculous.

But that doesn’t stop Emmett from standing, rounding the kitchen counter, and coming to tower over me with all that warm, firm skin. My eyes land on his chest, a dusting of hair over his pecs.

“Jules,” he says, using his fingers to tip my chin up. His baby blues are there, waiting for me, and fuck if I don’t get lost in them for a beat. “This thing we’re doing. It’s not for show. And I won’t be doing whatever it takes to fulfill my contract. I will be doing the bare minimum, and whatever it takes to keep you. Just until this sham of a show is over. Then I’m all in.”

Blood rushes through my veins and pounds in my ears. God, he is so intense sometimes. It makes it too easy to gloss over the fact that this show isn’t over when filming wraps. His obligations extend out over a year.

But I don’t go there. We don’t go there. I just nod, feeling the brush of his thumb across the front of my chin.

“So I could claim I’ve found religion. Or say I’ve had some sort of moral awakening. Maybe I’m saving it for marriage now? I could even act like I’m favoring one woman and don’t want to betray her. Whatever it is, Richard will have to deal with it. I’ll show up for filming, and I will go on whatever outings they have planned for us, but anything beyond that…”

His thumb strums over my bottom lip, pulling it gently to the side as he stares at my mouth. “Anything beyond that is simply off the table. You got me?”

My tongue darts out, his gaze following the motion. “I got you,” I say back, the words weighing a little more in their duality.

I’ve got him.

“Good, because I think I need to be gentlemanly and lend you a hand like I mentioned before. Gotta keep you satisfied. I can’t have you eye-fucking me like this on the set.”

I suck in a breath, my body arching toward him on instinct. My skin sizzling under his threat. “It’s going to take more than a hand, Brandt.”

A slow smirk curves his lips. “Wanna bet?”

My heart gallops in my chest as my core clenches. He’s electrifying when he weaponizes that mouth. “Bet.”

In a flash, he steps behind me and uses a flat palm at the small of my back to bend me over the kitchen counter as he flips up my robe and sucks in a breath right as I do. Cool air and the weight of his gaze on my ass set me alight.

“But, Jules, we really got to keep this under wraps on set. Need to keep them off our trail.”

“I know,” I breathe, arching my back, silently begging him to stop talking about the show and put his hands on me instead.

“I know you know. I’m reminding myself. Because you are so goddamn distracting that I can barely focus most days,” he mutters gruffly. And then, “Fuck, you’re pretty like this. Spread for me.”

With a disbelieving chuckle, I drop my head against the countertop, push up onto my tippy toes, and step out, widening my stance. Baring myself to him.

“Fuuuck.” A deep, appreciative groan echoes from behind me. The sound of it—of him—hums through my marrow and makes me smile against the cold granite.