In Too Deep

by Lexi Ryan

“So you’re not going to bed yet?”

  He skims his eyes over me, a vague smirk twisting his lips as he takes in my PJs. “I am in bed.”

  “We’re sleeping in here?” I’m confused, but hell, I don’t know, maybe this bed’s more comfortable? Didn’t he say the place came furnished?

  “Bailey.” He puts a hand up as I step toward the bed. “I’m sleeping in here. You can have the master.”

  My mouth works—lips opening and closing stupidly, like a fish out of water. I shake my head, trying to snap out of it. “I’m confused?” It sounds like a question, as if I don’t even know how I feel, and I suppose that’s appropriate.

  “If we sleep together”—he drags his gaze down my body again—“we might actually sleep together. So you take the master, and I’ll sleep in here. I have an early morning. I’ll be gone most of the day, so I won’t be in your hair.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” I sound like a whining kid complaining about being bored on summer vacation.

  He cocks his head and studies me. “You mentioned wanting to get a job. What about doing your photography sessions down here?”

  I look away. “I don’t have any formal training. No one’s going to want to hire me.”

  “Don’t be so quick to write yourself off. You have a portfolio, right? When you have examples of what you can do, I don’t think people care about formal training.”

  I shake my head. This area is so upper-crust, and there are hundreds of photographers who have way more talent than I ever will. His faith in me is sweet, but misplaced. “When I’m not job hunting, do you need me to do anything? Like run through the streets and make sure all the rich bitches know I’m your wife?”

  He chuckles. “That shouldn’t be necessary. I don’t need you for anything until the party on Friday.”

  “Okay, listen, I have no idea how to be your wife.” I prop my hands on my hips. “I don’t know how to decorate a fancy house, or whether I’m supposed to tip the gardener, or even how I’m supposed to dress at this stupid party Friday night. But the one thing I know how to do, you’re saying you have no interest in? Not gonna do it?” I don’t know why I’m so angry. I’m being ridiculous. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to sleep with him—tonight or at all during our stint as husband and wife—but suddenly his plan to make sure we don’t sleep together is the most insulting thing he could have done. “Jesus, Mason, do you get off on not getting off?”

  He closes his eyes and shakes his head as if he’s not sure what to make of me. “What part of our arrangement made you think you needed to fuck me, Bailey?”

  “I—I—I thought . . .” My cheeks heat, and I’m sure if I looked in the mirror right now I’d see a bright red flush covering them and creeping down my neck. “Wow. You sure know how to make me feel like a dirty slut.”

  “Shit.” He climbs out of bed, and I’m struck by the sheer size of him. He’s so tall and built, and his boxers hang low on his hips. He walks toward me and cups my face in his hands. “If I thought I could win you, if I thought at the end of this season you wouldn’t happily pack your bags and head back to Blackhawk Valley, I’d take you in this bed and that bed and twice on the kitchen table. I’d fuck you in the shower, then from behind as you held on to the bathroom counter so you could watch yourself get off in the mirror.” His Adam’s apple bobs, and his gaze dips to my mouth. “So tell me, is there any chance for us?”

  How many times will I have to refuse the thing I want most? “You know there isn’t,” I whisper, and it’s like cutting my own heart in half.

  He pastes on a smile as he drops his hands and steps back, but his jaw is hard. “Goodnight, Bailey.”

  I’ve hurt him, and I hate it. I want to patch the tense silence with excuses and false explanations, but I know how useless a Band-Aid is for heartache, and I’m suddenly far too tired to go through those old motions. “Okay. Goodnight.”

  “Sleep well.” He looks me over one more time. The heat in his eyes is so intense, I feel it long after I’ve climbed into bed.

  According to Emma, the only things I need to blend in at this party are pearls, a little black dress, and a fake smile. She comes from a world full of rich folks, so I trust her advice on this. I look at myself in the mirror. Well, check, check, and check.

