Faking It

by Christina Ross

  He’s bigger than he looked, I thought as my hand tightened around him and our lips parted. How am I ever going to take him?

  And then I knew.

  The longer this goes on, the more I’ll be open for him when he finally enters me.

  “My bra,” I said. “Would you take it off?”

  “How about this first?”

  He claimed my lips with his own, and I felt his tongue plunge into my mouth as he reached around and gently grabbed the base of my neck so he could pull me closer to him. As we kissed, I felt our souls intertwine.

  “Turn around,” he said when the kiss ended.

  I turned, felt him deftly unfasten my bra, and then watched it sail across the room in a brisk shadow of farewell. With my breasts freed, I leaned my back against his rock-hard chest as his warm hands cupped my breasts. When he pinched my nipples, my head reared back in delight, and I heard a low moan of pleasure escape my lips. I heard him say in my ear, “I’ve waited too long for this.”

  Unable to stand it anymore, I swung around, and in one quick move, I pulled down Austin’s pants, allowing his enormous cock to spring free and hang heavily before me. The sight of it alone rendered me speechless, but before I could panic at the thought of how I’d ever be able to take all of him, Austin swept me into his arms and carried me over to his bed. There, he laid me down onto my back as he pulled off my black panties, tossed them aside, and knelt before me.

  “You’re so beautiful, Sienna,” he said to me in a low voice. “Do you even know how beautiful you are? Especially naked?”

  When his mouth pressed against my sex and his tongue started to run lightly along my folds before he brushed the stubble on his chin across my clit, I arched my back as rivers of pleasure pulsed through me. As his tongue reached in even deeper, I tried not to cry out, but it felt so good that I couldn’t help the cries that escaped me as I gave myself over to him.

  His hands smoothed up my torso and met my breasts, kneading them as he continued to go down on me. As I lay there with this beautiful man touching me in ways I hadn’t been touched in years, I was aware of the perspiration moistening my skin and the fact that my breathing was quickening.

  When his tongue started to flutter against my clit, it sent me out of my body as I my eyes snapped open and I tried to catch my breath. Encouraged, Austin didn’t stop. Instead, he just he continued to pleasure me to the point that I felt I was about to come undone.

  With my hands stretched out at my sides, I grabbed the soft bedspread and twisted it in my fists as his soft tongue explored me in ways that few men had before him. A rush of heat coursed through my body. I felt my sex begin to surge. And then, when he hit me with the stubble again, I writhed beneath his touch and came almost at once.

  Instead of stopping him, my orgasm only urged Austin to keep doing everything he was doing to me until I literally couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted him on top of me. Hell, I wanted him inside me. Despite how large he was, I knew I was ready for him.

  “Austin,” I said breathlessly.

  He didn’t answer me. Instead, his only response was to continue to flick his tongue over my clit before his started to suck gently on it. My body lavished in the sensations he was giving me, but I wanted more. I needed more. I subtly bucked my hips, and he lifted his head and looked at me. When he saw the need in my eyes, he slowly stood and revealed all of himself to me.

  And that was all it took, because I became undone as I marveled at him. Austin had been touched by the gods. With his skin slick with sweat and his hair hanging damply over his forehead, he looked otherworldly to me. Seeing him like this—in a moment of pure primal lust—was something I knew I’d never forget.

  “Take me,” I said to him.

  Wordlessly, Austin lowered his body onto mine and kissed me deeply, meaningfully. Ribbons of desire rang out into his bedroom as our bodies connected—skin against skin, heart against heart, lips against lips. When he broke away for air, I bit down on one of his nipples, which only seemed to fuel him.

  I was so wet and ready for him that with one mere stroke, he was inside me. But before he began to thrust, he paused to make sure I was ready to take him.

  “It’s OK,” I said to him. “Make love to me.”

  For the next hour, Austin made love to me three times. As our bodies collided against one another in rising tides of lust and heat that became our own private ocean of pleasure, each of us came to completion again and again and again. When my final climax shook through me, I knew I had my answer when it came to Austin. What we shared was far more than a mere physical attraction. What we had was real. It was palpable. It was undeniable.

  We were meant to be together.

  And as I lay there gasping, my breasts heaving, an overwhelming sense of guilt overcame me. Before I left here tonight—and regardless what Austin and I had just experienced together—I knew my initial intentions in coming here tonight couldn’t change. I still had to honor the promise I’d made to Jackson…and also to myself. And because of that alone, and despite what had just occurred between Austin and me, I knew I had no choice but to ask him to wait seven months for me. And this terrified me—because I couldn’t blame if he didn’t.

  And I knew very well he might not.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  After we’d showered together and toweled off together and I had donned one of Austin’s white terry-cloth bathrobes—which dwarfed me but which nevertheless smelled distinctly of him—we left the bathroom for the bedroom, and I asked with a sense of dread if we could speak in the living room.

