The Fine Art of Faking It

by Lucy Score

  “Mom!”

  “What? I was just going to say butt cheeks.”

  “Help me out here, Davis, please?” Eden begged.

  He stepped forward into the spotlight cast by one of the brewery’s exterior lights. “Eden and I would appreciate it if you could pretend that you don’t know that our relationship is just a means to revenge.” He looked at her as he said it.

  Oh, yeah. He was definitely… annoyed? Angry? She couldn’t read him. But she’d deal with him later.

  “In fact, if you want to be upset about it to everyone else, that would be great. You’ll be helping us… me,” Eden added. It wouldn’t hurt to have the Moodys showing no sign of backing down on their end of the feud to further prove the Beautification Committee wrong.

  “You expect us to not only recognize but also participate in a temporary truce in the battle we’ve been fighting our entire lives?” Ned demanded.

  “Oooh! We could fake disown you!” Lilly Ann said fingers fluttering as she got into the spirit. “I’ve always wanted to disown a child!”

  Her mother had interesting life goals.

  “I don’t know about this, Buttercup,” Ned said to his wife. But Lilly Ann was committed.

  “Now, you’ll need to make sure you’re selling it,” she instructed Eden. “Don’t let your natural dislike of each other cloud your acting ability.”

  Eden decided now was not the time to point out that her parents had spotted them together inside and blew their collective gaskets after buying the ruse.

  “Okay, Mom,” Eden said, pushing them in the direction of the parking lot.

  “I think we should make sure,” Lilly Ann insisted.

  If Eden’s blood pressure got any higher, her head was going to explode.

  “Kiss her,” Lilly Ann ordered Davis.

  “Excuse me?” Davis paled, his eyes beseeching Eden in the dark.

  “Mom, it’s been a long night. Why don’t you and Dad just head home—”

  “If I’m going to get into character as a mother whose daughter has deeply disappointed her, I need to feel it, Eden.”

  Lilly Ann had once been the understudy for Annie in the Blue Moon High School’s 1980 performance of Annie Get Your Gun. The experience had convinced her that she was born to be an actress.

  “Eden, be a good girl and kiss your fake boyfriend.”

  She needed to move out of Blue Moon. Or get her parents to move, Eden decided on the spot. Maybe she could ship them off to Aunt Nell in Arizona?

  “I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with this,” Ned wheezed.

  “Dad, do you have your inhaler?”

  He patted the pockets of his ancient barn coat and corduroy blazer underneath.

  “Davis, as your future fake mother-in-law, I demand that you kiss my daughter!”

  Eden started to argue again. But Davis caved. His hands closed around her upper arms, and he reeled her body into his. Helpless, she slid her arms under his coat and around his waist, drawn to the heat there.

  He brought his mouth to Eden’s abruptly and held them there.

  “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit,” Ned said from behind them. Eden could hear the puff of his inhaler.

  “Put some feeling into it, Gates!” her mother shouted. “Make me hate you!”

  Eden felt Davis’s lips curve under hers and without any warning, he dipped her backward. She clung to him, afraid of falling. But he held her close, keeping her suspended above the walkway.

  She melted into the kiss, opening for him and sighing into his mouth. Eden didn’t hear her mother anymore. Didn’t even remember the woman’s name. Once again, she was flooded with pure, unfiltered desire. Her body didn’t understand that this was just a game. It just wanted more.

  Davis broke the kiss first and righted her. It was only then that Eden became aware of her mother’s wailing.

  “Mom! You told him to kiss me!”

  Lilly Ann paused in mid-histrionics. “I’m acting!” Her eyeroll was audible. “Have I taught you nothing? Come on, Ned. Let’s go home and make love and eat brownies.”

  “Bye, guys,” Eden said, raising her hand in a wave.

  “I’m not speaking to you, Eden. Not until you come to your senses,” her mother shouted with an exaggerated wink. “Love you!”

