Faking It (UnReal #1)

by J. D. Hollyfield

  He sighs in contentment, struggling to continue. I silently high-five myself for the affect I have on his train of thought. I lift again, and he presses his hand to the back of my head. “I get it. I’ll talk. You just don’t stop.” His vision beginning to gloss over. Back down I go, and he continues. “The more people know about you, the more they take advantage—they use. I feel it’s safer not to allow people to know anything that they can attempt to use against me.”

  “Like what?” I murmur into his sexy chest, his smattering of chest hair tickling my lips.

  “Anything. You would be surprised how much someone can manipulate a person with just the simplest information.”

  “Like your secret love for club dancing?” I tease, dipping lower toward the prize.

  His subtle laugh torments me. Because I want—shit, need—that mouth somewhere else. I’m grabbing below the water for his hard cock, when suddenly his hands swoop under my arms sliding me up his hard chest until our noses are skimming.

  “Now, I want to know everything about you.” His voice is like chocolate, melting all over me and causing a sweet sensation to tease my insides.

  “I’ve told you a lot already. Plus, I’m not done learning all I can about you yet.” I breathe gently, my words strangled.

  “There is nothing important to know other than the fact that I have a crazy obsession with this body on top of me.” He adjusts me to place his mouth over my perked nipple. Licking and suckling, before gently pressing his teeth to the tip, the soft pressure igniting a flame down below. Once he is content, he releases my nipple with a pop, maneuvering his head to my neck, eyeing his next assault. He raises his hand, wrapping his fingers around my hair and clasps my locks in between. Gripping with enough force, he tilts my head, allowing him better access.

  “There is not an inch on this body I don’t ache to consume,” he hums going for his target and grazing his nose down the curve of my neck.

  “Every single part of you demands that I take and devour. Make it mine until the moans of your submission become my ecstasy.”

  And poof. My vagina just exploded.

  He makes true on his admission by starting with my lower neck, spreading his lips along my collarbone and stopping every few strokes to nibble at my heated skin. I’m not sure when my eyes shut or who’s moaning, but I soon come to realize the sounds are coming from me and he has me in a passionate craze, like putty in his hands.

  “And I have no idea where you came from, Lexi Hall, but I never want to let you go.”

  Okay I’m done. Toast. And burnt toast for that matter—can’t take the heat, so I burn. I don’t have a smooth comeback or a practiced one-liner. Clearly I’m losing my touch. But what I do have is an aching chest. Don’t forget my aching fucking vagina.

  Focusing on feeding more of my hormonal appetite, I do my best to concentrate on fixing the throbbing in my lower region and ignoring the continuous odd sensation I feel in my heart. Or that unfamiliar pressure in my chest that won’t go away, convincing me that I might possibly be having a heart attack. I’ve heard lines before. Boy have I. But the endearments that continue to fall from his perfect lips are doing something to me. He keeps telling me that he wants more time with me. That he thinks I am perfect. But he doesn’t truly know me. I’m afraid he wants to keep the fake Lexi. The only Lexi I allow people to see.

  “What’s the frown for?” Hunter breaks into my thoughts.

  “What? No frown.” I come back, pushing my thoughts away.

  “You are such a mystery sometimes, Lex.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You seem like you are hiding behind something. You want people to think you are this carefree spirit, but you’re not. You worry. I sometimes see sadness in those eyes. I watch you. Even when you forget to keep the show going. I see it. I know there’s more to you. Don’t hold back. Show me more than just the surface. Show me all the way inside.” He taps his fingers against my chest just over my heart.

  I want to tell him that I’m hiding behind a life I really wish I didn’t live. That I’ve spent so long pretending to want or not want certain things in life that I can’t even remember what I truly do want anymore. That I wish for—no, long for—something more. Something beautiful. But I’m so scared that even if I found it, I wouldn’t know it was right in front of me. Or I would ruin it.

  I don’t say any of this out loud. I stare at Hunter, silently telling him my story. But the thing is, he doesn’t force me. He looks at me as if he understands. They are words I have never spoken but he gets them anyway.

