Faking It

by K. Bromberg

  Jesus, Low. Quit reading into things. Quit wanting things.

  “It is,” I murmur and hold his stare. He doesn’t fit in here in the least. Sure he has jeans and a T-shirt on and appears casual, but there is nothing remotely plain about Zane. Even dressed down, he catches the eyes of the women around us. And even though he’s clearly out of his element, the fact that he doesn’t care is sexy.

  We sit there for a few moments while I try and figure what to talk about. We never have awkwardness between us and yet there is an underlying edge to Zane right now—has been all night, really—that I just can’t put my finger on.

  “What did Robert mean earlier when he said he might switch some of our schedule up?”

  “No fucking clue.” His sigh is much heavier than his response reflects. “This is his forte so whatever he says is supposed to go.”

  “Supposed to?”

  “Yeah, supposed to. It’s in our contract.”

  “I’m surprised you gave up control.”

  He eyes me sideways. “Sometimes you have to give up a little control to ensure success in the end.”

  “Hmm,” I say, feeling like there’s more beneath what he’s saying that I don’t understand.

  The music changes and some people leave the dance floor, unhappy with the song selection while others excitedly walk on.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” he asks and throws me momentarily.

  “If I had one do you really think he’d be okay with me being here right now pretending to be yours?” Or that I’d let you kiss me like you have? I think but don’t voice. The less mention of kissing him, the better.

  Because mentioning it makes me think of doing it. And thinking about it makes me want him to do it again.

  Yep, I’m in trouble. Big, fat trouble.

  “You?” I ask. “How come you don’t have a girlfriend?”

  He purses his lips and takes a drink of his beer. “I dabble.”

  “Dabble?” I repeat through a laugh and god does it feel good to laugh with him. The tension of being in close quarters is gone. The notion of being under a microscope, our every motion monitored, gone.

  “Yeah, dabble. Nothing serious. Nothing permanent. I don’t have enough time to give that to someone.” He shrugs.

  “Good thing I’m just here for the sex then,” I say as a joke but just when I think my joke falls flat, I can see the green of Zane’s eyes darken. His spine stiffens and there’s a hitch in the motion of the beer he’s lifting to his lips.

  “Is that so?” he says after a beat, the tone and mood of the conversation changing instantly. A change I don’t find myself apologetic over in the least.

  We both know why we’re here.

  We both know what’s going to happen.

  We both still came anyway.

  It’s been in the little touches all night. The subtle glances. The unspoken words that I can hear underlying our every conversation.

  Wanting him is okay, Low. Having feelings for him on the other hand . . . is not.

  The beat of the music changes. The bartender interrupts the sudden sexual tension bouncing in the space between us. When he leaves, Zane angles his head and stares at me.

  “You’re gorgeous.”

  I throw my head back and laugh. “I don’t need to be sweet talked, Phillips.”

  “Good thing because I’m not one to sweet talk.” He waits a beat. “You look gorgeous.”

  “And you must be drunk.”

  He purses his lips and stares at the label of his beer bottle. “I don’t get drunk.”

  At first I think the comment is his way of being flip, but when he looks up and smiles almost apologetically to me, I know he’s being truthful. The fun and flirty of seconds ago abandoned to a quiet solemnity he exudes.

  “Never?”

  He subtly tilts his head from side to side as if he’s weighing his response. “Rarely. Mostly just enough to get a buzz, then no more.”

  “A control freak, I take it?”

  His chuckle falls flat. “When your parents are lifelong alcoholics it makes the desire to get shit-faced way less appealing.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “Don’t be,” he shrugs and falls silent, making me think this topic of conversation is over. We’re silent for a beat as the song changes once again so I’m surprised when he speaks without prompting. “Some of us have role models for parents. Others like me get the shit end of the stick and learn to fend for ourselves years before we should ever have to.”

  “Did they move to the states with you when you came here?”

  His snort is automatic, his sneer marring his handsome face. “Nope. Haven’t seen them since and don’t care to.”

  It must have been bad. He’s a man who could fly home or bring them to the states without worrying about the dent it would put in his pocketbook like so many others can’t, and so the fact he hasn’t seen them speaks for itself.

  “So they’re the reason you left Australia behind?” I ask, putting two and two together from his comment earlier.

  “Yes and no.”

  “I can respect that,” I say as I watch the rows of people on the dance floor move in synchronization to the line dance they all know and wonder how much of his parents and their addiction forged Zane’s temeritous drive to succeed. “I’m sorry. If I had known, I would have never suggested that we go to get drinks—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Cinder. I’m a big boy. I drink when I want. I stop when I want. It’s not a big deal.” He leans in closer to me. “Look at it this way, it just means you can drink all you want, and I’ll be the one to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Are you trying to be my knight in shining armor, Zane?”

  “It doesn’t seem to me that you’re the type of woman who needs rescuing. You seem to have it handled all on your own.”

  The admiration in his tone tells me it’s a compliment. But a dormant part of me rises up and wants to argue that it’s okay for men to take care of women, regardless of how strong they are. It wants to tell him that all people want to be loved and cherished, and strength has nothing to do with it.

