Accidental Forever: Fake Romance Box Set

by Hazel Parker

  “Devon, this is—”

  “Amazing?” he guessed, cutting off her inevitable praise. “I know. You don’t need to thank me; I just thought it’d be nice to give ourselves a fun night in with some good food. We can watch a movie or something, if you wanted, though I do still have a little bit of work to do. I was going to get to work cooking, so you can just relax.”

  Abby shook her head disbelievingly, still taking in the sight before her. Was it too romantic? It was a little more frilly than usual, but he didn’t mean for it to look so romantic. He’d cooked dinner for Chandra a few times as a “thank you” for allowing him to stay with her, and he’d always gotten her wine to enjoy and set the table nicely, though maybe not with a tablecloth or candles. But…this wasn’t Chandra he was talking about, it was Abby, and something inside his heart made him want to do nice things for her.

  “It’s a lot,” she said. Devon made his way into the kitchen and began to wash the produce, preheating the oven and starting water boiling for the potatoes.

  “It was no trouble, really.”

  She shook her head again. “I think maybe you shouldn’t have done this. It’s too much, and I’m a little uncomfortable.”

  Devon stopped mid-prep. “Uncomfortable?” he echoed. “About what?”

  She gestured, surprisingly, not to the table decorations, but to him standing in the kitchen.

  “With this; all of it,” she replied. “You’re being too nice. I don’t know how to handle it.”

  That, for some reason, made a bit of irritation prickle under Devon’s skin.

  “Too nice?” he repeated. “How does someone even be too nice? Why would that be a bad thing?”

  She shrugged her shoulders, her posture immediately becoming defensive. “I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that you’re cooking me dinner for two when we’re not dating?”

  “You cook almost every night, Abby,” he countered. “I’m returning the favor.”

  “Guys don’t return favors unless they want something,” she accused.

  “What do you think I want?”

  “I don’t know; what do men always want? Sex, I guess?”

  “Newsflash, Abby, we’ve already done that,” he fought. “I clearly don’t have to work that hard if that was all I wanted.”

  Abby flushed bright red. “Are you calling me a whore?” she accused angrily. He wasn’t; he didn’t want to; he didn’t even think that about her, not really. Still, with her standing there so angry for no reason and his blood boiling just as hot, he found himself yelling before he could even think about what he was saying.

  “Well, you sure didn’t need to know me for long before you slept with me,” he shot back. He wasn’t proud of it, and he immediately wished that he could take it back, but of course, the damage had been done.

  “I’m going through something, here!” Abby defended. “I just got out of a serious relationship, and I still have to deal with my ex every minute of the day. So, yeah, I made a rash, dumb decision and had sex with you. Does that make me a bad person?”

  “No, it makes you an impulsive one,” he argued. “Can you answer one question for me? Why do you hate yourself?”

  Abby froze. “I don’t…I don’t hate myself,” she said, her tone now weaker and more uncertain.

  “You must, because why else would you make all these self-destructive decisions?” When she didn’t say anything back, Devon kept talking. “God, it’s like you can’t see two feet in front of your face when you make a choice! You moved in with some asshole that you barely knew, then as soon as you got out of that mess, you slept with me even though you knew that it'd make your best friend hate you. And what the fuck was with that picture you took? How did that seem like a good idea?”

  By the time he finished his tirade, Abby was in tears, but she didn’t let them spill over onto her cheeks. The sight of her, standing in the living room looking so small and alone, made him crumble. He took a deep breath and rubbed his face with his hands.

  “You’re right,” she said softly, and he shook his head.

  “Abby, listen, I didn’t mean—”

  “No,” she shut him down. “You’re right. I push away everyone I care about because I don’t want them to treat me well. Deep down, maybe I think I don’t deserve it.” Devon nodded, trying to accept what she was saying but finding it tough to believe that his angry accusations had hit the mark.

  “You don’t have to say—”

  “I’m destined to be alone forever,” she finished, “and the worst part of it is that I’ve got nobody to blame but myself.” Abby crossed to the kitchen in a few long strides, wrapped her arms around Devon’s neck, and kissed him, long and deep. The shock of it left him breathless, and he set down the potato peeler he was holding in favor of returning her affections. He didn’t advance the embrace, but he didn’t pull away from it, either. She might not know what she was doing, and if this was a self-pitying moment of weakness just like their first time together, he wasn’t sure whether or not she’d want to put a stop to it. After a long moment, she did pull away, looking him in the eyes and breathing hard. The tears that had been sparkling in her eyes a moment ago had dried, and she now looked certain, sincere, longing.

  “You’re going to regret this,” he warned. Abby shrugged.