  After a few days of job hunting by day and awkward marriage-of-conveniencing by night, I dedicated my entire morning to preparing for this party. I tried on every dress I brought with me, and once I decided they all made me look cheap, I went shopping. Only, the boutiques around here gave me such sticker shock that I called Emma in a panic. She talked me down and told me to drive to the outlet mall. An hour after I started digging through the sale racks, I found a dress that I deemed acceptable.

  Unfortunately, Emma’s out of town and won’t be accompanying Keegan to the party tonight, which sucks, because I’d prefer to have as many allies as possible.

  I dig through my makeup bag for another hairpin, and when I look in the mirror again, I see Mason behind me. He must have gotten dressed while I was doing my hair. He’s in gray suit pants and a white dress shirt, a tie in his hand, and he looks absolutely edible.

  I turn to him and wait as he drags his gaze over me, from my low chignon to my dress to my red Mary Jane heels. Slowly, he brings his eyes back up to meet mine.

  “So?” I ask. He’s making me nervous. “Will this do?”

  His tongue darts out to touch his bottom lip. “Fuck yes.”

  My stomach shimmies, and I feel warm all over. When he looks at me like that, it almost makes all those painful hours of shopping worthwhile.

  He leans against the doorframe and tucks his hands into his pockets. “I asked around at practice today, and there’s a lot of interest in your photography. A lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if your phone starts ringing with calls from potential clients.”

  “Really?”

  He nods. “Really. Kramer said his wife saw Emma’s pictures and had already asked him to get your information.”

  I run up to him, throw my arms around his neck, and plant a kiss on his mouth. “You’re the best!” I wave my arms overhead and wiggle my hips, doing as much of a happy dance as this dress will allow. “That’s amazing. Thank you so much, Mason.”

  “Anytime.” He settles a hand on my hip and studies me for a beat. “Will you be ready to go in about half an hour?”

  “I just need to do my makeup and then I’m ready.” I wait for him to say something else, but instead he nods, turns around, and leaves the room. “Glad we could get back to being awkward,” I mutter. “What a relief.”

  I’m in over my head.

  Bailey’s been living with me for four days, and I’m already losing my mind wanting more.

  I told myself I wanted to get her out of Blackhawk Valley, that I’d be happy if I could convince her to move down here, even if it wasn’t to be with me. But how am I supposed to let her go in four months? Four days, and my favorite moments are when I’m at home with her. Four seconds with her lips on mine, and I want to throw all my stupid rules out the window.

  I had to walk away or I would have pressed her against the wall and kissed her again. I would have slid my hand up her dress and whispered just how good she looks.

  My phone rings, and I jog to it, grateful for a distraction. I keep a landline in my house for my security system and for my grandmother, who doesn’t understand that I can’t talk when she catches me at work or in a meeting. I answer it without checking the number on the caller ID.

  “May I speak with Bailey Green, please?”

  “She’s not available right now. Can I help you?” I ask, then, too curious to risk a no, I add, “This is her husband.”

  “I was calling regarding Ms. Green’s student loans. Could you tell me a good time to call?”

  Student loans? “I think you have the wrong person. My wife doesn’t have any student loans.” She stripped to pay her way through school, and any time I tried to get her to quit, she’d remind me t
hat she didn’t want loans following her through her whole life.

  “Okay, I’m looking for a Bailey Green from Blackhawk Valley, Indiana. If that’s not your wife, I can make a note that she doesn’t live at this number.”

  I swallow hard, but it doesn’t do a damn thing to change the fact that something feels off in my gut. This has to be a scam. “If you gave her a loan, you know how to contact her. I’m hanging up now.” I end the call. My grandmother got sucked into one of those phone scams once. Someone called her and said her son was stuck in Jamaica and had lost his wallet. Thank goodness some thoughtful person at the bank took the time to fact-check the story before wiring over the money, or she’d have lost thousands.

  The call is still eating at me when Bailey comes down the stairs dressed for the party. Her little black dress is cut modestly below her knees but cradles her hips in a way that makes my hands itch to touch. She’s wearing pearls and has her hair twisted into a knot that shows off her long neck and reminds me how much she likes to be kissed there. Once, I was intimately familiar with how I could suck just beneath her ear and her knees would buckle.

