My (Mostly) Fake Wedding

by Bloom, Penelope

  So I took all that rage I felt swirling around inside and tried to let it seep out of me. I’d talk to her when she woke. In calm, soothing tones, I’d ask her about the picture and give her a chance to explain.

  At least that was the plan.

  17

  Belle

  I woke up with a startled intake of breath. I sat up, then pressed my palm to my forehead and groaned.

  Headache.

  Horrible breath.

  The events before I’d passed out came rushing back. The bottle of wine I’d nearly polished off by myself was still on the coffee table, and-

  I let out a little shriek. Chris was sitting in the loveseat across from me. He looked sweaty and… weird.

  “What is going on?” I asked. “Why are you so sweaty?”

  “I went for a run.”

  “You’re not wearing shoes.”

  “I ran around your apartment.”

  I didn’t really feel like laughing, but the idea of his huge frame bounding around my apartment in small circles was highly amusing. “Wait. Don’t you have a game today?”

  “Tonight.”

  I nodded. It was strange to think about Chris as the NFL player. I guess part of my brain set that entire half of his persona aside because it was too much to comprehend. Too much to really think about how a global superstar athlete was becoming so entangled in my life.

  “Why did you run around my apartment?” I asked.

  “To vent my anger.”

  I frowned, then thanked him when he handed me a glass of water, which I proceeded to chug. “Why are you angry?”

  Chris pointed his phone toward me. “I thought about going to murder this guy while you slept, but figured I’d give you a chance to explain before I end his life.”

  “Oh shit.” It was the picture the guy at the coffee shop had snapped. I knew it was going to look bad, which had been part of what had me so upset in the first place. But between Chris waiting for me in my apartment when I came back and all the wine, I’d completely forgotten. “Is it too cliche to say that isn’t what it looks like?” I waited for Chris to shout at me. I’d been with enough guys to know how this was going to go. I could probably have written the script with my eyes closed. He’d accuse me of lying, go start some drama with the other guy, and gradually get more and more suspicious of me until neither of us could stand each other anymore.

  Except all Chris did was let out a long sigh and sink back into his chair. “Oh, thank God.”

  I waited. “That’s all?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You believe me?”

  “Shouldn’t I?”

  “I mean, yes? I just didn’t think you would.”

  Chris walked over to me, planted a kiss on my forehead, and then playfully pushed me back down to lay where I’d been sleeping. “I’m going to go get you something to eat and drink. Then I’ve got to be at the team facility.”

  “Okay,” I said, not really knowing what else to say.

  Chris came back a little while later with a blueberry bagel, some cream cheese, a raspberry brittany, and a steaming cup of coffee. He also handed me two pills and told me to take them.

  I eyed the pills in my palm. “Are these aphrodisiacs or something?”

  “They are for your hangover. And those diamond cutters you call nipples have already shown me I’ve got all the natural aphrodisiac power I need when it comes to you.”

  I swallowed the pills to avoid having to respond to that. “Thank you, Chris. And I’m sorry about last night. I don’t normally drink. Not like that, at least.”

  “No? You should try it more often. You say some hilarious shit when you’re drunk. What was it you called me, Big Daddy? And for the record, Big Daddy absolutely would’ve loved everything you tried to get him to do.”

  I swallowed, but my mouth felt bone dry. “You’re making that up.”

  Chris bit back a smile as he backpedaled toward my door. “Nope. Thankfully, I’m not. So I learned a lot about my future wifey last night, including the fact that the only thing keeping her from turning full blown sex-fiend on me is a thin veil of inhibitions. Lucky for you, I’m a gentleman, so Big Boy didn’t let you go for the ride you were begging to take.”

  The door closed, but then Chris popped back in. “Oh, one last question. A pickle went missing after I broke into your apartment for the first time. May I ask whether that pickle entered your body via your mouth, or…”

  “Chris!” I said, clutching my temples. “Put yourself on the other side of that door and close it.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “Leaving me to guess, huh? Dangerous proposition for a man with a powerful imagination.”

  I felt like I needed to breathe into the paper bag my bagel had come in. Mercifully, Chris left so I could wallow in shame and embarrassment alone.

  I put my hand to my forehead, wanting to curl up and pretend I didn’t believe a word he just said. Except little glimpses of it were coming back to me. I could even see the way he was looking at me like it was taking everything in him not to die of laughter as I tried to crawl on him and said all kinds of ridiculous things.

  I took my frustration out on the bagel and the brittany, which were both delicious. I shot off a text to Val, because I’d reached the point where I desperately needed some girl-talk to make sense of everything.

  Twenty minutes later, Val was rummaging through my kitchen for something to eat while we talked. “Why don’t you have eggs like a normal person? Your entire pantry is just a bunch of different brands of kid’s cereal.”

  “Kid’s cereal shouldn’t taste so good if it has a problem being a cornerstone of my diet.”

  Val snorted, then settled for taking a few handfuls from a random box. “So you basically called for an emergency conference with me. Spill it. Whose dick did you suck and why has it cast your life into chaos?”