  28

  It was after midnight. But rather than sleeping, Davis was laying on the bed staring up at the ceiling thinking about the woman one wall away. The woman who was apparently not questioning the “fake” part of their relationship like he was. Was she really that good of an actress? That committed to revenge?

  He heard the soft knock at his door and debated not answering it. Then hated himself for hoping it was her. He climbed out of bed, not even bothering to pull on a shirt.

  “About tonight,” Eden said by way of a greeting. She stood framed in his doorway in a cardigan over a scoop neck tank and short, cotton boxers. To him, the combination was more of an aphrodisiac than a thousand dollars of sheer lace lingerie.

  “What about it?” He dared her to say something about the kiss.

  “I’m sorry about the things my parents said.” Her gaze skimmed down his bare chest, and was it his imagination or did they linger on the low waistband of his cotton pants? “They don’t know any better. It’s been indoctrinated into them to hate you and your family.”

  “That’s not why you’re here, Eden,” he told her quietly.

  Her eyes narrowed at him. “Really? You want to take the first time I ever apologize to you and tell me I’m lying?”

  He reached out before he thought better of it and skimmed his finger over her cheek, along her jaw, and down her neck. A pink flush followed his touch, and Eden drew in a sharp breath.

  “You can’t sleep for the same reason I can’t sleep.”

  She was moving closer to him, and he doubted Eden was even aware of it.

  “Why can’t I sleep?” she asked softly.

  “Because you can’t stop thinking about that kiss.”

  Her breath was shaky. “I don’t know what you’re talking— damn it.” She grabbed him, nails raking the bare skin of his shoulders. Her lips found his.

  He spun her and kicked the door shut behind him. He had fifteen years of pent-up need trying to claw its way out of him. The kiss was hungry, rabid. Her hands swooped over his chest, his torso. Fingernails dragging, electrocuting his skin.

  This was real. This wasn’t some act designed to confuse or distract. This was truth.

  He shoved the cardigan from Eden’s narrow shoulders and thanked his lucky stars that there was only one thin layer to go.

  Breaking from the kiss, Davis moved his lips over the sensitive skin of her neck. Eden slid her hands into the waistband of his pants and gripped his ass cheeks.

  “You can’t tell me you don’t feel this,” he whispered. He rocked his hips into her, his erection a fraction of an inch away from escaping the top of his pants.

  “Of course, I feel it, Davis.” She squeezed his ass again, nails digging crescents into his flesh.

  “Then stop fighting it.” He wasn’t sure if he was begging her or ordering her. It didn’t really matter because she’d just slid a hand down the front of his pants to cup his balls, and his mind had gone inconveniently and completely blank.

  Heart racing, he dropped his forehead to hers.

  Still palming his balls, she commandeered his mouth and took control of his entire being. At that moment, there was nothing more that Davis wanted than Eden naked and breathless beneath him… or on top of him depending on her inclination.

  He slid his shaky hands under the hem of her tank top and dragged it up and over her head. “God, you’re gorgeous.” He spent a breath admiring her flat stomach, her long, lovely torso, and those small, perfect breasts. Rosy tipped and pebbled, they begged for his attention. He shoved her back into the room until the backs of her knees met the mattress. Following her down on top of the quilt, he reveled in the feel of her soft brea
sts flattening against the hard of his chest.

  Her intake of breath at the contact had him smiling victoriously into her hair. She used her hands and the heel of one foot to free him of his pants.

  “God,” she murmured when his erection fell heavily against her stomach. Eden gripped his shaft.

  “Eden, I’m not interested in doing this if you hate me,” he told her, his voice raspy and thick.

  She flashed him a cocky arch of her eyebrow and squeezed him. “Liar.”

  His teeth in her shoulder changed her tune. “Ow! Okay! Okay! Maybe I don’t hate you.”

  “Maybe?” He rescued his cock from her hand and lined it up between her legs, probing at the crotch of her shorts. God, he could feel how hot she was for him through the cotton. He hadn’t thought this through, wasn’t sure what the consequences would be once there was no turning back. But for once, he didn’t particularly care. He finally had Eden right where he’d always wanted her.

