Not So Fake (The Real Thing Book 1)

by Emma Lyon

  “It’s a surprise,” Lane said, with a sly glance to show he knew he was stealing my line.

  I grinned. “I love surprises.” This entire weekend had been a surprise. One spectacular, extremely sexy surprise.

  Lane pulled down a dirt road and took the rental SUV down it slowly. When he stopped and turned the engine off, I could just see a glimpse of water between the trees and what looked like a dock reaching out into it.

  “What is this place?” I asked, as we got out of the car.

  “My dad used to take Ethan and me fishing here.” Lane shook his head, looking around us. “I haven’t been back in years.”

  He set off down a narrow path leading to the water. At the edge of the water were grassy wetlands, and to the right up on a small rise was an empty boat shed.

  Lane stepped onto the dock and I followed him to the end of it, looking out over the expanse of water and wetlands. It really was beautiful out here, the trees green and vibrant, the water glinting and serene.

  Lane leaned up against one of the posts. “It feels different from what I remember.”

  “Memories always do.” I went to stand in front of him and tilted my head down to kiss him. Lane opened up without hesitation. He tasted like coffee, and Lane, and I could spend days out here kissing him.

  Except kissing him made him want to do more with him, and by the growing bulge in Lane’s shorts, he felt the same.

  “What do you think about checking out that boat shed?” I murmured when we came up for air.

  Lane laughed against my mouth. “We’re not having sex in the boat shed.” He shifted. “Besides, I’m still sore from last night.”

  “Aw, baby, did I fuck you too hard?”

  Lane’s cheeks flushed a beautiful shade of pink. He really had the worst complexion for hiding what he felt. “I’m going to forget you said that.”

  I nuzzled my way down Lane’s neck. “You know I’m not at all averse to bottoming, right?”

  The thought of Lane’s long, beautiful cock sliding into me, splitting me open while Lane guided himself inside, had my hole clenching in anticipation. It had been a while, but I was up for anything if it involved Lane.

  When I drew back, there was an equal gleam of interest in Lane’s eyes. “We didn’t bring anything,” he said.

  “Talk about being a terrible boy scout.”

  “I was the worst,” he agreed, finding my mouth and pressing a kiss to it. “I was the kid with all the participation badges.”

  “I’m all for participation.”

  He shook his head. “You just can’t help yourself.”

  “You love it,” I said, and when Lane blinked, I covered that up by saying, “If you won’t fuck me, then sit down with me at least.” I lowered myself to the edge of the dock and leaned against the post, beckoning to him with a sultry wave. He laughed but allowed himself to be manhandled between my legs so his back was flush against my chest. I wrapped my arms around him and smelled the shampoo freshness of his hair. Something woodsy, like cedar.

  My phone buzzing in my pocket interrupted me smelling his hair like a stalker. I pulled it out, and saw a text from Max. I remembered I’d never told him whether I was free or not for the new client.

  Sorry, can’t make it, I texted back one-handed, reluctant to move my other one from Lane’s waist. I’d figure out later what do about working for Max. Quitting would raise a host of complications I wasn’t ready to think about now, but I wasn’t sure what else I could do.

  Of course, I’d already broken his cardinal rule against sleeping with a client, so by all rights he could fire me.

  “Who was that?” Lane asked, sort-of casually.

  “Max,” I said without thinking. I felt him stiffen then deliberately relax, as if forcing himself to. I squeezed my arms around him. “I said no.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I don’t want to.” I don’t want to date anyone else.

  Lane was silent, but I felt him relax for real this time, and to my relief, he let it go. He looked out over the water and sighed. “I could stay out here forever.”

  I agreed. It was going to be hard going back to the city after this. This whole weekend was a fantasy spun out over a magical few days, but by the end of it, life would be going back to normal, and I didn’t know what that meant for us. What I wanted it to mean.

  Because while I couldn’t deny I was falling for Lane, I practically came with a sign saying no strings attached. The perfect rebound relationship. What if I was just a way for him to get over Bryce? To get back in the saddle and ready to move on with his life—and not necessarily with me?