  I filled Val in on everything that had happened since my last series of texts to her, then waited while she chewed a mouthful of crunchy cereal. Her face was scrunched in thought.

  “I’ve seen you drunk. You’re not usually a horny drunk.”

  “Unfortunately, I think I really do like the guy. I’ve tried as hard as I can not to, but it’s like this little red freckle I had when I was younger. I scratched it off, then it grew back even bigger. I scratched it off again, and it came back bigger. So I stopped messing with it and it still got bigger until I finally had to get it surgically removed.”

  Val was squinting. “You’re saying you tried to rub Chris Rose off, and he got bigger? I think that just means his sexual organs are functioning properly.”

  I groaned. “Are you here to help or play stand-up comic?”

  “Both. And if you’re trying to imply you’d like me to ‘surgically remove’ Chris, I charge way more for assassinations than you can afford.”

  “Val!” I cried out somewhere between amusement and frustration. “I’m just trying to say that I’ve tried not liking him. It doesn’t work. So I’ve either got to give in and hand over my heart, or accept that I like him but keep fighting it with everything I have.”

  “Dramatic, much? And you do realize feeling for someone isn’t a choice, right? You think you’re deciding whether to feel or not, but all you’re really doing is deciding whether to be honest with yourself. And him.”

  I laid back on the couch, covering my eyes. “I hate when you say things that make sense.”

  “You hate it so much that you can’t live without my advice. I know. Dr. Val is here, girl. And you know what Dr. Val prescribes in this case?”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “The Big Bang. You’ve got to give all those hormones in your system somewhere to go. You two already hooked up once, so the precedent has been set. Just one more meaningless hook up to clear your mind, and then you’ll be able to think straight. If you still feel all gooey when you think about him after that, then you’ll know it’s probably legit.”

  I rolled my h
ead to look at her. “You want me to casually propose that we have sex? You really think that would work without giving him the wrong idea?”

  “I think it sounds like he’s probably just as desperate for a pressure release as you are. Set it up for him. You don’t have to specifically say what you want or why. But arrange for it to happen.”

  “Arrange for it to happen?” I asked dryly. “I’m not some seductress. How am I supposed to do that?” I paused, then shook my head. “Also, I’m totally not agreeing to do this, for the record.”

  “Hey, the guy is technically your fiancé. It’d be weird if you didn’t sleep with him once in a while. And remember? Even if things get messy, you two have an end date. He gets his contract, and he’s going to put an end to the whole thing.”

  “Okay, so, assuming I’ve lost my mind and I want to follow through with this plan of yours. How would I seduce Chris Rose?”

  “Oh, it’s simple. I’ve got about twenty options. Here’s the first…”

  18

  Chris

  I got in my car after the game feeling shitty. We lost, and partly because I’d fucked up in the second half. Normally, my head was clear on the field. It was like turning on some sort of autopilot. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

  Tonight, though. I couldn’t get out of my own way. My thoughts kept circling back to Belle. I was seeing her just before I took the snap. I was wondering what she was doing while three-hundred-pound linemen tried to tear my head off.

  And it had showed. I could already imagine coach ripping into my horrible performance in tomorrow’s meetings. Of course, it all came right after coach reminded me that my results on the field were the only thing keeping me around.

  But my mood immediately improved when I got a text from Belle. Apparently, there was a huge spider in her bathroom, and she couldn’t get out of the shower because it had her pinned.

  Boner.

  I had to re-read the text a few times to make sure my brain, which had just been jostled around for a few hours, wasn’t malfunctioning.

  Belle Waters was currently naked in the shower and asking me to hurry to her apartment to kill a spider. Hell. Yes. One of the perks of living in a dicktatorship was that, when called upon, the dicktator had the ability to declare nothing else mattered but his satisfaction. This was one of those moments, and I was happy to hand over the controls, especially if it meant forgetting the slaughter I’d just led my team into.

  I pushed my car to the limits getting to her apartment, which mostly meant revving my engine in New York City traffic and then gunning it about ten feet before having to stop again.

  I took the stairs three at a time getting up to her apartment, then picked her lock to let myself in. I could hear the water running as soon as I came in.

  “Belle?” I called out.

  “In here!”

  I made my way to the bathroom. I was expecting to find a small spider. Maybe something the size of a dime. I knew how women could be. Any little bug was a cause for meltdown, and they needed the power of a fearless man to resc-

  I stopped in my tracks as soon as I saw what was on the floor of her bathroom. It was at least the size of my hand, hairy, and looking straight at me.

  “What the fuck is that thing?” I demanded, inching back to the door.

  Belle was standing behind the glass door of her shower, which was fogged so thickly all I could see was the outline of her body. It was enough to send blood rushing below my belt, though. It was also enough to help me overcome a little bit of my terror at the sight of the eight-legged beast between us.

  Come on, Chris. It’s just a stupid spider. You can handle this. You’re not even scared of spiders.

