The Pretend Boyfriend 4 (Inhumanly Handsome, Humanly Flawed Alpha Male Erotic Romance)

by Artemis Hunt

  The Pretend Boyfriend 4 (Alpha Male Erotic Romance)

  The Pretend Boyfriend 4 (Alpha Male Erotic Romance)

  Midpoint

  EPILOGUE

  THE PRETEND BOYFRIEND 4

  By Artemis Hunt

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright 2013 by Artemis Hunt

  Cover art by Artemis Hunt

  THE PRETEND BOYFRIEND 4

  1

  Brian wakes up, completely disorientated. Gawd, but his head hurts something awful. What did he drink last night? He can’t recall taking any poppers or smoking any weed, but there’s definitely something in his system. His vision swims, and he can’t get the room in focus.

  Then his eyes snap open. Really pop open, as if there have been transparent shutters on them before which have now been tautly released to reveal the stark reality around him.

  And what a reality it is.

  Brian takes in the unfamiliar walls of the bedroom he is in. Lavender wallpaper, the kind with little forget-me-nots. Mirror over a white dressing table. Chintz curtains with a pattern of repeated forget-me-nots. What is this theme? Some kind of ‘forget me not’ message?

  There are framed photographs on a white dresser. Unfamiliar photos of unfamiliar people.

  The reality slams into his gut like a sucker punch.

  He is alone in the double bed, but there is an impression of a body in the mattress beside him. Someone has slept here. He is covered with a blanket, but underneath, he is naked. His cock is limp. When his hand suspiciously strays down to touch it – to find out where it’s been – his palm comes away sticky.

  His penis has been someplace all right.

  Here he is, Brian Morton – stud extraordinaire, a man who has woken up in more strange places than he cares to count – in a strange bedroom. And he’s fucking scared.

  This has to be a first.

  Worse still, he can’t remember what happened last night. She has slipped something into his drink again, he’s certain. And he had let her. Not because he’s gullible, but because it was pointless. She was going to do it anyway. And she has already done all the damage to him that she can. He might as well let her do whatever she wants to him so that he can extricate Sam out of this mess.

  Sam.

  His heart shrivels when he thinks of her. She doesn’t know he’s here. Doesn’t know he’s doing this because she trusts him implicitly. So he has to be extra careful not to let her know. But he doesn’t yet know what Delilah’s terms are. Delilah Faulkner. He can only think of this woman as Delilah Faulkner, not the sweet, bruised Adie he once knew and betrayed.

  He can’t fault Delilah/Adie for wanting to get back at him. Rage like this burned deep and hard, like the stoked furnaces in the bowels of the Earth. How many women out there has he hurt so badly that she has no choice but to nourish a long-lasting hatred for him like a dagger in her womb? How many of them are now plotting a vendetta against him and all those he held dear?

  He deserved what he was getting. But Sam! Just leave her out of this! But he knows it doesn’t quite work out that way. In a fall-out, a lot of innocent bystanders get hurt.

  It’s your mess. Now clean it up.

  That is what he’s doing, he tells himself grimly. He swings his long legs over the side of the bed. Something needles the confines of his skull, and the sharp pain makes him wince and pause slightly before getting up.

  He studies his body in the mirror. He knows he looks good, and that’s a major part of the problem. They all want his body. Him. In college. At work. In clubs, bars, the street. They all want what he can’t give them, and when he won’t give it to them, they go on a slow boil. Most of them forget and move on. Some never did.

  He is learning that now.

  He wonders if he can slip out of the apartment. He wonders if she is still here, and if she would let him. Is his part of the deal done? Will she let him escape now?

  It’s never that easy, his inner voice warns him.

  His clothes are not in the bedroom. They are not on the floor in some discarded heap, and certainly not hung across the back of the chair, neatly folded. He grimaces. He goes to the bathroom to take a long piss. He needs to shower and shave, but he will be damned if he’s going to ask her to let him use her soap. So he gargles and rinses out his mouth, and that’s about it.

  He has no alternative but to go out there to face the fire.

  Gingerly, he opens the room door. He steps out. The lounge of Apartment 501 is tidy. Preternaturally so. Delilah is a neat freak. The kind who would implode if there is so much as a cushion out of place. He wonders where the hidden security cameras are – the ones which have so nicely caught Sam on tape. He surveys the ceiling, but as much as he squints, he can’t see evidence of any.

  Is Delilah now viewing him live on camera?

  The thought of it spooks him.

  He finds his clothes in a neat pile on the sofa. She has folded them up for him, confirming his mental image of her as a compulsive. He takes them self-consciously and starts to dress himself. Black sleeveless tee. Tattered, well-worn jeans. He starts to shrug on his leather jacket, when he hears her voice:

  “Going somewhere?”

  She is standing at the doorway of the kitchenette. She wears a simple dressing gown. Silk, with a sash in the middle. Her cleavage is pronounced and her hair all tumbling and vivid and red. She resembles a temptress from hell. A succubus sent to draw men to their shipwrecks.