  Trailing a path down Lane’s stomach, I cupped the swell in his shorts. “How deserted is this place?” I murmured in his ear.

  He laughed shakily. “Not that deserted.” But he didn’t shift away from the pressure, and when I stroked him through his shorts, he made a soft sound and pressed back against my equally hard bulge, currently nestled up comfortably against his crack.

  I could keep us on the edge like this forever, drifting on a haze of arousal, if I didn’t want him so badly. I tucked my other hand under the flap of Lane’s t-shirt to rub circles on his stomach, and it took only a minute of that before he grabbed my hand with a growl and pushed the heel of it down hard on his rigid length. “Zach.”

  “Yes?” I said innocently.

  “What were you saying about the boat shed?”

  23

  Lane

  I was mostly kidding about the boat shed, but Zach took me at my word and pulled me up and toward the ramshackle building. “We can’t,” I protested, though I didn’t pull my hand away. “This is a public dock. Someone will come by any minute.”

  “Then we’ll have to be quick, won’t we,” Zach said reasonably.

  The building was dark and musty, but it shielded us from the eyes of any random person who might show up. “This place is filthy,” I said, looking around. It obviously hadn’t held a boat in a while. The wide planks on the floor and walls showed years of accumulated dust and dirt. It had a certain charm in the way of old buildings, but was otherwise a mess.

  “Feel like dirtying it up some more?” Zach grinned and crowded me back until I was pressed against one of the support pillars. When he kissed me, I forgot about the dirt, forgot about lurking cobwebs. Everything faded away until it was just our lips and tongues moving together, Zach’s hands on my hips as he pressed between my thighs, and at some point I had draped my arms around his neck to hold myself upright.

  When he knelt on the boards in front of me, my breath left at the sight—because fuck, Zach on his knees looking up at me like I was the most desirable thing on earth set my heart beating crazily.

  He leaned back and looked around us. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Just checking for spiders.”

  I laughed and cupped his cheek, moving my thumb over his full bottom lip. “I’ll protect you.”

  Zach caught my thumb in his mouth and sucked the tip. “Promise?” he said, when he released it with a lick.

  “Always,” I said, not letting myself think too closely about what I meant, because it scared me how easy it would be to hand my heart over to Zach. So easy.

  Zach’s eyes darkened with arousal and he pulled the button of my shorts free. Lowering the zipper over my throbbing length, he tugged my shorts and briefs down to my thighs, exposing just how hard he’d made me.

  When he took me in his mouth I dug my fingers into the wood of the support pillar to keep myself from sliding down. The wet heat of his mouth set off a thousand nerve endings, leaving me feverish.

  “I think we’ve just entered the public indecency part of this citation,” I said, more than a little shakily as Zach swallowed my cock and swirled his tongue around the tip.

  He hummed in answer, and the vibration traveled over my skin like an electric surge. I put one hand tentatively on his head and carded the soft dark hair through my fingers. When he swallowed me de
ep, I couldn’t help but thrust my hips forward to meet him.

  Zach’s throat was a tight, hot vise, which made me wonder what his ass would feel like. My cock twitched and surged at the thought of Zach spread out in front of me while I slid inside. I wanted him that way just as badly as I wanted him inside me.

  I wanted Zach any way, really.

  I let my head fall back against the pillar when Zach left my cock to mouth at my balls. When he closed his fist around the base of my shaft and pressed his tongue to my slit, I moaned and tugged on his hair. “Come up here.”

  He looked up at me with a lazy, sly kind of grin. “Nope.” He closed his mouth all the way over me, then swallowed me down again, hand cupping my balls while I tried to keep from exploding.

  I never thought getting a blow job in a deserted old boat shed could be so hot. None of my fantasies before had featured the feel of rough wood digging into my back and the smell of sawdust tickling my nose, but they certainly would from now on.