  Immediately I feel silly for even thinking that. I avert my gaze and smile at the bartender who’s just caught my eye. It’s so much easier to look at him than it is Zane, whose honesty unnerves me when I’m never unnerved.

  “You want to tell me about Robert?” Robert is safe. Zane and his body near me and his cologne around me is not.

  “Nope. Not here, not now. I want to sit here and not think about work.”

  The irony is that’s our safe zone. Work. It may be where we pretend to be together, but at least I know what to expect. At least I know how to react. But this—being here with him and knowing what’s going to happen between us after last call most definitely is not safe.

  It’s playing with a fire that no doubt is going to burn me and yet for the life of me, I still want to feel the heat.

  “Dance with me?” I ask as the music switches to a popular song. Anything to spark the sexual tension that is reverberating between us.

  “Nah. I don’t dance.” He shakes his head and takes a sip.

  “C’mon, Phillips. Let loose with me.”

  Something glances through his eyes—desire, intensity—I don’t know but it makes me heart beat a bit faster. “I’ll watch,” he murmurs and holds his fingers up to the bartender for another round.

  “Suit yourself, then.” I slide off the stool, trail a fingertip over the back of his neck, and then make my way toward the crowded dance floor knowing damn well he’s watching every step I take.

  THE WAY SHE MOVES ON the dance floor.

  Christ almighty.

  Good thing I’m just here for the sex.

  Can’t say I’ve ever had an opening line like that before. And not just the words, but the way she delivered them. Matter of fact. To the point. A slight smile saying she could be joking if I blew her off.

  The woman’s a force to be rec
koned with and damn do I want to be reckoned by her.

  Hands down.

  No question.

  She may mess up the dance steps but the way she throws her head back and laughs and how she swivels her hips and moves has even the cowboys around her smitten instead of irritated that she’s scuffing up their boots.

  Smitten?

  Fuck. Maybe that’s what I am too.

  Because I can’t take my eyes off of her. Not when she looks up and meets my eyes as she jumps a step forward. Not when she lifts her chin over to the right to tell me she’s going to try the mechanical bull. Not when she mounts that beast and makes me think with every thrust of her whirling body about if that’s what she’d look like riding me.

  My dick is hard sitting here—imagining, wanting, knowing. My libido is in overdrive. And I’ve had just enough to drink that all my thoughts about being scared of a woman like Harlow can be forgotten.

  Rules are made to be broken after all, right?

  Her eyes meet mine as she makes her way off the padded mat where the bull is and back toward the dance floor. She smiles softly, suggestively.

  Fuck it.

  I shove up off the stool and down the rest of my beer as I do so.

  I’ve tried to let this be. I’ve tried to let her be . . . but hell if I can sit here and watch every man in this room stare at her, want to be with her, when I know I can be.

  When I know I want to be.

  She may scare the hell out of me but sometimes fear can be a motivator. So can being horny as fuck.

  Screw the rules. I want her. Right now. I’ll deal with the consequences later.

  She’s waiting for me when I cross the dance floor, standing still in a mass of moving bodies. But it’s her body I look at. It’s her curiosity I want to pique. It’s only her I see.

  “I thought you didn’t dance,” she says when I slide my arms around her and pull her against me.

  “I don’t,” I murmur and then crash my mouth to hers. I hear her yelp of surprise, feel the sudden tensing of her hands on my chest, the quick jerk of her body as she presses against me.

  And when she reacts—when she slides a hand to the back of my neck and scratches her fingernails into my hair—I know there’s no turning back now.

  Not that I wanted there to be.

  She tastes like beer and desire as our lips meet and tongues touch and bodies beg for so much more of the other than we can give right here on the dance floor.

  I need to get out of here, get us out of here, but when I try to move, find us in the dead center of a jam packed floor. Rows of people move around us, one after another, but luckily they’ve given us a small circle of space.

  She notices too, laughs, and then presses her hand on the back of my neck so that I kiss her again. Greedy girl.

  And thank fuck for that because I forgot how it could be just to kiss someone. To get lost in the feel of her tongue, in the sounds she makes in the back of her throat that I can barely hear above the beat of the music, in the brush of her tits against my chest, and in the rub of my erection against her through my jeans.

  We kiss in this small island of space that we alone reside in as the world moves on around us.

  The song changes.

  The crowd shifts.

  “Let’s go,” I murmur against her lips, her hand in mine, leading her off the dance floor before she even says a word.

  The request of an Uber. Another kiss. The sliding into the backseat. My hands skimming up her bare thigh. My lips are on the underside of her neck. Her fingers digging into the muscles of my back.

  We don’t speak the short distance back to the coach, just kiss and touch, continuing to fray the thin rope holding my restraint with each and every second that passes. Not when I open the door to it. Not when we step inside and stand a few feet apart, our desire eating up all the air in the room.

  “This is a bad idea,” she whispers although there is no one else in the room.

  “Okay.” I pull my shirt over my head.

  “Like we shouldn’t do this”—I unbuckle my belt—“you’re my boss”—toe off my shoes—“we have to work together”—unbutton my jeans—“us sleeping together would complicate things”—let them drop to the floor.