  “Damn it. Of course you’re packing,” Eden sighed. “Is there anything about you that isn’t perfect?”

  “Yeah, I made a big mistake my senior year of high school.”

  “Sweet talking will get you an orgasm.”

  He leaned down and, with her watching him, took one tight tip of her breast into his mouth. She arched off the mattress. “Damn it. You know what you’re doing.” She said it like an accusation.

  “Lose the shorts, Eden,” he told her before closing his lips over her nipple again and stroking it with his tongue.

  “Not sure if my body can follow commands right now,” she panted.

  He helped her, and together they stripped her shorts off one leg. They were still hooked around an ankle, but it was good enough. There were no barriers between them now.

  She reached between their bodies and recaptured his shaft in her talented fingers. She stroked him in long, tight pulls. His vision was going gray around the edges, and Davis wished there were more lights on in the room. He wanted to see her, wanted to burn every moment of her spread beneath him into his memory.

  He rolled to his side and brought one hand down to cup her sex.

  “Gah!” she breathed.

  “Is this okay?” he asked, dipping his fingers through her divide. Eden’s legs tensed, trembled, and then fell open.

  “Okay,” she repeated.

  “How about this?”

  Davis worked the pads of his fingers over the tiny bundle of nerves. She opened her mouth in a silent scream.

  “Davis I’m—” Eden couldn’t get the words out because he was plunging his fingers into her, his thumb dragging over her, stroking her.

  She came in an instant, an orgasm so quick and fierce that her leg trembled against him. His cock ached to feel her hungry pulls from the inside.

  “More?” he asked her.

  She nodded, her eyes squeezed shut. “God, yes. Please.”

  He settled between her legs, his hungry tip brushing that sweet flesh. Home.

  Shit. “I don’t have any protection,” he told her, kicking himself for failing his teenage boy pledge to always be prepared for sex.

  Eden let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a growl. But she wasn’t shoving him off of her and storming out. “Vanity. Bathroom,” she panted.

  “You do not stock condoms in your guest rooms.”

  “Of course I do. Tampons and floss, too.”

  He didn’t know why he was surprised. Eden was a professional at anticipating her guests’ needs. And he was literally dying to see if that talent continued in the bedroom. With a wave of regret that bordered on pain, Davis levered up and off of her.

  “Hurry!” she called after him.

  He hit the bathroom at a dead run and disgorged the contents of the small walnut vanity. He found the condoms under a sewing kit and next to a stain remover pen and extra rolls of toilet paper.

  Davis was a little too enthusiastic to get back to the bed. He caught his knee on the open vanity door and pitched forward almost running headlong into the door.

  “You okay?” Eden called.

  He was too busy destroying the condom wrapper to answer her.

  “Davis?”

  She was halfway off the bed by the time he made it back to her. If she’d changed her mind, he was going to die from the worst case of blue balls doctors had ever seen.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, a little breathlessly. His knee throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the similar sensation in his cock.

  She was staring at him dazed and wide-eyed. He realized he was fisting the root of his shaft. There was no romance, no suave charm in his stance. He looked aggressive, desperate, demented. But Eden didn’t seem to mind.

  She reached for him and snatched the condom from his hand. “Gimmie.” And with that, she was gripping his dick in the vice of one hand while she rolled the condom on with the other.

  Yep. He was a dead man.

  Davis dropped his head back and let out his breath in one long, slow exhale. The feel of her fingers, the vision of her eager and naked on her knees, both were seared into his brain. And if he didn’t start thinking about balance sheets and profits and losses, he was going to embarrass himself and disappoint the woman he’d wanted his entire adult life.

  With the condom in place, Eden dropped her hands to her sides, and they eyed each other up. Naked, inches from touching. Every nerve in Davis’s body felt alive and ready to report pleasure back to his brain.

