by Box Set
He liked it. He loved it. He never wanted to lose it.
He couldn’t lose her.
Nik swallowed hard as he felt the tip of Aria’s nose touch his abs. Her throat worked around him, hot and impossibly erotic, and he waited for her to pull back and gasp… but she didn’t. Holy shit, she didn’t. She just moved slowly back and forth, sucking him deep and hard, until Nik thought he might die. He might actually fucking die.
And then he realised that she was touching herself. She was fucking that dildo and sucking his dick and rubbing her clit in tight circles like it was the hottest thing she’d ever done in her life—and Jesus, he couldn’t fucking cope with this. “I’m going to come, I’m going to come in your mouth. You want me to?”
He broke off as she moaned, her body arching and stiffening all at once, the hand between her legs slowing, then stilling completely. She was coming, and sucking him harder, and gripping his hip with her free hand as if she wanted to trap him there.
When Nik came a second later, his vision went black.
“So,” Aria said, her fingers gliding through his chest hair. “That was fun.”
If Nik had had the strength, he would’ve sat up; it seemed the only way to stare at her with the appropriate amount of astonishment. At the minute, though, he could barely lift his head from the pillow. In fact, he was surprised he’d managed to stagger into bed at all. “Fun?”
“You didn’t like it?” she asked, apparently innocent. But he knew if he looked down, she’d have one of those sly little smiles on her face.
“Woman. My bones are now 80% fluid.”
“Oh dear. That doesn’t sound healthy.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to come again.”
“How sad for you.”
“It’s okay,” he told her. “The memory of that orgasm will see me through the rest of my life.”
“Good to know!” She rose up on her elbows and grinned at him, swooping down to kiss his nose. Then her smile faded into something softer. Her hair, still damp—like the rest of their bodies—spilled over his chest. She brushed her lips against his, all pillow-soft skin and that little ring of silver.
Nik reached up to stroke her face, his heart swelling as he looked at her.
“What?” she asked softly.
“I love you,” he replied. Because it was true. Because she must be able to see it anyway. Because it shone from him brighter than a thousand suns, spilling out like champagne.
Aria’s brows flew up, her eyes widening, her mouth hanging open. But that was okay: surprise was only to be expected. As long as she didn’t jump out of the window or anything, they’d be fine.
Nik threaded a hand through her hair and pulled her closer. “It’s okay. You don’t need to freak out.”
She blinked rapidly before laughing, “Don’t I?”
“No.”
“Do you always say that after blowjobs?”
He rolled his eyes. “No. I loved you before the blowjob.”
“Well, that’s nice,” she said slowly. “Do you… um…” She actually looked nervous, but he couldn’t understand why she would be. “Do you think it’s possible, then, to love someone after a week? Well, six days.”
“Of course.” He sat up slightly, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I’ve seen it happen before. Plus, my father fell in love with my mother at first sight. And for me… well, I don’t think it has been six days. I think I fell in love with you the night we met.”
Aria sucked in her cheeks, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.” He drew out the last word with a grin, and she smiled back. This was going way better than he’d expected.
Aria rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide her pleasure. She was happy. She was happy that he loved her. “This isn’t a competition, you know.”
“But if it was,” he said solemnly, “I would be winning. Because I’m right. And because I fell in love first.”
“First?” She arched a brow. “Who says I’m going to fall in love at all?”
His smile didn’t falter as he ran a finger over her shoulder, tracing the fine, swirling lines of ink. “Of course you are. I’m handsome and funny and charming—ow!” He scowled as she flicked his forehead, hard. “Do you mind? I’m trying to list my many excellent qualities, here.”
“Don’t bother,” she said dryly. “I’m well aware of all your qualities.”
“My excellent qualities.”
“Sure, babe.” But she was laughing now, the sound easing away the tension he’d been carrying. She seemed quite content to stay here, wet and naked and in bed with him.
Perfect.
“Well,” she said finally. “I suppose you can love me, if you like. As long as you don’t need me to…” She trailed off, frowning suddenly, her tongue fiddling with her lip ring. “I mean, at the start of this week, I didn’t even want a relationship. But I—I like you more than I’ve ever liked anyone. I mean, seriously, you have no idea. I wasn’t even this into my husband.”
He tried not to grin and pump the air. It seemed inappropriate. And slightly juvenile. And definitely not an accurate representation of the joy bursting in his chest; to display that properly, he’d have to set off some fireworks.
“But,” Aria went on, “I need to go slow. For myself. I know you do everything instantly and you’re always so sure—”
“Hey,” he cut in gently, bringing a hand to her cheek. “It’s okay. I didn’t say it to pressure you. I said it because it’s how I feel, and I want to be honest with you. I always want to be honest with you, agapi mou.”
She huffed out a laugh. “I really need to start learning Greek.”
“I’ll teach you.” He kissed her, his tongue gliding against hers before they pulled away. “‘Agapi mou’,” he murmured, “means ‘my love’.”
She smiled. “How do you say, ‘my hot piece of—’”
Nik covered her lips with his again—only it was more of an awkwardly perfect laughing-into-each-other’s-mouths moment. Then she climbed on top of him and deepened the kiss with a blunt certainty that set him alight. This fucking woman.
