by Aubrey Irons
Offering me a drink.
Such a terrible idea. Such a very, very very terrible-
“Sure.”
You’re an idiot.
I cram the voice inside of me into a corner as I pull my robe tight and sit back in the chair next to Austin.
He sighs as he takes another sip of wine. “I’m a cheap beer kinda guy, but the house actually came with a cellar-full of this stuff, and let me tell you, it’s fucking delicious.”
My brow shoots up when I glance down at the label. “Wow, nice.”
“I know, right? Who knew wine could taste good?”
“Austin, that’s a 1982 Chateau Lafite.”
“A what?” Austin raises a brow at me as he takes a $500 mouthful of wine.
I shake my head. “You don’t know much about wine, do you?”
He shrugs. “I know it’s killing my hangover right now. Why, do you?”
“I know that’s a four-thousand dollar bottle of wine you’re drinking.”
Austin’s brow shoots up as he holds the glass up in front of his gaze and whistles before he turns back to me with a questioning look. “Okay, explain how the hell you know that.”
I shrug. “My father used to keep some bottles around the house.”
He gives me a puzzled look. “I thought you were broke?”
“I never said I was broke, I just…”
“Don’t have any money?”
I look up and frown at the grinning Austin. “Something like that.”
“But your Dad drinks four-thousand dollar wine?” He snorts. “I think I got hustled.”
I grin, and before I can stop myself, I’m reaching for the wine in his hand. “May I?”
“Hey, what’s mine is yours.”
I stick my tongue out at his smirking face as I take a sip of the absurdly expensive wine, sighing as I let the silken taste trickle down my throat.
“Remember that whole R-Tech thing a while back that was all over the news?”
Austin raises his brow as he takes the wine back from my hand. “You mean the Ponzi scheme?”
“Yeah, that.”
He frowns and I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t believe I’m sharing this.
But for some reason, I want to. For some insane reason, I feel like I should tell my fake husband my real story of my life.
“Yeah, well, that’s my Dad.”
Austin whistles. “Well, shit.”
“Yeah.”
He lifts his hat as he brings a hand up to push his fingers through his mop of hair. “You’re seriously that Ames? As in Walter Ames?”
“Daddy dearest,” I say with a thin smile, taking the glass back from him and bringing it to my lips. “We’re not very close though - not even from before.”
Austin clears his throat. “So you’re what, broke?”
“Yes and no.” I sigh. “There’s a trust fund setup somewhere, but it’s frozen until after the civil trials are over.”
Austin nods. “Wait, didn’t your mom marry your dad’s lawyer or something?”
“Vice President,” I say with a shrug. “And then divorced.”
“And she doesn’t have money?”
I snort. “Oh, loads, but my mother is insane.”
Austin laughs. “Wait, so you’d rather get fake married to a guy you don’t know than ask your mom for money?”
I arch my brows over the glass of wine at him. “Clearly, you’ve never met my mother.”
Austin tosses his head back and laughs deeply, the muscles of his bare chest rippling as he chuckles. “Holy shit, and I thought I had a fucked up family.”
“Feel like sharing?”
“Not really.” He takes the glass of wine back from me. “So, you grew up rich and now you’re marrying a guy for cash. I grew up in a shack and now I’m paying for a fake wife.”
“Eat your heart out, Shakespeare.”
He laughs. “Well, it’s just money.”
This time I’m the one laughing. “Says the man who gets paid an obscene amount of money to play a game.”
He makes a face. “Nah, it’s more than that.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, please. Austin, the whole world revolves around money. Are you going to say you’d just play football for the ‘love of the game’ or something like that?”
“Well, I was, until you blew up my line.”
He winks at me and I hide my blush in another sip of the Bordeaux.
“I love it because it gave me something to hope for, and it got me out of that old life.”
I pass him the glass back. “Right, because of all the money they’re paying you.”
He gives me a wry grin and wags a finger at me. “Touché, but we gotta work on that jadedness, yikes.”
I smile and shake my head. “Not jaded, just a realist.”
“So what’s the deal with this ex-fiancé?” Austin says brightly, changing the subject. “Any more surprises there? Are you in line for a throne or some shit?”
I choke out a laugh. “Who, Vince?”
Austin grins. “Vince? You were prepared to be Mrs. Vinny?”
“Capra,” I say, groaning and shaking my head. “Mrs. Vinny Capra.”
He hoots out another laugh. “What were you, marrying the mob or something?”
Austin jerks his head up when I don’t say anything, and he cocks a brow at me as I shrug. “Wait, seriously?”
“Only in that he and his douchebag friends would throw card games, smoke cigars and quote Goodfella’s all night.”
I decide to leave out the part about Vince’s father’s very real “family” ties.
Austin grins as he pushes his fingers through his hair. “So am I gonna get an angry Vinny at my front door with an offer I can’t refuse anytime soon?”
I roll my eyes. “Doubt it. Unless you try and steal his secretary away I guess.”
“She hot?”