  Zach pulled back to suckle the tip of my cock, and I couldn’t stop myself from tracing the corner of his mouth where it stretched around me. When he glanced up at me, his hazel eyes were filled up with pupil, and he had a look so intense it reached down into my soul.

  He began to work his mouth over me again, and my hand fell to grip the wooden pillar holding me up. Fuck, it was hot to see myself disappearing into those warm depths, to feel the tight crush of his throat as he took me down with an admirable lack of gag reflex. The sensation of him around me made me feel both powerful and vulnerable, and my heart clenched tightly in response.

  “I can’t….” I caught my breath. “I’m going to come if you keep doing that.” Far from releasing me, he redoubled his efforts and went down on me again.

  Fuck. I really wasn’t going to last. Zach was way too good at this, and I had run out of willpower. “I’m going to,” I warned, as my balls tightened and I felt the urgency of my release. In a move that had me groaning, Zach swallowed around me to milk me dry as I finally let go.

  I clutched at the pillar behind me to keep from sliding down. “Fuck, Zach,” I murmured, coming down slowly from that high as Zach pulled my briefs and shorts gently up to tuck me back inside, then rose from his knees to plant a messy kiss on my lips.

  “Your turn,” I said when he drew back, though I could barely stay upright.

  “Or,” Zach said, drawing a lazy line along my jaw with his thumb, “we can hold that thought until we’re back at the house. Where it’s cleaner. And no spiders.”

  I leaned forward to press our lips together. “It’s a date.”

  24

  Zach

  I gazed at myself critically in the mirror and smoothed my hair down. “Are you sure your parents don’t care that we’re going to dinner without them?”

  Lane looked me up and down like I was an edible fashion model. “Even if they did, it would be worth it to take you out looking like this.”

  I glanced down at the dark slacks that I’d been prescient enough to pack along with a casual button-down. Nothing too special, but compared to the shorts and t-shirts I’d been living in lately, I supposed it was a bit dressed up.

  “You need higher standards than off-the-rack men’s wear.”

  “I’m not talking about the clothes,” Lane said, and I found myself taking a cue from his book and flushing at the compliment. Lane really had a knack for making me feel stupidly good.

  “What are you wearing?”

  Lane pulled out a folded pair of khakis and a short-sleeve nautical polo from his bag. “I’m going to be the dressed-down one of the party.”

  “Mm, or my own personal sailor,” I said, eyeing the sailboat pattern of his blue shirt.

  “Just don’t call me skipper.”

  I pulled him to me with an arm looped around his waist. “You understand that now I have to call you skipper?”

  “Ass,” he said, but he was smiling. He put his arms around my neck and looked up at me. When our eyes met, my heart did a funny flip. “Did I tell you how handsome you look?”

  “That’s what all the sailors say,” I said, before lowering my mouth to his.

  Lane’s lips parted and our tongues moved lazily together, the kind of kiss that felt like it could go on for hours. Long hours building slowly and oh-so-pleasurably to the finish line. I wondered if I could possibly talk Lane into staying in instead.

  Just as things were getting interesting, Lane put a hand on my chest and pushed me gently away, his eyes gratifyingly unfocused and mouth red where I’d been kissing it. “I need to get dressed if we’re going to make the reservation.”

  “Reservation, huh?” I watched with interest as Lane shed his shorts and t-shirt and pulled on the khakis and polo, showing remarkable restraint, I thought, in not tossing him on the bed right there. “Just where is this fancy place?”

  “Back in town. You’ll find out the rest when we get there.”

  “Whatever you say, skipper,” I said, grinning at Lane’s glare.

  Dusk blanketed the sky by the time we were in the car driving back into town. Before we reached it, Lane pulled down a winding drive that ended in a parking lot in front of a small building on stilts right on the water, lit by strings of white lights that reflected off the water of the bay.

  A narrow wooden walkway led from the parking lot to the restaurant perched over the water. Wooden planks shifted under our feet as we crossed it, and I put my hand on Lane’s back to steady him until we were on the steadier ground of the restaurant porch and Lane gave our reservation to the hostess.