  He stops himself from running a nervous tongue over his lower lip. He’s usually not afraid of women, but this one scares him. It’s as though she is no longer fully human, and that the laws of rational thought no longer apply to her.

  “I have work,” he offers lamely.

  “So do I, but I took the day off. Called in sick. Want some breakfast?”

  So she’s trying to play normal and nice-like. He can live with that. To refuse her would be to trigger off some complex thought process in her tangled brain, and she would irrevocably take it out on Sam. He hates being blackmailed like this. Hates having his strings jerked around by this vicious puppeteer.

  But he has no choice.

  So he says, as casually as he can muster, even though all his senses are on full alert for the tsunami that would hit him: “Sure.”

  She turns, expecting him to follow without a word. So he is to be her lapdog. This makes him unspeakably gloomy.

  There are already two place settings on the kitchen table. Neat, as to be expected. Not a napkin out of place. A pot of artificial flowers forms the centerpiece of the table. The entire kitchen is filled with the smell of just-fried bacon, and this is what Delilah places in front of him as he seats himself. A plate of bacon, just crispy at the edges, with two eggs sunny side up, and a dollop of baked beans.

  Just like that. As if they are a couple.

  “Go ahead, eat,” she urges him. She places a similar plate, only with half the servings, in front of herself.

  He wonders if she has drugged his food again. But he eats anyway, eyeing her out of his feral green eyes. She eyes him too, like an adversary across the table.

  When he finishes, he says, “I’ve got to be going.”

  “Don’t go so soon. I took a day off just for you.”

  “Maybe you should cancel,” he says acidly.

  “Tell them
my period pains went away? Not likely,” she replies.

  He sighs. “What else do you want with me, Adie?”

  “Don’t call me by that name. I hate that name.”

  He is taken aback by the vehemence in her voice.

  “Sorry . . . Delilah.”

  He wonders why she hates it so, and if it has to do with him. Perhaps it’s a name she associates with her attempted suicide. The one she exorcised when she emerged – scathed and filled with the new power of rage – as a new woman.

  This disturbs and saddens him. It’s amazing how much pain he can cause and how he had been totally oblivious to it.

  I was young! I was heartless!

  But he realizes that youth wasn’t an excuse, because he was still heartless a year ago. It was only when he met Sam that he had changed for the better. Or so he hopes.

  Delilah sets about clearing the dishes. Out of long-standing guilt, he helps her. They do not speak, but merely work in concert.

  He finally says, “If I don’t get back, Sam will be suspicious.”

  “Nonsense. You don’t usually go into the gym until much, much later. And she’s used to not seeing you for the entire day.”

  It surprises him how much Delilah knows their routine. It makes him feel vulnerable and more than a little frightened. For Sam.

  “So what do you want me to do now?” he says warily.

  She stacks the plates and cutlery in the dishwasher. Then she straightens herself. “Come with me.”

  He follows her, his stomach recoiling as she leads him down the short passageway to the room. The one in which Sam took most of the pictures. It is locked, and Delilah takes out a stubby key and sticks it into the doorknob. Brian stands there, filled with trepidation, as the door whines open.

  He has seen Sam’s photos, but nothing prepares him for the veritable collage that greets him like a stab in the ribs. He sees the corkboard, all decked with his photos. That huge, huge corkboard. And the hundreds of candid snapshots of him, taken by a voyeur’s camera.

  Him coming out of the gym, towel still slung over his shoulders and with his hair damp from the shower.

  Him entering a restaurant.

  Him hailing a cab from the entrance of a hotel.

  It’s shocking to see himself mounted like this – the subject of an unhealthy obsession. For that is what it is – an obsession. He recognizes it for what it is.

  His heart sinks when he now realizes the depth of it.

  He’s not certain everything will go to plan now, or as Adie – sorry, Delilah Faulkner – outlined it. People this obsessed did not let go that easily. And he’s not even certain what he can do about it. He can only do his best to ensure there will be no more repercussions . . . on Sam.

  As for himself –

  It is not the court case and judgment he is dreading now. It is the next two weeks. What does Delilah’s twisted mind have in store for him? What will she make him do? Blood churns in the abyss of his rolling gut, and he feels like running to the bathroom to heave out his breakfast. But she will probably take offense to that and make things worse.

  It’s terrifying – not knowing what she would do next. It’s like being trapped in the same room with a hornet, bracing yourself for its inevitable sting.

  He can’t take his eyes off his photos. He recognizes every one of them, dating back two years ago. Before Sam. During Sam. Pieces of his life, all chronicled in haphazard detail in someone else’s pain scrapbook.

  He’s suddenly aware of Delilah watching him watch himself. A voyeur observing a voyeur.

  She says softly, “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

  He swallows. “Thank you.”

  “I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you back in that library all those years ago. I knew who you were all right. Everybody in college did. You had this rare quality about you. Like James Dean. Like Marlon Brando in ‘Streetcar’. A quality that radiates sex no matter what you wore and what you did. Everyone wanted you.”

  He doesn’t say anything. Yes, it’s a fact he is aware of and one he has milked to great advantage.

