by Erin Havoc
Christine.
She has the most beautiful, genuine smile I have ever seen. Soulful golden eyes glitter at me through the screen. Her first picture is natural, casual, earnest. She laughs at me. At me.
Fuck, she’s exquisite.
My throat dries up as I stare into her eyes. Big, earnest, full of hope.
Swiping to the next picture, I have to hold myself from gasping. A full-body one. She’s in a button-up shirt and black pants, but the sensible outfit can’t conceal her curves. Fuck, she’s thick. Round hips and heavy breasts, she’s a fucking goddess.
The next picture has her with a dog, and her grin is so bright I can’t help but grin back.
“Found someone you like?” Annie’s voice reminds me of her presence.
“Damn yes,” I growl back, swiping back and forth between her pictures.
Damn, I’ve seen beautiful women before. But Christine? I’m taken aback. My entire body reacts to her, from my thundering heart to…
To my cock. She’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt in the picture with the dog, and it’s enough to make me rock-hard. My dick swells so much it pushes against the fly of my pants, throbbing.
I lean forward, hiding the sight from my sister. She doesn’t need to see this.
“Who is it?” She reaches for my phone, but I pull it back.
“If I swipe right,” I start, not taking my eyes from Christine’s, “her pictures will disappear, right?”
I can feel my sister’s judgmental look boring into me. “Yeah. But then you’ll be able to check other girls.”
“I don’t want other girls.” I commit her last name to memory so I can look her up on other medias, then swipe right. Immediately opening up the search, I type her name and scroll down, looking for her.
Annie clears her throat. “Um, Jasper? What’s the point if you just swipe one girl? If she doesn’t swipe you, you won’t match.”
“She’ll swipe me, I know it.”
Annie chuckles. “Conceited ass.”
But it’s not about being smug. It’s about having a gut feeling.
She bids her goodbyes and leaves. Peter West gets in moments later, trembling like a leaf.
But I don’t want to scream at him anymore. I don’t care he’s fucked up the spreadsheet — I just tell him to do it over, fix the numbers.
I resent every minute between now and the moment I’ll meet Christine. She still hasn’t matched me, but I know she will. Because my body has never reacted like this. This ready. This alert for her.
Fisting my cock, I yank at it. Fuck, I wish she had a bikini picture. I’d be jerking off to that until I passed out.
No, wait. It’s a social media. If she had a picture like that, other men would see it too.
Jealousy covers my stomach like lead. It makes me sick.
Imagining other men touching her makes my heart beat out of rhythm again.
She has to match me as soon as possible. That will be the first step. I’ll ask her out as soon as possible, and we’ll be together before the end of the week.
And I haven’t even read her profile.
She’ll be mine. She just doesn’t know it yet.
Opening the search engine bar again, I look for places to take her. I want to spoil her, take care of her. The intensity of this need aches inside my heart. How hard I want to protect this woman. To make sure she’s happy and fulfilled.
And we haven’t even talked. We haven’t even exchanged words.
Every second between now and the moment I see her pains me.
But she’ll be mine, and I’ll be hers.
This is what I’ve been walking to my entire life.
03
* * *
CHRISTINE
O
dd things happen sometimes.
My best friends made me install Tinder. They made me. Lis wouldn’t let me sleep if I hadn’t installed the app and swiped at some guys. It had all seemed fishy to me.
And I couldn’t stop thinking of a particularly hot man.
Jasper, 42. I mean, he couldn’t be 42 with that body, could he? All ripped from his bulging biceps to his strong back. But I couldn’t see his face. I couldn’t judge his lines of expression or how gray his hair was because his pictures were freaking headless.
Who enters a dating site and cuts his own face from the pictures?
My friends think he was famous. I bet he’s a catfish.
I wouldn’t mind sleeping with an older man if he looked like that. But a man like him wouldn’t want anything to do with me either way. My pictures are honest. Lis did a superb job selecting them. Even the one that’s full-body is sensible and discreet — a picture of me during a wedding, photographing. Dark pants and a button-up. Professional and chipper.
Because that’s who I am. Dedicated to the job. Good grades back in school. The girl that spends her weekends volunteering.
I have always been the goody two-shoes. But this is about to change.
Because Jasper, 42, has matched me. It’s still early, and I’m bundled up on the couch. I’ve heard Lis getting up a quarter of an hour ago and stepping inside the bathroom. I can’t believe this guy has already matched me. Don’t catfishes sleep late on Saturdays?
A message pops up minutes after I turn my phone on.
Jasper: “Princess Bride used to make me laugh until my belly hurt when I was a teenager.”
I blink several times to his message. Squinting, I re-read it.
Princess Bride? Why is he talking about it?
Then I remember I’m not the one who composed my profile.
Quickly switching screens, I get lost around the interface until I find my profile. Lis was generous enough to choose adequate pictures, but my introduction texts reads:
Christine, 22.
I definitely take better pictures than you.
My dog eats douchebags for breakfast.
Also, I’d fight you over The Princess Bride.