  “Probably,” she admitted, but that didn’t stop her from tugging her shirt off from the bottom and tossing it onto the kitchen floor to expose her perfect breasts in her plain black bra. She gestured for him to take his shirt off, and despite that he had reservations about getting into all this again, his will power wasn’t strong enough to resist a beautiful, sexy woman standing half-naked in front of him urging him to have sex with her rather than cook dinner. He reached up and pulled his shirt off with vigor, tossing it away and reaching back out to kiss Abby once more while she undid his belt, then tugged down his pants and boxers so that she could sink to her knees in the kitchen and take him inside her mouth. She sucked like she’d wanted to do it for a long time, like she was desperate for him to want her so badly that it transformed into a physiological need. He allowed himself a grunt of pleasure and surprise as her tongue worked on him until he was on the brink of finishing, then took her face between his hands and pulling her back up to his face so he could kiss her once more. Fully erect and throbbing to feel her body beneath his own, Devon scooped Abby up in his arms and carried her this time to her bedroom instead of the futon bed. It was dark in there, and private, which he knew that she found as comforting as he did. He laid her down gently, unzipping the side zipper of her skirt and peeling it down her legs completely. She’d worn sheer, black tights to work that day, and he carefully tugged them down her legs, slowly exposing the skin of her thighs and then the rest of her legs.

  Once she was fully naked, her panties joining the rest of the clothes on the floor, Devon crawled onto the bed on top of her, straddling her hips with his legs and pulling her to the top of the bed so that her beautiful, now-wild hair spread across the pillow. She kissed down his neck so roughly that he was worried for a moment that it might leave a bruise, but he didn’t care. Devon, however, was more careful about Abby’s delicate skin, knowing that any mark he made on her would be visible to all her coworkers the next day and not wanting to put her through that shame. His touches were feather-light, and he forced himself to hold back from the hungry kisses he wanted to give her. The kiss began on her lips and migrated south, traveling across her sharp jawbone and down her neck to her chest, where he made settlement for quite some time. Here, he gave the area the attention she deserved, kissing her so intensely that it was just shy of nipping at her skin like a puppy.

  “I need you inside me,” she demanded. Abby’s back was arched against the mattress underneath her, anticipation coiling her up like a snake. She clearly knew what she wanted, but Devon wasn’t about to give it to her so easily—it would be so much sweeter to her if he teased her for a bit, first. He pressed his groin against hers, imagining the pres
sure of his body setting off fireworks inside of her as she moaned with each thrust. He began slowly, gently, but as she became more and antsier in his grasp, he sped up and increased the intensity. Still, it appeared that it was not enough for her, because she looped her legs around his torso and grabbed one of her heels with the foot of the opposite leg, locking them together so that she could push and pull his body as she pleased. Without wasting even a moment, she took their pace from zero to one hundred, creating a rhythmic, rocking motion that she swayed in time to, as well. Her hips were fully leaving the bed with each thrust that she induced, reaching up for him like she was Tantalus and he was the fruit that was just eluding her grasp.

  “Devon,” she moaned, and upon hearing the hunger in her voice, he decided that he couldn’t stand to deny her much longer. She might tear him apart if he tried, anyway. He was still ready from their session in the kitchen, so finding the right spot wasn’t hard. She was breathing hard and fast, her panting hitching when he found a particularly sweet spot. After only making her endure a few more moments of torturous teasing, Devon finally entered her. She deepened the feeling by arching her back even more, tightening her grip around his torso with her legs and pulling him in for a messy, rough kiss against his neck. He perched on his elbows as he leaned in to press his lips to hers once more, grabbing her hair with one hand, matching her intensity. She was pulsating, he could feel it, and he tried to match the rhythm of her heart with his body, but it was racing too fast even to come close. He hadn’t noticed, but she was still moaning his name, her pitch becoming higher and higher as she got closer to finishing, and the hot desperation of her tone and the satisfaction of her moaning in between allowed him to finish at about the same time that she did. She bit his clavicle lightly as she orgasmed to keep from being too loud.

  Once they reached their crescendo, he began to wind down, slowing down the thrusting and rising back up onto his hands instead of his elbows to look at her. She was glowing with a thin sheen of sweat, her face one of relaxed pleasure, and he pressed a final kiss to her forehead before he rolled off of her and onto the mattress beside her. He laid on his back and wrapped an arm around her protectively, comfortingly. For just a moment, he’d had her, and it was even more electric than the first time they’d slept together.

  “You’re amazing,” Abby breathed, and though he wasn’t sure if she was talking about his whole being or just his sexual prowess, he felt flattered either way.

  “So are you,” he replied. It wasn’t just a thoughtless post-sex compliment—he really wanted her to believe it, though he had a feeling that she didn’t. Would she even be here if she did? If she knew that she could go out into the world again and be treated well by almost any other guy? Did she have to believe that Devon was the only safe place in the world in order for her to want him the way that he wanted her?