  I walked into the bathroom, gathering my balls. “Do you want me to kill it, or is this a capture and release operation?”

  “No!” she shouted suddenly. “Don’t hurt it. Just, I don’t know. Get it out of here very carefully?”

  Somehow, I knew she was going to say that. I took a step toward the spider, then it started scrabbling toward me with unnatural speed. I jumped over it, then tried to run toward the shower for safety. I yanked on the door without thinking and stepped in, getting immediately soaked by the hot water.

  There was complete silence except for the patter of water against my clothes.

  “Okay,” I said, still not turning to look at the fully naked woman beside me. “This is going to sound unlikely, but I didn’t plan to come in here.”

  Belle inched backward so she was behind me. “It’s okay, just… Can you please get him?”

  I hadn’t expected her to handle this so well, but I did need to be realistic. You can’t just rush into a woman’s shower and power fuck her against the tiles because she didn’t scream when you entered. At least I was pretty sure you shouldn’t do that sort of thing.

  All I needed was self-discipline.

  I knew self-discipline. I couldn’t even count the times I’d dragged myself out of bed hours before any sane person would be awake to work out. The thousands of hours I’d spent watching game film. The countless repetitions throwing the ball. It took self-control most people probably couldn’t even fathom to do it all day after day.

  And yet, I wasn’t sure I had enough willpower to stop my head from turning. To stop my feet from turning. I could practically feel her just inches behind me. I could remember how good it had felt to sink myself into her. Feeling her warm walls around me, gripping me. The sound of her heavy breaths and the brush of air on my neck as I took her on the airplane.

  “What are you going to do?” she whispered from behind me. She’d put her hands on my shoulders, like she was using me as a shield.

  Probably die of explosive blue balls if this goes on much longer. “I don’t know. What should I do if I can’t kill it?”

  “Scare it away, maybe? Just don’t kill it.”

  “Don’t kill it? How do you expect me to get it out of here? What do you want me to do, punch it in the kidney until I knock the thing out cold?”

  “I don’t know, Chris! But I’m not getting out of this shower when that thing is just staring at me.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll try to hurt it just a little. One sec.”

  “Chris!” she said, trying to hold me back by my shoulder.

  I opened the door, then stuck my head out. The little monster tip-taped around to face me. I glanced at the counter and spotted a bottle of hairspray. I made a wet, sloshing leap for it. My shoes, which were soaked, slipped and sent me crashing into the counter. I spun at the last minute, grabbed the hairspray, and unloaded a long shot at the little bastard.

  It flinched away from the barrage and scuttled to a corner of the room. I dropped the bottle and let myself back into the shower.

  As much as I wanted to be a gentleman, my eyes may have betrayed me a little and caught a glimpse of Belle’s body as I came in. She was covering herself with one arm across her chest and another between her legs, but it was enough. Fighting a spider with all the extra blood diverted to my cock was probably not making for the best use of brain power.

  “What did you do? I couldn’t see through the glass.”

  “I tried to kill it with hairspray.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No. But its hair looks amazing now.”

  Belle laughed. “What kind of spider was it? Did you get a good look?”

  “Oh, yeah. We really spent a lot of time together. I got to know him. The guy seems nice. I think he’s a web designer.”

  I could feel Belle glaring at my back. “I really want to look and see your face right now, but I’m trying to be a gentleman.”

  She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “What if I don’t want you to be a gentleman? Just this once.”

  I had to replay what she just said a few times to make sure I’d heard her right. “I want to clarify before I do something I can’t un-do. You don’t mean you want me to lay my coat over puddles or something, right?”

  Belle put h
er hand on my shoulder and turned me around to face her. Her hair was wet and pressed back, and her body was dotted with little beads of water and rivulets that ran down her curves.

  “Yeah,” I said, practically feasting on the sight of her. “I have to admit this was exactly what I thought was going to happen when you sent that text.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. But I’ve also imagined every encounter we’ve had since the airplane leading to this. So I’m like one for fifty.”

  She gripped the front of my soaked belt and tugged me toward her, kissing me.

  There were several sarcastic “dad” level jokes bouncing around my head in the moments before our lips met. Most of them went to their graves without ever earning the eyerolls they deserved, though, because I didn’t want to fuck things up.

  Shower sex, in my expert opinion, was highly over-rated. So I lifted her by her spectacular ass, got two firm handfuls, and then backed us out of the water.

  “The spider!” Belle stopped kissing me to try to hold onto the shower frame.

  “I won’t let him get you.”

  “You could barely look at him a few seconds ago, now you’re not scared?”

  “If I didn’t seem scared, would you have let me in the shower with you?” I paused, clearing my throat. “Probably shouldn’t have admitted that, huh?”

  “If you promise to stop talking, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it.”

  “Great. Let’s go to your bed.”

  “Your clothes are soaked! At least take them off before we ruin my carpets.”

  I did as I was told, because the golden rule of naked women was that you did exactly what was needed to keep them naked. It wasn’t a time for debates or compromises.