  She says, “Take off your clothes, Brian.”

  “What?”

  “Take off your clothes. I want you to do me right here. On the floor.”

  There’s something so twisted about this that he doesn’t respond – at first. He meets her steely grey eyes, and his heart wrenches.

  Yes, I know the deal.

  Hesitantly, he peels off his tee, the one he has only just put back on this morning. She scrutinizes his body as though she hasn’t seen it only the night before. He unzips his pants.

  His dick is limp. No surprises there. He doesn’t get aroused easily when he’s scared out of his fucking wits.

  But she doesn’t seem to mind. She undoes the sash of her bathrobe. She wears nothing underneath, and he takes in her nipples and mounds and pubic triangle, as dark as he remembered it from college. He feels a stir in his cock despite himself.

  “Lick me,” she commands.

  He makes himself walk towards her. She stands, resolute, and he understands what she wants him to do. It’s a role reversal, and he is her slave. He gets down on his knees, a position he is not used to. She parts her legs slightly, and he sticks out his tongue to lick her pussy. He inhales the earthy aroma of her nether regions as he strokes the tip of her clit with his tongue.

  He does not look up, but he can hear her sharp intake of breath as he continues to lave her – circumnavigating his tongue in between her pussy grooves, which are already filled with a layer of cud.

  He’s gratified to hear her moan above him. It means that he still retains a modicum of power over her. Only their situation is so fucked up. She wants him to do it to her in this strange room – her manifold shrine to his larger-than-life image.

  All his eyes in those photos, watching them. Like peacock tail eyes.

  It’s beyond sick.

  “I loved you back then,” she whispers. “Even though I knew you didn’t love me.”

  He doesn’t reply, even though his guilty heart is slamming against his ribs and his pulse is pounding as though it would like to surge out of his arteries.

  What about now? he wonders. Do you still love me? Do you love me so much that you want to destroy me? What’s your game plan, Delilah?

  2

  I’ll fix this.

  Sam can still hear his words ringing in her head from two nights ago. She knew then he was going to do something rash. Something that involved letting Adele Jankovic ride rough shot over him. Sam’s mind cringes at the possibilities, all too awful to contemplate.

  And now he is missing for two nights. Two nights! He hasn’t answered his phone. He hasn’t replied to his text messages. She doesn’t want to appear the fussy, nagging lover either, because that’s simply not her. She doesn’t want to harangue him about his whereabouts to death. Theirs simply wasn’t – isn’t – that kind of relationship.

  So where the hell is he?

  She is almost out of her mind with worry. She thinks of calling the police, but decides that she is not on their current favorite list.

  Two fucking nights!

  She clasps her hands. It’s the only way to keep them from trembling. She eyes the phone, willing it to ring. Willing his voice to be on the other end:

  Sammie, sorry I got holed up. I had to run to Detroit for a family emergency.

  Sorry, Sammie, my phone ran out of battery. The shops didn’t have a spare.

  It isn’t like him not to call in two days. They have been seeing each other rather often in the past six months, even if they had not been technically dating. She touches her ears. The diamond earrings he gave her are still embedded in her earlobes, fitted snugly into the holes she has bored into her flesh when she was a teenager.

  It is exactly like him not to tell her what he’s up to either.

  Only . . . she thinks she knows. And the knowledge of it is awful, awful, awful.

  There’s only one
thing for her to do.

  Resolutely, she grabs her jacket and her car keys. She is going to take a ride to a place she knows fairly well.

  *

  As Sam draws into the parking lot of Adele Jankovic’s building, she sees what she is looking for. Brian’s new Jeep, the one he traded the Ferrari in for to fund the advertising for their gym.

  Her chest sinks when she records the visual affirmation. She closes her eyes, hoping the Jeep would vanish, or that it will be mounted with another number plate when she opens them again.

  But everything maddeningly remains the same.

  Brian is with Delilah Faulkner right at this very instance. Doing goodness knows what.

  Sam can only imagine what Delilah Faulkner would want with him. She can only hope and pray that he returns in one piece.

  Oh, but why does it have to hurt so much? She knows that Brian is only doing this to secure their future together, but why does the tradeoff feel so wrong? Everything here screams of wrongness.

  Sam grips her steering wheel. The faux leather feels very hot in between her palms.

  Is he really only doing this to secure their future together? Is there even a ‘future’ with Brian? I don’t believe in love, I only believe in fucking. That used to be his mantra. She feels so torn. So incredibly torn apart. She wants so much to believe in Brian. Believe that he can actually ease into being someone ‘normal’ – with normal needs and wants. Monogamy. Happily ever after.

  But is that too much to ask from someone who has never lived his life any way but vicariously?

  There’s still that nagging suspicion. That awful feeling that she has in the pit of her stomach that he thinks he owes Adele Jankovic something. The overwhelming guilt he must be mired in because of what he did to her. Such emotions are powerful beasts. You could live an entire life being beholden to another person that way. There’s even a Chinese saying on it.

  And Brian is the sort of person to do just that.