  “Show me the real Lexi Hall,” he pleads, his voice gentle.

  “What happens if you don’t like her?” The sentence slips out before I have a moment to question if it should.

  “I have a feeling I will want to keep her even more,” he ends, a praising smile creeping up his sexy damn face. I decide in that moment to let go. Release the curtains of the fake Lexi act and give him a piece of something real.

  “My real name is Alexandria. My parents named me after the city in Egypt. One of the Seven Wonders of the World.” I remark sarcastically. A place apparently I was also conceived in. blahhh! I cringe every time I think about that fact. “I hated my name as a child. When I was seven, my mom shortened it to Lexi. Mom thought it would be a more marketable name for the pageants. Between you and me, I wanted to rename myself Mystique like nobody’s business.” I sigh remembering my love for all things superhero. “I was a secret comic book junky. Couldn’t get enough of all those female super heroes. Imagined myself being one someday, ya know?”

  Hunter begins to chuckle, digging his nose into the crevice of my neck. “I bet you would make a sexy super hero.” His warm breath is a welcome distraction.

  “Well, I thought so myself. But it was unacceptable to read them, let alone be them. Young ladies didn’t read about geeky boy stuff. They read Cosmo and pageant magazines. Ornesta, our cleaning lady, would sneak comic books in for me. I wanted to be any superhero who could fly for the whole portion of my adolescence. Until I was placed in the pageant circle of course. That’s when I started faking it. Who I was. After that, I just grew out of the geeky stuff and forced my way into the pretty stuff.” I pause, remembering walking into my room while Ornesta pulled my comics out of my trash.

  “You no like? Alexandria, you loved this stuff. Why are you throwing away?”

  “My name is Lexi now, Ornesta, and for real, that stuff is for geeks. Get it out of my room. Your job isn’t to dig though trash is it?”

  Sadness again fills my face as I remember how awful I was to her after that. After all she did for me. In my young age, she was more of a mother to me than my own mother was.

  Hunter is quiet for a long time. I begin to grow self-conscious. Afraid I might have shared too much. “I was Luke Skywalker for six straight years at Halloween,” he finally says.

  “What?”

  “I wanted to be Luke Skywalker with a passion, until I hit puberty. Then I wanted to be Darth Vader. Just so I would have more power to kick a bunch of kids’ asses for making fun of me.”

  I am caught so off guard by his sudden confession. Powerful Hunter James was a Star Wars nerd? “So whatever happened? Did you end up switching sides and kicking ass?” I tease.

  “No, sadly I left for college before I was able to dominate my high school class.”

  “Wait!” I squeal. “You dressed up as Darth Vader all the way through high school!?”

  He clears his throat. “Like I said, I was a fan.”

  I begin to laugh. I feel bad so I try and stop but I catch a glimpse of him and blow up into a fit of laugher.

  “Hey. I thought we were connecting on a special for the force level here,” he pouts, trying to act hurt.

  “Oh, we are. I’m just very impressed how long you made it for.” I begin to calm my laughter, and our eyes connect as my chest settles. “So how did you become you? Mr. Hunter James. The famous secluded artist everyone wants to know abou
t?” I ponder.

  I watch his eyes flash with an emotion I am unsure of before he speaks. “I went to college. No idea what I wanted to study. I put a paintbrush in my hand and I felt free. Capable of anything. I lost myself in a moment, a muse, a script, and I just painted. I didn’t realize I was any good until someone approached me. I still don’t think I am much. But I enjoy it, and I feel alive when I lose myself in my art. It’s what I strive for now.”

  His words are honest and beautiful. To have such a passion for something and be so good at it, I find myself envious. I try and pinpoint something I am really good at. Shit, in my wilder years, it was nothing a mother wouldn’t cover her innocent daughter’s ears if I said it out loud. But being at the gallery has grounded me. It’s allowed me to trade in most of my wild escapades for a different type of passion. A vision for art.

  “You’re pretty amazing, Hunter, you know that?”