“Wait,” he panted, pulling away.
Why was he pulling away? He wasn’t sure. His cock, especially, wanted an answer, because it had been ready to try for another round already. What a soldier.
Oh, yeah; that was it. They couldn’t have sex yet, because he wasn’t finished.
“I need to tell you something else,” he said. “Actually, it’s kind of a confession.”
A slight frown furrowed her brow. “What?”
“Well… like I said, I think I fell in love with you the night we met.”
She nodded slowly. Was he imagining things, or did she seem slightly tense in his arms, suddenly? He wasn’t sure. He was probably just nervous, so he’d better spit this out.
“I knew I was having strong feelings, but I was hesitant, I suppose, to label it? I just knew I wanted you. I really wanted you. In bed, yes, but… like this. Like it is now. So, the next morning I went to find you, but you didn’t seem open to dating.”
“Okay…”
“And then you brought up the—you know, the human shield thing. That whole, ah, concept.” Nik’s heart, for some reason, was pounding. And not in a good way. He wasn’t used to being nervous about anything other than work. Fuck, after all these years, he didn’t even get that anxious before a match; because he was confident, because he trusted himself, because he took things as they came.
But he wasn’t confident about this, and he couldn’t just take whatever outcome the universe threw at him. There was only one ending to this conversation that he could cope with: Aria deciding that, even though he was a complete prat, she didn’t really mind. Or, at least, didn’t mind enough to, say…
Leave him. Forever.
Christ, why had that possibility only just occurred to him? Now, w
hen he was teetering on the precipice of confession?
“Well, I saw an opportunity,” he said, “so I took it.”
She stared. And stared some more. And Nik became uncomfortably aware that he should say a hell of a lot more than that—that he should explain fully, explicitly, and that he should apologise. Except he wasn’t even sure if he was sorry.
Yes, I lied to you and brought you here on false pretences, but since you’ll be able to start your tattoo shop now, and since the whole plan worked and we’re together, and since I love you to fucking distraction, I really don’t regret it. I feel bad about it, but I don’t regret it.
Did that count as an apology? Nik wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to make one.
Finally, Aria spoke. But the words were narrow, almost shrunken, her lips barely moving.
“Are you saying that… that you didn’t need…” She stopped, sucked in a breath as if steadying herself. And Nik’s heart, which had been warm and soft and melting like ice cream, began to cool into something cold and tough.
Finally, she said, “You didn’t need a fake girlfriend.” She spat out those last two words as if they were a curse, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “Of course, you didn’t. Of course, you didn’t. Stupid, Aria, fucking stupid—”
“Love—”
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, her eyes flying open to reveal a look he’d never seen before. Not from her, anyway. Never from her. She scrambled out of his lap and off the bed, her face hard. “You made it up. You made it all up just to get me out here and… what, seduce me?”
“Well,” he allowed, “when you put it like that, it sounds pretty—”
“Dangerous,” she said, the word passing her lips like a ghost. “It sounds dangerous. You’re…”
Nik felt every ounce of blood drain from his body. His mind searched frantically for ways to control the situation, to fix that haunted, fearful look on her face, to make her see that it was okay. “This was never dangerous, Aria. Everything you thought was happening here, that was real, I just didn’t get the idea until—”
“Until you needed a way to trap me,” she finished, striding over to the wardrobe. He could see, in its reflection, that her look of horror was gone. It had been replaced by a grim determination that sent a chill of fear down his spine.
“Aria. I didn’t trap you.”
“You lured me over here with all your fucking money, so you could have a chance at screwing me,” she clipped out, “because you knew that if you asked, I’d say no.”
“You still could’ve said no,” he burst out, rising to his feet. His words tumbled over each other, rapid as the beat of his heart. “I just wanted to be around you. But this happened between us because we’re good together—”
“This happened between us,” she said, shoving on a T-shirt, “because you wanted it to. Because you orchestrated it when you paid me to fawn all over you for a week and sleep next to you—God, I’m pathetic,” she ground out.
Nik threw up his hands. “How are you pathetic? Don’t say that!”
“Don’t tell me what to fucking say! I’m pathetic because I’m so bloody desperate for affection that I confused fake feelings with actual emotions. I’m pathetic because this whole ridiculous plan worked, and you brainwashed me into wanting you!”
“Aria.” The word fell from his lips like a dry, dead autumn leaf. A jagged look of pain crossed her face, and he stepped forward, needing to comfort her.
But she held up a hand and said, “Don’t. You stay right the fuck over there.” She yanked a skirt up her thighs. “Jesus, what is wrong with me? Do I just scream ‘easy mark’?”
He’d never felt so helpless in his life. “What the hell are you talking about? I love you!”
“I’ve loved a lot of people myself,” she said. “But I didn’t care about them very much.”
“What does that mean?”
She gave him a sad smile. “It means I want to go home. Now. Without you.”
Chapter 18
Aria’s best friend opened her fancy front door and beamed. “You’re home!”