Looking for a hot man to collect my V-card.
Mortification makes me gag.
Wait, I thought I had woken up. How did I end up inside a nightmare?
I’m going to kill Lisette.
I turn to check if she’s out of the shower. But of course not. Being an Instagrammer, Lis has to look her best all the time. She’s famous for long showers and taking at least an hour to fix her hair and makeup. If we are lucky.
Deep breaths, Christine. Deep breaths. It doesn’t change that the man I had been thinking about is interested in me. Act cool.
Christine: “You like Princess Bride?”
The cursor blinks twice before his reply pops up.
Jasper: “I sure do. Though it’s been some years since the last time I watched it.”
I have never met someone who liked Princess Bride. Of course, there are people out there, it’s a classic. But no one actively said this to me until now. Unless...
Unless it’s a lie. And he’s using it to get in my pants.
Not that I’d mind it that much. But I have had enough of liars. And this Jasper looks too good to be anything but one.
Christine: “But it’s a kissing movie.”
Jasper: “There are also pirates and swordsmen. It’s ridiculously funny too.”
All right. So maybe he watched the movie.
Jasper: “Besides, I like kissing too.”
Jasper: “I’m rather skilled at it.”
I chortle. Smug.
Christine: “You seem full of yourself. Rather strange for someone who doesn’t show his face.”
Jasper: “It wasn’t my idea. I have been forced into creating a profile here.”
Eyebrows raising in interest, I chuckle. What are the odds?
Christine: “Me too. My friend stole my phone away and created it for me.”
Christine: “But headless pictures?”
Jasper: “My sister had a logic behind her plan. Not that I get it.”
Christine: “It just makes you look like a catfish.”
Jasper: “Catfish?”
Jasper: “I am not familiar with this Internet slang.”
Grinning like an idiot, I accept he’s probably 42. But he can’t have this body and be 42. Something is wrong. I mean, if he is this hot, he wouldn’t have a problem dating, would he?
Christine: “It means you might not be who you say you are. These pictures might have been downloaded from the Internet.”
Jasper: “I see. So you have reasons to believe I am not the man in the pictures.”
Jasper: “Though you are attracted to them. Or we wouldn’t have ‘matched’.”
Who is this guy?
And why am I having so much fun with a possible catfish? Get a grip, Christine.
But after a moment, the messenger pops. With pictures. A bunch of them, his face on display.
My stomach flips. Fire ants crawl my body, from my toes up to my legs, all the way to my face.
Jasper is beyond good-looking. Good-looking is an insult. He’s a god, crafted out of marble by the hands of an expert. From the fine angle of his jaw and nose to his hard, deep eyes. His dark hair is brushed away from his face, and it looks soft as hell.
He does look older, but he’s still ripped in all the pictures. Even the ones where he’s in a suit, his broad frame is obvious. But his pictures are rather serious - speaking in meetings, making toasts. He has a hard face, and the fact he’s making me laugh is offbeat when compared to those pictures.
A thousand words flit through my mind and I can’t type any of them. I’m staring when Lis’s steps enter the living room. Her voice sounds around me but I take no heed, scrolling through his pictures and zooming in again and again.
My heart skips a beat as Lis punches my shoulder. “Have you heard a word I said?”
I blink and have to force myself to pry my eyes from the pictures. “No. Not really.”
She glares at me. “What is so interesting that you’re ignoring me?”
I turn my phone to her. She leans to look at the screen.
Her brows shoot up high in her forehead. “Who is this? Wow, he’s hot.”
My cheeks flare and I pull the phone to my chest, cradling it. For some reason, I don’t want to share him. “Jasper-forty-two. The headless guy from yesterday.”
She nods. “And you complained he looked too much like a catfish, so he sent you pictures?”
“Sort of...” I let it hang, and Lis laughs and turns back to the bathroom.
“All right. If you want to go out with him, that’s your shot. Send him Hazel’s café’s address so you’re safe, okay?”
She picks her makeup bag and starts on her routine as I try to disappear beneath my covers. Hazel’s still snoring on my bed, and I turn to Jasper’s chat once more. He has sent me a couple of messages as I gawked at his pictures.
Jasper: “Trust me now?”
Jasper: “Christine?”
Jasper: “I hope I haven’t crossed some line.”
I don’t know why, but I believe him. I think it’s this strange feeling tickling the sides of my ribs. There’s a certainty about seeing him. It’s almost as if... As if I was waiting for this.
Almost as meeting someone you’ve always known. But I don’t know him. No, we’ve never met. Still, my body reacts strangely to his pictures.
There’s a fire inside me. Low between my legs, in a place I don’t usually feel anything.
What is he doing to me?
Christine: “I’m inclined to believe in you. But you could still have hundreds of pictures of this same hot model on your phone. Which would be outlandish.”
Jasper: “Incredibly so. Criminal even.”
Jasper: “So there’s only one way for you to find out if I’m real or not.”