  “We should get some sleep,” he said, “don’t you think? Both of us have a long day with Jackson tomorrow.” He was standing before me in nothing more than his boxer shorts, gently stroking my damp hair with the back of his hand. “We can talk in the morning. Over coffee and breakfast.” His eyes twinkled when he said that. “Tonight, dinner might have been a miss, but I certainly can cook for you when we wake up.”

  “Austin, I need to leave here under the cover of night,” I said.

  He furrowed his brow at me. “Why? While we were showering, I was thinking you’d sleep here. I can get you home safely in the morning. Nobody will know you were here tonight.”

  “You can’t promise me that.”

  “Yes, I can. I got you here safely tonight, didn’t I? I can get you home safely in the morning. Trust me on this.”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you. Who I don’t trust are the paparazzi and when they’re going to start stalking my apartment. Because one day soon, that’s going to happen. We both know it.”

  “Sienna, look—when it comes to Jackson, you should see the kind of shit I’ve pulled over the years to keep his sexuality private. He got caught kissing his pilot friend while boarding his plane because he broke protocol by choosing to kiss him in public. That’s on him—not me. And Jackson knows it, because otherwise he would have fired me. He’s the one who fucked up.”

  “That may be, but I need you to hear me out. After you started to sext me this morning, I came here tonight with every intention of asking you in person to please stop, because I need to not only honor my contract with Jackson but also nail down my own financial security. What we just experienced was amazing—it was fabulous—but it hasn’t changed why I agreed to come here.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “You’re a successful model, and you just scored big with Lion. You’ve already got financial security.”

  “Are you serious?” I said.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Austin, come on. You’ve seen my apartment. Doesn’t that say it all?”

  “I like your apartment,” he said.

  “Then, please, let’s exchange mine for yours, because this place is a palace compared to mine. And just so you know, mine happens to be rent-controlled, which is why I’m able to afford living in Chelsea, of all places.”

  “What am I missing here?”

  “That I’m borderline poor—and that I’m no supe
rmodel. When I walk the runway, I earn only the daily going rate—which happens to be shit, by the way. As for Lion—which was an independent film with almost no budget—I took the fifty grand they offered me to star in it because the script was excellent, the director was new and exciting, and I thought it might open up new opportunities for me—which it did. Because after my win at Cannes, along came Mimi and Jackson and the deal they offered me. If I stick to it—which I must—one day I’ll no longer have to worry about living hand to mouth.”

  “Things have been that hard on you?” he asked.

  “Austin, I’m pretty much broke.”

  “But you received a signing bonus,” he said.

  “I received two hundred and fifty thousand for the next eight months,” I said. “Given my credit-card debt—which I plan to pay off so I can breathe again—and especially how expensive it is to live in this city, that money will go fast. Worse, I will only be paid in full if I honor Jackson’s contract straight through to the end. If I don’t, I’m fucked. That’s why I came here tonight, because I don’t think you understand how long things have been dire for me. Did I ever think we’d end up making love tonight? God, no. But we did, and it was wonderful. I don’t regret it. But you have to understand that I’ve been living on the edge for so long that I need the money Jackson’s offering me.”

  For a moment, we fell silent. Then I gently placed the palm of my hand against the heat of his bare chest. When I felt his heart pounding hard against it, I could sense his passion, his frustration, his lust, and also his compassion. And when I looked into his eyes, I saw all those emotions laid bare to me.

  I spoke quietly to him.

  “We can’t see each other again,” I said. “At least not like this, because I can’t risk it. There have been times over the years when I couldn’t even afford to eat, so Harper stepped in to take care of me, which was humiliating. But I love her for it. If anything, ever since I moved here, my life has only been scary, lonely, frustrating, and difficult. And because of that, I hope you’ll understand that not only do I need the money Jackson’s offering me, I also need to earn it. I need to do well by him. Because seven months from now, when I cash that check of his and finally can walk away knowing Jackson is going to be fine and that his career is back on track, my constant worries about money will be gone. For the first time in my life, I’ll finally be financially free.”

  “I had no idea,” he said.

  “Only Harper knows,” I said. “And Julia, of course. They are my best friends. They’ve quietly helped me throughout all of this because they’ve always believed in me. And because they have, I also can’t let them down by screwing this up.”

  “I’m sorry if I pressed you this morning,” he said. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know about any of this.”

  “Why would you?” I asked. “It’s private. I only shared it with you so you’d understand why we can’t be.”

  “Can’t be?” he said. “Sienna, what are you talking about? Neither of us can deny what just happened there,” he said, pointing toward his bed. “I’ve never experienced anything like that with anyone before. Not once. Can you say the same? Unless I’ve misread everything, I don’t think you can.”

  Every fiber of my being told me that now was the moment to adhere to Julia’s advice and shut this down between us—to tell him I didn’t feel as strongly as he felt. To tell him that whatever he was feeling was on him—not me.

  But that would be a bold-faced lie. And because I now knew for a fact there was something real and right and beautiful between us, I also knew I could never be that cruel to him. If I lied to him, he’d know it—and that was just something I couldn’t accept.

  So, I told him the truth.