“Hey, Jen.” Aria tried for a smile. She could tell, even without looking, that it was more of a pained grimace. Maybe because she’d cried so much on the journey home—first in the car with Georgia, then alone on the plane, then awkwardly not-quite-alone in the taxi. Perhaps her face was stuck in a frown, now.
Or maybe it was just hard to fake happiness when it felt like your chest was cracking open. She should’ve gotten that hole looked at, back when she was in therapy. Before Nik came along, and saw it, and used it, and broke her in two.
“Wait,” Jen said as Aria stepped into the house. “I thought you were due back tomorrow?”
“I was.” Aria dumped her luggage. She hadn’t been home yet. She couldn’t go home yet. “Jenny. I… I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Jen stepped forward, frowning, and pulled Aria into a hug. “What’s happened? Why do you look so…”
The awkward way Jen trailed off almost made Aria laugh. In fact, she managed a bitter puff of air that might have been a chuckle. “So terrible?”
“Oh, no,” Jen said firmly. “You don’t look terrible. You’ve got a cracking tan.”
This time, Aria did laugh. Even though it hurt her head and her heart. Even though it felt unnatural, as if she’d never done it before. Even though tears were streaming down her cheeks again. That, Aria supposed, was the power a best friend held.
She buried her face in Jen’s soft cloud of hair and admitted, “I lied.”
“Oh,” Jen said, her voice suspiciously high. “You did?”
“Yes. I didn’t go on holiday with some weird new boyfriend you’ve never heard of.” Aria pulled back and met her friend’s gaze as she confessed. “I went on holiday with a professional footballer who hired me to be his fake girlfriend.”
“Goodness me. Um… let’s go and sit down, shall we?” Before Aria could process that suspiciously calm response, Jen grabbed her hand and tugged her through the house.
“Aria’s home!” Jen trilled to her husband, Theo—who was sitting in front of a perfectly good TV, reading the paper. The finance section, of all things. Aria really did wonder about that man.
“Hello,” he murmured absently. “How was your trip?”
“Terrible,” Aria replied, plopping down onto a nearby sofa. “I was just telling Jen how I lied to everyone about my new boyfriend. He was actually one of Keynes’s bonkers rich friends and he hired me to protect him from sex at a Spanish house party.”
“Wow,” Theo said. And turned a page.
Aria glared at Jen, jabbing a finger through the air. “I knew it. You knew!”
“No! Nooo, noo, no. Okay, yes. Sorry.” Jen scowled at Theo—or rather, at his paper. “I wasn’t going to say anything. It’s all supposed to be a secret, isn’t it?”
“But…” Aria rubbed her temples. This was, quite frankly, one surprise too many. She was on the edge. She was past the edge. She’d flown past the edge less than ten hours ago, when a man she’d trusted, a man she’d—
That’s enough of that. Pull yourself together.
Swallowing down her bile, Aria asked, “Who told you?”
“Theo,” Jen said promptly.
“And how the hell did you know?” Aria demanded, glaring at the newspaper in front of Theo’s face.
He sighed. “Keynes told me. Obviously. He did say not to tell anyone…”
“But you blabbed anyway? Jesus, man, you’re sixty years old and you haven’t learned to keep your mouth shut?”
Theo finally lowered the paper, his eyes narrowed. “Aria. I am not sixty.”
“Whatever. You’re supposed to be the mature one in this group!”
“Jennifer is my wife,” he sighed. “I don’t hide things from my wife.”
“I always want to be honest with you, agapi mou.” Ruthlessly, she shoved that traitorous memory aside—and shoved her heart aside to
o, since it couldn’t be trusted. Since it clenched every time she remembered that accented voice feeding her sweet bullshit, those gorgeous eyes lying to her.
“Well, what the fuck is Keynes’s excuse?” she huffed. “You’re not his husband.”
“If platonic marriage existed,” Theo said reasonably, “I would be.”
“Piss off.”
Jen rubbed a soothing hand over Aria’s back. “It’s really not that big a deal, love. I understand why you kept it to yourself. And God, I was relieved when I found out!” She gave an airy little laugh. “I mean, at first I thought you’d really fallen for some random stranger—” Her sentence cut off abruptly, but Aria had known Jen for almost twenty years. She knew what her best friend had been about to say.
Again. I thought you’d fallen for some random stranger again.
Fuck.
This time, when the tears returned, they weren’t the kind she could hide with a hug and a surreptitious swipe of her eyes. This time, they ripped her apart.
“She came home early, and now she won’t stop crying! I said crying. Yes!” Theo was trying to be quiet, she could tell. But when he got really angry, his voice sort of expanded like a balloon. It floated in from the hallway, reaching Aria’s ears without trouble.
She was alone in the living room, sobbing silently now, but the lack of sound didn’t make it any less embarrassing. Jen had run off for tea. Theo had run off to ring, Aria assumed, Keynes.
“You better call that motherfucker and find out what the hell he did. I know. I know. Call me back.”
He returned a second later with an expression of polite concern. “Well,” he said, his awkward tone a world away from the whip-sharp words she’d just heard. “You seem… better.”
Less hysterical, he meant. She was saved from drumming up a reply when Jen bustled into the room with a mug in each hand. She speared her husband with a glare and ordered, “Out.”