  Inside, the place reminded me of a cozy lodge. The hostess led us to a table next to the far windows overlooking the water.

  “Not bad,” I said, at the glittering expanse. The restaurant was quiet even though it was nearly full, the acoustics of the place allowing for quiet conversation without the intrusion of other voices humming around us.

  “This place has been around forever,” Lane said, opening up his menu and scanning the offerings. “We can get an assortment of things to share if you like, if you trust me to pick them.”

  “Sure,” I said, closing my menu. I had no doubt Lane knew better than I did what was good here. “Order away.”

  While Lane busied himself in selecting our dinner, I took the opportunity to drink him in. He was so fucking delectable in that ridiculous sailboat-patterned polo, with his blond preppy hair and pink mouth pursed in concentration. I wondered if I could manage to sneak out the back with him to make out in the nearest dark corner.

  The waiter came over and Lane ordered wine and an assortment of food, while I sat back and enjoyed the sensation of being wined and dined by someone who knew what he was doing. I liked this confident, sexy side of him.

  “How’s your dad’s campaign going?” I knew that Lane was volunteering for it but not much beyond that.

  “The polls have him at twenty points ahead of the competition, so it looks good.”

  “Do you think you’ll keep working for him after November?”

  Lane shrugged. “It was good experience, of course, but it’s not really my thing. I’m thinking about giving academia a shot.”

  I could definitely see Lane up on a podium, sexy glasses perched on his nose, lecturing with that sincere, serious gleam in his eyes. “You’ll be the hot professor all the kids swoon over.”

  Lane snorted. “Right.”

  He really was adorably clueless as to how attractive he was. I found that more endearing than I ever thought I would.

  Our food and wine arrived, and the conversation shifted to me, which I supposed I should have expected. Lane raised his wine glass. “How about you? Once you finish school, do you think you’ll stay in D.C. or go back to New York?”

  He’d asked it casually, but it wasn’t a casual question, not with where things stood between us. Not that I was entirely sure where that was. “Honestly, the city’s grown on me. And going to school down here, I’ll have a better shot at law firms here than
in New York.”

  “You don’t regret coming down here?”

  I knew he wasn’t asking about my choice of cities. I’d told him a little about David, but I knew I owed him more than the summary version.

  I drank some wine to fortify myself. “At first, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. If I’d stayed in New York, maybe David and I would still be together. At the time, I thought I wanted that. We were…easy together, I guess. Uncomplicated.”

  Lane was watching me curiously. “What changed your mind?”

  I shrugged. “Time, I guess. The first few weeks were difficult, of course, but if I hadn’t left, maybe we’d still be together, doing the same things, me wondering what was missing.”

  Talking about David had put me in a brooding frame of mind, because I couldn’t lay the blame for it all on him. Maybe David had been right, and moving cities had been my way of signaling I wanted out. But I hadn’t expected him to bail the first time things got hard, either.

  I finished off the wine in my glass. I didn’t want to waste this last night here with Lane thinking about David. When we’d finished eating, and the server came to clear our dishes away and deliver the check, Lane insisted on paying.

  “I suppose that now that you’ve bought me dinner, you’re expecting me to put out,” I said, when the waiter had taken Lane’s credit card away.

  With a gleam in his eyes, Lane said, “Only if you want to.”

  “Then this might be your lucky night.”

  We were almost to the house when I pointed to a dirt road branching off into the woods. “Go down there.” Lane threw me a puzzled look but turned down it, slowing as the car jolted from the uneven road. “You can stop here.”

  Lane stopped and put the car into park. When I unbuckled my seat belt and leaned over to free his, he asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Putting out.” I cupped my hand behind his head and pulled him forward until his mouth met mine.

  As soon as our lips touched, the fire that had simmered under my skin all through dinner flared into life. All my pent-up arousal exploded in one singular need. With my last bit of coherent thought, I reached over to turn the car off, plunging us into darkness.