  “What we just shared was magical. You were wonderful. We were wonderful. It’s just that—”

  “I get it,” he said in a low voice. “You need to honor your commitment to Jackson, and you need to secure your future.”

  “I do.”

  “Then, we’ll do our best to work around that.”

  “But how? Austin, I just told you all the reasons I can’t mess this up.”

  “But don’t you see?” he insisted. “You don’t have to risk anything.”

  “Tell me how. Especially now that my heart is on the line.”

  “You’re out of this contract in…what? Seven months?”

  “About that, yes.”

  “Then…I’ll wait for you.”

  It was everything I’d wanted to hear, but after being with him and making love to him, could I really believe that a man this sensitive, thoughtful, and beautiful wouldn’t catch someone else’s eyes in the ensuing months? And that he might respond in kind? Tonight had been powerful, but had it been powerful enough to see us through to the other side? As much as I wanted to believe we could make it, I also knew I never could be sure.

  “I can’t ask you to do that,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because seven months might as well be a year. In the meantime, you could meet someone new who is worthy of you. You and I both know that could happen. Because shit like that does happen, Austin, as we just witnessed.”

  “Which is exactly why I’m willing to wait for you, Sienna. Because I agree—what just happened between us is rare.”

  “You make the idea of waiting sound so easy,” I said.

  “It won’t be easy,” he said. “In fact, it will fucking kill me. But that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to wait for you, because for me, you are worth waiting for, and if you would just trust in me, I will wait. But I have to ask—why don’t you believe that I will?”

  And here we go into that part of my life…

  “Not too long ago, I got seriously burned in my last relationship.”

  “By who?”

  “His name is Eric.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “Two years.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  When Austin asked me that, I felt a fire of rage burning deep within my belly.

  “He cheated on me,” I said. “I came home unexpectedly one afternoon after a modeling shoot got called off, and I found him screwing another woman in our own bed. We’d been together for four years at that point. Time and again Eric had told me he was in love with me. That I was it for him—and I’d believed it. I’d believed in him. And then I walked into that. And when I did—after feeling so close to him and so loved by him—it shattered me. Hell, it changed me.”

  His face softened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What he did to you must have gutted you.”

  “It did. I haven’t dared to be with another man since.”

  “Because you think that it might happen again.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Why shouldn’t I believe that?”

  “And yet you were with me tonight.”

  “Yes, because I sense that you’re different.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I’d never do that when it comes to you.”

  “Austin, what am I to do three, four, or five months from now if you do fall for another woman, especially when I’m invested in you and waiting for you?”

  “I’m not going to be looking.”

  “Were you looking when you met me?”

  That caused him to pause.

  “No,” he admitted. “But you need to understand that my standards are high when it comes to relationships. I’ve been single for the past five years for that reason alone. I don’t take relationships lightly. And trust me on this, I’m not taking this moment lightly.”

  Austin, I had a wonderful time tonight, I thought. And I hope you really are there seven months from now. But for my heart and sanity alone, I can’t allow myself to bet on that. I can’t have my heart broken again. The last time was too much…

  Knowing I had to get out of there, I looked around the bedroom and wondered where he’d tossed my dress and my undergarments when he’d removed them from me. Since the lighting was so dim, I couldn’t see
where they were.

  “I need to go,” I said as my throat constricted and my eyes welled with tears. “I need to get out of here now before I completely lose it.”

  “Listen to yourself, Sienna,” he said. “You know this is right.”

  Overcome with emotion, I blinked through tears as I looked around the bedroom. “I can’t see my dress,” I said, “or my underwear. Can you please turn up the lights?”

  With a frustrated sigh, he did.

  “Please don’t go like this,” he said.

  When I spotted my panties, bra, and dress lying in various places around the bedroom, I gathered them up, tossed them onto the bed, and then dropped my bathrobe and quickly changed into them. When I was finished, I slipped into my shoes and walked over to him, giving him a meaningful kiss on the lips that seared through me like a scalding knife. And then—unable to cope with the ridiculous groundswell of emotions I felt—I held his face close in my hands and looked into his eyes until I couldn’t any longer. There was too much false hope for us there.

  Get out, now. Get out before you get in even deeper than you already are.

  “Thank you for tonight,” I said as I took a step away from him. “I hope that we can still be friends.”

  He looked wounded when I said that—and that look alone killed me.

  “Sienna, I meant everything I said to you. I will wait for you. I’ll have you in my bed again. We’ll be together like this again.”

  I wanted nothing more than to believe that, but it was ridiculous to think that any man would wait so long for me. And why would Austin, after just one night together? Why get my hopes up? Only to potentially have them crushed? I couldn’t do that to myself—or to him.

  Get out of this while you can…

  “Why are your eyes so bright, Sienna?” he asked me.

  “You already know why, Austin—when we made love, my body told you everything you need to know about how I feel for you.”

  When I turned away from him to leave, tears fell from my eyes and spilled onto my cheeks.

  Don’t let him see them. Don’t you dare let him see them.