  He forced the thoughts from his mind, deciding firmly not to let overthinking ruin the moment. She was with him right now, and that was all that mattered. She’d chosen him once: maybe he could convince her to do it again and again until there was no one else in the world that she wanted but him.

  Chapter Thirteen: Abby

  Ironically, the person that Abby wanted to talk to most in the world about the complicated relationship she was entering into with Devon, was Chandra. However, that was, of course, out of the question. She wasn’t used to navigating these kinds of things on her own, and it showed: case and point, she hadn’t spoken to him about either of the times that they’d slept together, and every time Devon tried to bring up the hot and heavy events of four days ago, she shut him down immediately. What was there to talk about, really? It had been a mistake the first time and a bad decision the second. Chandra already hated her, so it’s not as if she had anything to lose, and her feelings for Devon were becoming…complicated, to say the least.

  He was the first person she saw when she woke up and the person she said goodnight to before falling asleep. She ate every meal with him, some of which he cooked and most of which they ate out. Sometimes, they even did fun things together, like movie nights or trips to arcades or whatever struck their fancy and sounded fun at the moment. It was just a roommate arrangement, she knew, purely practical. It wasn’t at all appropriate to have these feelings for him, even if he weren’t Chandra’s brother, considering they were sort of stuck living together for the foreseeable future. However, that didn’t stop her from wanting to be with him every moment of her day. She’d been worried at first that it might get annoying to have Chandra’s older brother, whom she’d always described as annoying and dorky, around all the time, but she was finding the opposite. She counted down the minutes at work until she could go home to him. She thought about him when she was trying to sleep, sometimes so much so that it gave her the warm, happy kind of insomnia that she hadn’t had in a long time. Most of all, she thought about him when she thought about her future. Every time she tried to formulate a plan for what she’d do once all the Trevor nonsense died down and she could get on with her life, she ended up feeling sad because she knew that it meant that Devon would be moving out and that she’d have to be alone again. At first, she’d just told herself that it was because he made her feel safe, something that was both vitally important and extremely hard to come by nowadays, but she knew in her heart that it was more than that. She wanted him in her future, danger or no.

  “Abby,” a voice called impatiently, startling her from her musings. She hadn’t realized that she’d gotten lost in thought at her desk, but she was supposed to be working.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Rodriguez,” she apologized. “I’m working, I swear. I just got distracted.” He hummed in discontentment but didn’t appear to be angry with her about that.

  “You actually have a visitor in the lobby,” he said irritably. “Some guy’s here to see you.” Abby frowned.

  “Devon?” she asked, but her boss simply shrugged.

  “Be back to your desk in five minutes, or I’m counting this as an extended lunch hour,” he warned, and Abby nodded without really thinking about it. What could Devon want?

  She grabbed her phone and headed to the elevator, checking her cell for texts from Devon to see if he’d left her a message. He hadn’t, which made it all the weirder that he’d come up here without asking first. She couldn’t think of anything she’d left at home that she needed, and she certainly didn’t have anything of his, so she couldn’t think of a single reason that Devon would need to see her so urgently. She started to have a sinking feeling as the elevator reached it’s destination.

  Turns out, he didn’t. The person standing in front of her when the elevator doors opened was not Devon—it was Trevor.

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, wanting to step back into the elevator and call the police but finding that her feet felt frozen to the ground. Trevor was holding a bouquet of roses, much like the ones he’d sent her last week, and grinning. He wasn’t dressed like this was a casual affair, either: he was wearing a black suit and red tie, his hair slicked back like he was going to a wedding. For a moment, she was taken aback by the fact that she’d never seen him look quite so composed. It was jarring to see him in anything but a stained V-neck and sweatpants.

  “Hi, Abby,” he greeted. His voice was relatively normal-sounding, not immediately angry or crazy. “I wanted to stop by to give you these.” She shook her head. Hell no, she thought, get the fuck away from me.

  “No, thank you,” was what she said instead. Her brain felt like it was locked, spiraling and circling over and over around the same thought—danger—like a too-loud alarm was going off and making it impossible to think straight.

  “Aw, come on,” he chastised gently, taking a step toward her that finally allowed her to take a step back. “Don’t be like that. I know you’re mad at me, but—”

  “I’m not mad at you,” she interjected. She wanted to tell him that she didn’t care about him enough to be mad, or that she hat
ed him so much that he was barely even on her radar anymore as anything other than the landmine she had to step around every day. However, when his face lit up, those thoughts died in her throat.

  “You’re not?” he asked, giving her no time to reply. However, his tone clearly wasn’t one of cheerful surprise, but of sarcastic anger and accusation. “Oh, good. Why would I think that you were?” He paused and pretended to think. “I know,” he continued. “Maybe it’s the fake boyfriend that you posted pictures with to make me jealous.” Abby shook her head desperately, reaching out and pressing the elevator call button like her life depended on it. It might, she realized darkly.