  “You’re right.” I take a step toward her, my only thought as I stand there in my underwear is where are those goddamn condoms and why is she still dressed? “About all of it, you’re right.” Another step closer. “But sometimes, Harlow, being wrong can feel oh-so-good.”

  I reach out and rub my thumb over her lips. My body begs me to take and claim and own, but her eyes and words stop me.

  “This is a mistake.” Her words are barely audible.

  “We’ll learn from it then. We can figure out if it’s one we want to make again or if we want to part ways.” She could tell me the sky is green right now and I wouldn’t argue.

  My lips are on hers. My hands sliding up the hem of her dress so that perfectly round ass is in my hands.

  “But that’s the thing, we can’t part ways,” she murmurs against my lips.

  “You’re talking, Harlow.” I pull her against me so my dick hits her between the thighs and shows her what all this talking is depriving her of. She sighs while I groan and it allows me to dip my tongue between her lips and welcome her back to my side of desperation.

  “Zane.”

  “We’re just here for the sex.” I chuckle against her lips as her fingers on my shoulders tense, only to fall lax when my hand snakes beneath the elastic band of her panties. I part her. Slide my finger down into her pussy and can’t help the groan that falls from my mouth when I find her wet and slick for me.

  “Just the sex,” I whisper over her gasp as my finger enters her. The throb of my cock as it begs to be the one doing the fucking. The scrape of her nails up my back. Her moan as I tease her.

  My lips are back on hers. My tongue demanding just like my fingers are. “Glad you see things my way.”

  And with those words, it’s like a switch has been flipped. Every ounce of hesitancy on her part is gone. She lifts her dress over her head. She undoes her bra and my mouth can’t wait to suck those perfect pink nipples.

  Her skin—toned and supple—smells of shampoo and perfume and sex . . . god does it smell like sex. I take her nipple in my mouth and roll my tongue over it before my teeth scrape its tip. My hands shove down her panties and then my underwear all the while doing that stumble-grope-fumble walk backwards to the bed.

  When she lies down . . . when I get the full effect of Harlow Nicks nude, it takes my breath away. There are women . . . and then there are women. Harlow is long with curves in all the right places and a tight strip of brown curls atop her pussy, pointing like an arrow to exactly where I want to be. Her thighs glisten with what I’ve already coaxed out of her and her tits are the perfect handful.

  Images of what I want to do to her—with her—flicker through my mind as she taunts me with a teasing smile that says she’s waiting. She’s ready. She’s willing.

  Every part of me aches to touch and taste and fuck her pussy into oblivion. We’ve had our foreplay in a sense—nights on end sleeping next to each other but not touching—and while I’d be the first guy to volunteer when it comes to dipping my tongue in her well, right now all I can think about is having her, wrapped around me.

  It’s going to be brutally painful to take it slow when it comes to her considering how tormented I already am.

  But I’m up for the challenge, in more ways than one.

  I start with her ankle. Kiss her shin up to her knee. Trace a line with my tongue to her inner thigh. She squirms beneath me, her legs tensing and hands gripping the sheets as my name falls breathlessly from her lips.

  And if that’s not enough to make me harder than a rock, her fucking scent does me in. It’s sex—pure goddamn sex and when I breathe her in as I press a kiss to that strip of curls. The hold I have on my restraint snaps.

  “Christ, Harlow,” I groan as I cra
wl up her body, the head of my cock brushing against her skin as I go, its own subtle form of torture.

  Her fingers slide up my chest as I dip down and capture her nipples in my mouth. First the right. Then the left. The palm of my hands taking over for me as I kiss my way up her collarbone and then under her neck to her ear.

  “I’m dying here, Harlow,” I murmur against her ear and then moan as her hand wraps around my dick and begins to stroke. “I need you. To be in you. To fill you. To fuck you.”

  “Yes, please!” Her thumb rubs over my head as her fingers squeeze my shaft and when she leans up and kisses me, I know she’s game. That our foreplay has been enough for her.

  Hell if I’m not a man who prides himself on making sure a woman comes at least once before I jacket up, but this time—with her assent—I’m definitely not going to say no.

  Our lips meet again. “Condom?”

  “Drawer. Top left,” she says.

  I grab the box and then curse when I see it’s sealed in plastic. Just one more barrier, one added second until I can have her.

  And one more affirmation that she really was sick the other night and not off with her man of the moment like I was miserably thinking she was.

  Harlow’s throaty laugh fills my ears as I lean back on my haunches between her thighs and struggle with the box.

  “Here,” she says as she sits up, legs astride mine and takes the box from me. Within a second, her fingernail slides against the seal so it breaks. Her eyes hold mine as she takes the packet of foil, tears it apart and withdraws the ring of rubber.

  “Can we speed this unsexy process up so we can get to the sex-y part of it?”

  “By all means,” she says as she hands it to me and then lays back onto the bed of pillows at her back. I look down to roll the condom up my dick. Then my hands still as I notice hers sliding between her thighs.

  Her sigh fills the room as she parts herself and slowly rubs back and forth over her clit. Her back arches some. Her legs tense against mine.

  I watch her fingertip slide down her seam, coat itself, and then move back up to rub some more. Another groan.