  “I got a call on the landline,” I say.

  She makes a face. “You have one of those?”

  I attempt a laugh, but that off feeling is still making my stomach sour. “It was some company that said you had student loans through them. They said you’re behind on your payments.”

  She walks past me, her heels clicking on the tile as she goes to the sink and gets herself a glass of water. “Damn. What they say is true—they really can track you down anywhere, can’t they?”

  “I was worried it was a scam, so I ended the call.”

  “It pretty much is a scam. The biggest legal ripoff millennials have to swallow every day. You should see my interest rates—just because I wanted a good education. Exorbitant, but I could go buy a new car at zero percent interest.” She drains her water, still avoiding my eyes.

  The gnawing doubt in my gut grows teeth. I hate feeling as if I’ve been lied to, but it’s worse when it’s by someone I trust. “Why do you have student loans?”

  She puts her glass in the sink before looking at me. “Not all of us were at BHU on a football scholarship. You don’t know how lucky you were.” She shakes her head. “I should have gone to community college. Nobody gives a shit that I have a degree from an expensive school, but I bought into the lie that if I got my education beside a bunch of privileged brats, I might get some of that privilege too. I was so wrong.”

  “I was lucky,” I say. “I get that. But you said you were stripping so you didn’t have to take out student loans.”

  “Unfortunately, as good as I was at shaking my ass, there weren’t enough hours in a week to give the number of lap dances I’d need to pay that kind of tuition.” She grabs a small red purse off the counter and thumbs through the contents. “Judge me if you must.”

  “Why did you make everyone believe you weren’t taking loans?”

  She spins on me. “It wasn’t anyone’s business but mine.”

  The lie eats at me. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it shouldn’t. But it’s further evidence that Bailey’s never given me the whole truth about anything. It’s further evidence that she’s never let me in and that I’ll always know less about her than I think I do. Even so, I’d bet everything that this has something to do with Nic Mendez. Everything that’s fucked up with Bailey goes back to him.

  I stalk toward her until she backs against the counter. When she drops her purse, I stop myself and shake my head. I’m so sick of doing this dance where I ask questions and she evades. I am far too familiar with her moves. I don’t want to care. “Keep your secrets. Hold them tight like you hold on to the fucking twisted notion that Nic Mendez was the only man on this earth good enough for your heart. I give up.”

  He turns on his heel and storms up the stairs, leaving me alone and reeling.

  I draw in one ragged breath after another, but my blood simmers with . . . something. Anger? Yes. I am so fucking pissed.

  I cling to that and storm after him. I find him on the second-floor balcony pouring a glass of bourbon, as if this is just another night, as if he didn’t just throw my painful past in my face.

  “You know, once you were my friend,” I say. “And maybe that’s what I miss most about us. Maybe instead of judging me for my decisions, you could try being my friend again.”

  He puts his glass down on the table, his eyes locking on mine before he slowly stalks toward me.

  I lift my chin, refusing to back down, because dammit, I shouldn’t have to apologize for wanting Mason’s friendship. Is that so terrible?

  But my defiant stance doesn’t faze him and he keeps coming, one step at a time, until he’s finally up against that bubble he prefers to keep between us. He takes another step and he’s inside it, but still not nearly as close as I want him. He takes another, and if I had the courage, I could reach out and touch him. Another step and he’s so close that he has to bend his head down to maintain eye contact. So close that if I lift onto my toes, I could brush my lips against his.

  I almost do, if only because fighting with him makes me feel as if there’s something broken in me, and I want it to be over. I miss the soft stroke of his lips against mine. I miss the sound of his sweet murmurs as he unbuttoned my pants and slid my underwear off my hips. I miss the sex, but more than that, I miss the way he’d hold me after. He held me in a way no one else had ever bothered to. Not even Nic. Mason would pull me against him, my back to his chest, and he’d snuggle against me until I could feel the warmth of his breath against my bare shoulder.