I know that. Closing my eyes, I search myself for a grain of doubt, of fear. But there’s none. Something tells me he’ll look the same in real life. Something feels right about this.
Also, there’s this tingling inside me that I would love to work out.
My mother would be ashamed.
Christine: “Would you like to have coffee this afternoon?”
* * *
Jasper seemed taken aback by the coffee invitation. He offered ten different other restaurants for him to take me (why did he have a list on the tip of his tongue escapes me). But once I told him I’d feel safer at the café, he agreed.
He agreed that gaining my trust was the sole most important thing now.
Why? Why is it?
We’ve chatted for the next hours, and he forced more smile from me than I’ll ever admit. Jasper seems eager to meet me. I don’t think I’m ugly, but I’m no supermodel. Indeed, I have curves and thick thighs, and I had to learn to love my body. When I was fifteen, I used to hate how heavy my breasts were, but I just grew to accept it all. Even though I have never felt wanted.
Craved.
Then why is Jasper this anxious to meet me? We chatted throughout the morning and it’s impressive how easy it is to talk to him. He makes me laugh, and I’m surprised he’s the serious man from the pictures. Is he for real?
Or is this some elaborate joke? Did the V-card mention on my profile make me sound desperate, or silly?
Lis told me to put fear in the backseat before she left.
I cooked breakfast and then tickled Hazel until she woke up. It took me a herculean effort and two whole minutes not to blurt out about Jasper.
She grinned and cheered me on. We had breakfast, and then she left to open the café.
Leaving me by myself to do my hair and makeup. Horny as hell.
I’m twenty-two and, yeah, I had some boyfriends. But sex has never sounded so appealing as it does now. Maybe because all my dates treated me like less than proper for them. Maybe because Jasper’s keen on making me feel safe.
He’s gorgeous. From his soulful brown eyes to the way he asks my opinion.
But these fairy-tale-like ideas have to go. They’ll jeopardize my adventure.
There’s no such thing as a Prince on a white horse and love at first sight.
Though I am pretty sure I am feeling lust at first sight. Damn, I had to open his pictures and check him out, again and again, just to be sure I’m not imagining the whole thing.
By the time I walk into the café, I’m exhausted. Adrenaline rushes through my veins as I push the door open. My stomach’s in knots as I inhale the comforting smell of Hazel’s cakes. The aroma relaxes me. Looking up, I meet her gaze behind the counter and she winks at me and juts her head to a side.
It’s all right, Christine. You’re safe and sound.
I should be worried about meeting this man. About having a date with a stranger. Everything moved so fast and yet... Yet all I can think about is how his voice will sound like.
He looks so yummy I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t sound like sex.
I’ve arrived ten minutes early, so I can check him out before he gets in. A part of me still expects him to be a catfish, but even so, I dressed to the nines. I put on my best dress, the burgundy one that hugs my curves, revealing my shoulders and collarbones, and paired it with square heels. My hair is in big curls that emphasize the honeyed highlights and I feel like a solid eight which is already more than the usual.
And as I look to the place Hazel indicates me, I spot him.
He’s staring at me, his mouth aghast.
Fuck. He’s real.
Jasper’s real, from his dark soft hair to his angled jaw. He’s in a snug shirt that proves me his biceps are not photoshopped. Heat crosses my face, down my chest. My stomach turns and twists in anxiety.
All right. He’s real. Very real.
What do I do?
Forcing a smile upon my face, I step to him. He stands in a swift motion.
Jasper towers over me. And I’m in heels. He’s also broad-shouldered, making me feel tiny.
And he smells amazing.
This man can’t be feeling the same jittering I am. We’re so different from one another. Even if he’s not a ca
tfish, there has to be a catch. Maybe it’s a convoluted pyramid scheme.
Then it dawns on me. His profile blooms in the back of my mind.
Literally just want to fuck.
I deflate a little. But isn’t that what I want too? I’m on Tinder to fuck. To find distraction, sexy times that do not involve a bullet vibrator and loads of self-pity. I let Lis create the profile because I wanted human contact. Warmth. I wanted rough fingers skimming down the sides of my body and powerful hands pulling me against a hard chest.
Jasper can give me that. If he’s here, he wants it too.
The sex.
Just the sex. I have to remind myself of that.
“Jasper?” I breathe once I’m in front of him.
His eyes rake down my body. Flames dance in his pupils and for the first time in forever, I feel… coveted.
“Wow,” he breathes. Then his mouth curves in a small smile as he meets my gaze. “Fuck, Christine.”
I blink several times, tilting my chin up so our gazes lock. “Is something wrong?” Does he feel catfished? My pictures were honest as hell.
He shakes his head and offers a hand. “You’re even prettier than I expected.”
I take his hand and my body dares to form goosebumps. From a touch. He guides me to the small table and pulls the chair out for me. I sit down, raking my brain after another moment in time where a man did this for me.
None comes.
He sits across from me and his eyes inspect every inch of my face. Gingerly. As if he wants to commit this moment to memory. As if he barely believes this is happening.