  Strong hands grip around my waist, engulfing me in a tight hold as I watch Hunter’s beautiful eyes sear into mine. “It means nothing if I don’t have someone to share it with.” His confession rocks me, his words hammering in my ribcage. I draw in a deep breath, my throat thickening with emotion.

  Still straddling him, I hold his gaze. “I never planned on taking the money, you know.” He responds with a bemused expression. “The million dollars. I would’ve done it without it. I never planned to actually accept it in the end.”

  His arms draw me in closer to him. “I would have paid you five million to stay.”

  I look at him, afraid of what is about to come out of my mouth next but there are questions that are simmering inside, dying to be answered.

  A shiver overcomes me having nothing to do with the water. It’s fear. I’m afraid and I hate the feeling. “What are we really doing here Hunter? Not the sex. Not the painting. But here.” I motion at the space between us. “With us?” I am past the point of being able to walk away from this. And that scares me to death.

  His grip tightens around my hips. “I think we’re creating something. Something beautiful. I think what we have here—besides the amazing sex,” he says with a devilish smirk, “is something I want to continue to explore. Like I told you before, I don’t know how this works, but there’s something about you that makes me feel free. Alive. You give me courage to break out from under this seclusion I’ve spent too much of my life living in. I can’t tell you what tomorrow holds for us, but I hope that you’re in mine.

  I swear he has broken me. I feel the edges of my eyes begin to burn with something foreign which I will chalk up as allergies. I turn my head to nonchalantly wipe away the wetness strangely leaking from my eyes. Hunter grabs my face and forces me to look at him. Into his telling eyes.

  “Stay with me. Say you will just stay with me and see where this goes. A weekend is not enough. I can’t imagine ever letting you go.”

  I’M A FUCKING ASSHOLE. I asked her to stay with me, and she totally shut down. I felt her body stiffen at my plea. But dammit, I want her to stay. Even though it sounds ridiculous. Three days and I can’t imagine not turning that into three years.

  She did a great job at avoiding answering me. I have to give her that. She teased and tormented me until I couldn’t take any more and I fucked her in the bathtub. Once we were done, I carried her to the bed and with our wet bodies soaking the sheets, I did something completely new to me, and I made love to her. It was slow. And passionate. The way her eyes glossed over, her lower lip puckered for my taking and I slowly took every single part of her body into my mouth and committed it to memory. Feeling as if I needed to memorize every inch of her in case this was it for us.

  I still don’t know how to act with her. I want to please her every damn second of the day. I want to make her laugh. Force her to confess all her secrets, and feel like she can trust me. Something I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do ever again. Trust. A simple word that can break a man.

  I think about the first two years I spent in France. The freeness I felt to wander and live life as I pleased. The accomplishments I achieved. I think about all the beautiful art I created while taking up residence in that beautiful country. Until it was tarnished.

  When I was five my parents separated. I was left with my father, an uncaring man who barely showed love for his own wife let alone his son. I was raised in solitude with strict rules. When my father was away on business trips, I would lose myself in childhood fantasies, pretending I was the warrior of my own life. I didn’t need the warmth of my mother’s touch or the approval of my father to be a man. I created my own world in which I was always the hero. I would be okay being alone. The older I got, the more out of place I felt. I knew I wasn’t normal in the social sense. I struggled with conversations. Friends. And when I was old enough, women. I grew to hate my father for the life he never guided me through and my mother for the affection she denied me. It’s when I began painting that I felt again. The excitement for art. I was able to create an emotion with my brush, but stay completely un-phased anywhere else.

  I was beginning to be content with my life. Learning from my mistakes in France. But then Lexi came crashing into my world and conjured up something in me that I am not even sure what it was. Lust? No, it wasn’t just lust. The brain and body do not collide with such powerful emotions for mere lust. It was something I was not familiar with.

  I wanted her the moment I saw her. I just didn’t know why at first. But the more time I spent with her, the more I realized why. Because she was giving me something I never had before. Affection. Happiness. Love, possibly? I had no fucking idea. But it was something I knew I wanted—no needed more of.