  I want all of that again, and what breaks my heart the most is if I’d known when I took that deal with his father—if I could have seen into the future and gotten a glimpse of exactly what I was giving up—I still would have done it. I did what I had to do.

  Mason’s eyes drop to my mouth. “I don’t want to be your friend, Bailey.”

  “Yeah,” I whisper. “You’re making that really clear. All or nothing, am I right?”

  His jaw hardens, and I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he moves even closer. My back’s against the sliding glass door, and his body presses into mine. He shifts until his thigh is between my legs, and then he lifts a hand to my hair, sliding his thumb up my neck until he’s cupping my jaw. I want to melt because I’ve missed this so damn much. I’ve missed him so damn much.

  “I’ve never wanted to be your friend,” he says, shaking his head. And it’s a blow to the heart I’m not sure I’m strong enough to endure. When I told him we could be lovers but nothing more, we were friends…best friends. Then he moved down here and shut me out.

  “I’m sorry my friendship was such a burden.” Fuck, even my sarcasm sounds weak, but this whole conversation has me vulnerable.

  “It wasn’t a burden. It was a daily reminder of what I couldn’t have. I thought that if I quit fucking you it wouldn’t hurt so much that you refused to be mine.” His thumb traces my bottom lip, and I tremble. “I thought if I could get the memory of your taste out of my head that maybe I’d be okay with being your buddy.” He sneers the word, his face twisting in disgust, but when the sneer falls away, it leaves raw need in its wake. “But I was wrong. I don’t want to be your friend, because that means you’re only giving me part of yourself, and I am the spoiled bastard you say I am. What was your word? Privileged?”

  He dips his head down and turns his face to the side, sweeping the tip of his nose over the tip of mine. “I don’t want your friendship unless it comes with your body. And I don’t want your body unless it comes with your heart.” He dips a little farther and brushes his lips so softly against mine that I almost wonder if I’m imagining it. Maybe he isn’t touching me at all. Maybe the sensation is nothing more than air passing between our mouths.

  He’s chipping at the walls I keep erected around my heart. And what happens when they’re gone? What happens when he sees me for who I really am?

>   “You say you want to be my friend,” he says, “but friends don’t lie to each other. They don’t hide their pasts.” His hand falls from my hair. I brace myself for his retreat, but he doesn’t back away. Instead, he finds the hem of my dress and slides up my thigh, then between my legs until he reaches my cotton panties. “Is this it, then? Is this all you want from me?”

  His knuckles skim across my center, and I should stop him. Fuck. I should stop him. I know what he’s trying to do, what he’s trying to say, and how I’ll feel when this is over. But all I can think is how I feel right now. How it finally feels to have him this close—his heat, his touch.

  All I can think is that if the rest of my life is going to be some sucky, lonely series of if-onlys and what-ifs, dragging from one day to the next, I just want this moment for as long as it can last. Maybe I’ll wrap it up and hold on to it. Keep it for later when I can untuck it and examine the heat of his breath against my neck or the gentle graze of his fingertips along the lace edge of my panties.

  He nips at my ear with his teeth, and I moan. His breath has gone shallow, and I can feel the tension building in him—that push and pull of wanting and knowing you shouldn’t want. It’s easy for me to recognize, because I’ve lived in that limbo for almost four years. Wanting him, knowing I can’t have him.

  “Fuck.” Now his voice is shaking, too. “Tell me to walk away.” Even as he says it, his fingers graze my inner thighs and tuck beneath the edge of my panties. “Tell me you don’t want this, or I’m going to stand here and fuck you with my hand until I hear you scream, until I feel you fall apart.”

  I arch my back, shifting my hips into his touch, encouraging him with my body. He yanks my panties down in a single, swift tug and cups me. When he catches my clit between two fingers, I bite my lip.

  “Nah, you don’t get off that easy, Bailey. You have to tell me what you want. I’m sick of guessing. Tell me to walk away, or tell me to get you off.” He closes his eyes. “Damn, I’ve missed the way you feel on my fingers.”