I punch him in the arm as he laughs and holds his hands up. “Kidding, kidding.” He shrugs. “Well, Vin sounds like a world-class douchebag.”
I shake my head and take another sip of wine before passing it back his way.
“You lose track of yourself sometimes, I guess.”
“Well, how he let a pair of legs like yours walk away is beyond me.”
I feel my face blush as his gaze drops to the bare skin of my legs.
“It’s criminal, really.”
I blush bright red as I roll my eyes. “Alright, alright, drop the smooth talk. You already married me, you know.”
He chuckles. “Hey, just saying. Great ass, too.”
I quickly look away to hide the goofy grin and bright red flush on my face.
There’s an arrogance - a bold cockiness to the way he speaks like that to me that I’ve never heard before. It’s flustering, because the way I was raised - every finishing class, every lecture on proper form and polite conversation - tells me I should be getting up right then and storming away from the brash, crude man sitting next to me.
…If not slapping him, for that matter.
Except I don’t want to do any of those things, because there’s something sinfully wicked about the way he looks at me. There’s something about that cowboy smile, and that smug scoundrel look in his eyes that’s totally unlike any man I’ve ever known before.
And it’s exciting.
I swallow quickly as I turn back to him, every intention of pushing the heat from my face and tossing some quip back his way. Except when I do, he’s eased back in his chair, hands clasped behind his back, cowboy hat tilted at an angle, and his legs stretched out and propped up on the low patio table in font of him.
God is he hot.
And just like, that, my vain attempt at not blushing like a scandalized schoolgirl in front of him goes out the damn window.
Because arrogant jock or not, the man lounged out and grinning next to me is gorgeous.
And very shirtless.
Oh, right, and legally my husband.
And I know I should walk
away from this right now. I know I should put one foot in front of the other, smile for the press, and play the part for the next six months. Because all this is is a business transaction, and business transactions do not involve drinking expensive red wine on gorgeous Spanish terraces smelling jasmine and sage.
And they certainly don’t involve criminally attractive football players with dangerously low-slung pajama pants clinging to their insanely well-defined hips.
I quickly shake my head as I forcibly drag my eyes away from the wickedly attractive man next to me. I can feel my pulse beating like a hammer as I reach for the shared glass of wine and take a quick sip from it.
A business transaction, that’s all.
The words sound flat inside my head, because even after saying them three times - repeating them like a mantra - I’m still here. I’m still sitting here on a moonlit Hollywood mansion terrace drinking thirty-four year-old Bordeaux with some insanely hot millionaire football star.
This is how bad decisions are made.
I quickly set the glass down and stand.
“I should go to bed.”
Austin stands, raking his fingers distractingly across that unfairly sexy chin. “Need a hand?”
I blush. “With going to bed?” I swallow quickly, biting at my lip. “I think I can manage.”
“You sure?”
My head snaps back, my eyes darting to his as I just nod. “M-hmm.”
Austin grins. “Okay, I just gotta ask one thing.”
Yes? God yes?
Because part of me wants to say yes to anything this man says. Part of me wants to throw every last bit of caution and level-headed thought right off this balcony and say yes to anything he wants of me.
But then, I might be crazy enough to get married to a man I don’t know for money, but sleeping with him after a transition like that feels…
I shiver.
It feels wrong, and not in the good way.
As wildly attractive the shirtless man in front of me is, saying yes to something like that goes a tad beyond indecent proposal.
“Austin, I don’t think so,” I say quickly, blushing furiously. “That is not part of our-”
“Yeah, not what I was going to say.” He rolls his eyes. “I already told you I don’t pay for that.”
I can feel my whole body buzzing at the proximity to him - standing so close to me, his eyes piercing right into mine.
“I’ve been wondering.”
“About?” I manage to croak out, feeling my pulse skip slightly as he takes a step closer towards me.
“About us taking our clothes off last night before passing out.”
My face burns bright red, and I quickly look down from his eyes. “We didn’t-”
“No, I know that.” His voice is like honeyed leather - deep and rich.
“But we clearly thought about it.”
My breath catches as I glance back up into his face, instantly losing myself in those hazel eyes.
And I might not remember a thing about that part of the night, but I know just from looking into those eyes that he’s of course right.
Of course I thought about it.
God, I’m thinking abut it right now.
I swallow quickly, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Well, at least we had the good sense to pass out.”
“Oh, totally.” He furrows his brow, nodding. “Definitely the right move.”
“Definitely,” I repeat, aimlessly as I start to lose myself in those deep eyes. “That would’ve been a huge mistake.”
He leans close, and I can smell the heady scent of him - like soap and man. I can feel my pulse pounding like a hammer as he grins and brings his lips right against my ear.
“I’m a great mistake, princess.”
Oh, God.
I’m kissing him before I even know what’s happening, moaning hungrily and feverishly into his mouth as I melt against him. His arms circle me, hands sliding across my back and down to grip my ass through the fabric of the robe.