  We’ve only been back in LA a short time and I’m already struggling with what’s to come. I’m pissed about the way I allowed my mouth to slip, asking her to stay. From her reaction, she will deny me. I know once I am done with this painting she will leave. And I will be here. Feeling hollow once again.

  My chest feels close to collapsing with just the thought. I wipe the top of my shaky hand across my perspiring forehead. Back in my chair, my muscles ache forcing my brush to the canvas. I haven’t painted a damn thing in in over an hour. I can’t. I can’t give her a reason to leave.

  BACK TO WORK WE go, or back to posing in my case. Hunter and I caught an early flight back to LA, since we didn’t plan on doing any touristy stuff and we could just as easily swap saliva in his penthouse. What we are also back to is my grumpy artist. I admire how focused he becomes when he is deep in his work. It’s as if he gets lost in a different world, and the passionate artist takes over.

  Ever since we broke our deal things have been, well different. More intense. Hunter James is already very intense to begin with, but now? It’s almost hard to describe. I know he’s happy because I catch him smiling on his own without me having to poke. He held my hand the entire route home, tending to my every need. A treatment I was definitely not used to. But there was this other side that kept shining through. Like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. But then again, so was I. This didn’t happen to me. Sometimes I would glance over at Hunter and wonder if he was just going to disappear on me. Our strange relationship, if that’s what you want to call it, has only been live for seventy-two hours. And I know that at some point he is going to finish that painting. The question is what happens then?

  I think about what it would be like to always have someone like Hunter in my life. To wake up next to him, the warmth of his body engulfing mine. To know how much one person can feel consumed by another. To feel his eyes on me always. To make me feel like I’m the only woman he sees.

  He asked me to stay. And I said nothing. His words, I tell ya, dodgeballs. I mean, he can’t want me to really stay this soon, right? Can he? Would I even do so if he was serious? Shit, would I? I can’t just pick up and leave my whole entire life for a guy! That is just crazy talk. Who seriously does that? Ugh. Chrissy totally just did that. Well, she was in love. Then what are you? New Leaf buzzes in my ear. I have no idea! I
n lust maybe? I mean come on, you have to at least be in that with someone like Hunter James.

  Don’t lie to yourself Lexi, it’s more. Oh shut up, New Leaf!

  “What was that?” I said that out loud? Great, now he’s probably going to change his mind before I even come to terms with his offer because he thinks I’m a looney tunes yelling at myself. “Nothing, sorry. Just singing a song.” I play it off avoiding any more nudges from New Leaf all together.

  How about a subject change? Let’s recap a quick second and talk about sex with Hunter. Um, first off holy blessed down below. Definitely had an inkling but didn’t see that one coming. I’m not sure if he thought I was walking slowly through the airport because I was just enjoying my leisurely walk or caught wind of my sore lady parts. My thighs start to clench just thinking about the bathtub, and then the bed. The way he took his time with me, making me feel like I was the only woman alive. Cherished. I felt cherished.

  Waiting to get a mouthful from Hunter for my clenched thighs, I look over and notice he is in a zone. Then I piece together that he actually hasn’t moved his brush in quite some time.

  “Hunter, are you painting or staring?” He flinches and I totally bust him out, since he now looks guilty.

  “What? No, I was trying to focus. You keep moving. I can’t work when you move.” His voice is tense.

  I look at him peculiarly, but he won’t meet my eyes. That’s when I jump up. “What—what are you doing? Stay down there.” No way. Hunter is up to something and his off mood has me very, very interested in what. I make it up to the painting and gasp. Holy amazing. “Oh my God Hunter, it is beautiful.” I stare at myself across the canvas. Hunter grabs at my hips, turning me and placing my body in between his thighs. He presses my naked chest to his as he inhales my scent. Pulling away he lifts his hand to brush my hair away from my face.

  “It’s because you are beautiful,” he says, slowing his stroke, bringing his rough hand down my cheek. The way he is studying me. The way uncertainty shines in his beautiful green eyes.