  “I want you to be sure,” he said, the words coming out thick and heavy.

  She nodded, still staring at his naked body.

  “Say it, Eden.”

  “I’m sure.” There was a weight to her quiet words. And Davis got it. They both knew this would change everything, but neither of them could predict just how. And as carefully as he usually considered consequences, nothing short of a “no” from Eden’s swollen lips would stop him. Not even an impending return to the feud they’d both fought since birth.

  When he didn’t move fast enough for her, Eden took the lead, looping her arms around his neck and pulling him in to her. She was still on her knees at the edge of the bed, but now they were skin to skin. It was enough to send his system into overdrive.

  “I don’t want to rush this,” he murmured, trailing kisses over the sharp edge of her jaw, nipping at her skin.

  She raked a hand through his hair, pausing to give it a sharp tug. “Gates, this has been fifteen years in the making. I don’t think anyone could accuse us of rushing.”

  “You know what I mean,” he told her, nuzzling at her neck. “If I want this night to erase the last decade and a half, it has to be perfect.”

  She nudged his chin up. “Forget perfect, Davis. I want real.”

  He saw the lust slide through those blue eyes when his erection pulsed against her torso.

  “I want you tonight. Forget our history. Forget our families. Just be right here with me and forget everything else.”

  He didn’t need any further encouragement. He was pushing her backward and sprawling over her. The crown of his cock nestled between her thighs, exactly where it belonged.

  She arched under him, breasts flattening against his chest, hips rocking against him.

  He didn’t need anything else.

  With one brutal thrust, he finally possessed Eden Moody, the girl of his dreams.

  “Holy. Shit,” she breathed.

  How could something he’d imagined since puberty be even better than every fantasy he’d ever concocted? How could being buried inside Eden be better than any other sexual experience to date? It took him a long minute before he gauged himself ready to move. And the slow drag of her walls over his erection felt like heaven. If he was going to die tonight, it was going to be happy… with a fulfilled woman beneath him.

  “I can feel your heartbeat,” he gritted out next to her ear, all his concentration on the sensation of the slow slide back inside her.

  “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

 
; He grinned, mouth moving over her shoulder. Her nails dug into his back, harder with every stroke. It had never been like this, would never be like this again. Not with someone else. His body had just claimed Eden as its mate.

  Feud and family be damned. Revenge forgotten. Sense and logic deserted.

  And for the first time in his life, Davis felt like the selfish thing was the right thing. Eden wasn’t getting away this time.

  She brought her bent knees up higher, and he used the change in angle to thrust lazily against her tender bundle of nerves.

  Biting her lip, she squeezed her eyes closed, relishing in his slow, methodical seduction.

  “You feel like magic,” she whispered dreamily.

  The non-sex-having, feudal Eden would never have confessed that. He wondered what other truths he could coax out of her using orgasms as truth serum.

  He brushed his lips over hers. “I love how you feel.”

  They were moving together, and he could feel that long, slow build in the stutter of her muscles, in the way she held him tighter.

  “It’s too much. You make me feel too much.”

  “That’s right, beautiful,” he coached her.

  The sight of her sprawled beneath him, soft and pliable and so greedy for pleasure, had him quickening the pace. It was too much and not enough at the same time. The towering wave that they were teetering on would give way, and neither of them would be the same afterward.

  Eden’s eyelids fluttered open as if hearing his thoughts. He shifted a hand to cup one of her breasts and gently worked his thumb over her nipple.

  “Oh shit,” he breathed out the oath on a long groan.

  “Davis, I’m not ready,” she said, squirming beneath him. Fighting the inevitable. But she arched against him, her body demanding what her heart was afraid of.

  He felt the heaviness in his balls, felt the tingle at the base of his spine. The headboard rocked into the drywall with each sure thrust. There was no quiet, no carefully orchestrated seduction. Only a bottomless desire and a race to the top. “I’ve got you, gorgeous. I’m going with you.”