My own hands slide up over his chiseled chest, up to hold his face as I let him claim my mouth. He pushing us back, and I gasp as I feel the stone and mortar wall of the house against my back, the ivy tickling at my ankles as I whimper into his mouth.
He growls into my lips, and I gasp as I feel the throbbing thickness of him pressing against my thigh. The tie on the small bathrobe barely holds as the whole thing threatens to slip from my body. And I’m so close to just shrugging it off, and tearing at the waistband of those pajama pants of his to feel him pulsing in my hand.
And right there, somehow, the last shred of my sanity comes clawing out from behind the mush I’ve become in his arms. And suddenly, I’m gasping for breath and shaking my head as I step back from the magnetically attractive shirtless man standing so close to me that I can feel the heat off his skin.
“We need to go to bed.” I say, stumbling over my words. “Separate ones,” I say quickly, blushing bright red as his eyes flash fire at mine.
His hands are still pressed against the wall on either side of me as he catches his breath mere inches from my lips. “It’s early.”
I look up, feeling my pulse racing a I meet his piercing gaze. “I’m tired.”
I can see him swallowing thickly, and for a moment, I want him to say no. For a moment, I want him to ignore everything I’m saying and just take me, right here against the wall.
But he doesn’t.
He gives one last piercing look before he steps back from me, his arms dropping. “If you insist,” he says evenly, his chest rising and falling.
“Uh, night.” I hastily turn and start to walk as fast as I can back down the wrap-around terrace.
“Night wifey.”
Back in my room, I barely make it under the covers before I’m pushing my fingers deep between my legs. The raw, inescapable and desperate need is like a burn, and the touch of my fingers to my heat is the only balm.
I moan into my arm as my hands find me soaking wet and aching, my fingers dipping slowly through my slickness as I gasp and bring a pillow to my face. My hips arch off the bedsheets, my fingers curling inside of me as my thumb brushes lightly against the throbbing bud of my clit.
“I make a great mistake.”
And there in my bed, with those eyes burning into my mind, and his name on my lips, he’s my favorite mistake. I come with the taste of his lips on mine, the need for his body against mine, and the thrill of the forbidden racing through my mind.
16
Austin
I’m rock hard as I slam the door to my room shut and lean against it.
Fuck.
I swear as I bring the bottle of wine that apparently costs four times as much as my first truck to my lips and take a big slug from it. I swallow, shaking my head before taking another ludicrously expensive mouthful.
I could almost laugh at how perfectly this describes me right now. Me, the blue-collar redneck who finds himself with more money than he knows what to do with, drinking thirty-four-year-old red wine out of the bottle like a goddamn savage. I know enough to get that something as rich, and classy, and fancy as this probably deserves some sort of glass of some kind - something crystal, something that costs a small fortune.
Fuck that, I grumble to myself as I take a third swig.
This was a huge mistake.
On the surface, Derek’s plan has merit, I’ll give him that. And I’m hardly the first professional athlete, or public figure in general, who’s tried to clean up his image with an arranged marriage. Hell, I’ve played with guys who’ve got “marital brand managers” on their fucking payroll - painted, silent, gorgeous women who trot out to smile for the cameras and the Family Magazine interviews and then disappear back into wherever they came from while their husband/employer signs off on another fast food commercial.
Except I fucked up, hard: you’re not supposed to fall for the fake wife.
Shit, that’s sort of the whole point of the thing: it’s fake. Sh
e’s the smile for the media, she’s the cover story while you go out and do the usual with groupies and cheerleaders and all the other fame-fuckers that come with being a star.
So why do I want her so bad.
This isn’t what I thought it was going to be. Well, obviously, we got real married - something I should probably get around to calling Derek about before he has an aneurism. But it’s more than just the piece of paper from the State of Nevada that’s still folded up inside the pocket of my jacket lying across my bed. It’s the fact that we’re barely two days into this whole thing and we’re already way past the boundaries we should have as employer and employee.
Because that’s what we are - at least, that’s what we should be. Not “husband and wife,” not even “friends.”
It’s just business.
Except “just business” shouldn’t get my cock this hard. “Just business” shouldn’t get my pulse roaring like a fucking stadium and my head going blank when the thought of those piercing blue eyes, and that innocent mouth, and those legs for days dance through my head.
Getting drunk and getting married I can handle. Yeah, it’s not ideal for what’s supposed to just be a cover story, but hey, at least now it’s legit in case any gossip magazine starts doing its research for once.
It’s the part that comes after that worries me.
It’s the part where I can still taste her lips against mine in the middle of that Vegas club. The part where I can still feel the heat of her body grinding against mine as her hand snakes up into my hair to pull me in.
It’s the part where we apparently stripped our clothes off and crawled into bed together.
And shit, here I am kissing her all over again, like a fucking idiot.
Because as strange as it is with a woman who’s supposed to be my wife, fucking around with her is what could fuck it all up. Making it more than just an arrangement is how this gets messy, and complicated, and ugly. Fast.
This whole thing needs to be platonic; we need to have an understanding. She’s got a job to do, I’ve got an employer role to fill, and that’s that.
