Pranked

by Sienna Valentine

  I laughed. “See what his story is? Is that what they’re calling it now?”

  She tossed a pillow at my head as she turned to go, then stopped in the doorway to the balcony. “You’ll tell me if you change your mind though, right? We might be all up alone in the mountains here, but I’m the most resourceful assistant you’ll ever have. I’ll have you back in L.A. before you can say ‘alimony payments.’”

  “Thanks, Layla,” I said, feeling my shoulders relax, like they’d been waiting for Layla’s permission.

  “Anytime, boo.”

  12

  Bennett

  I really did have to check in with River, but it definitely didn’t take me until dinner to finish my business, and for the first time that I could remember, I was left feeling out of place in my own home. I didn’t know if I should seek Ava out or leave her alone. The memory of the kiss in my bedroom was still fresh in my mind, and I was a little worried that if I ran into her, I would give in to that sweet temptation.

  I’d never been good at self-control.

  I was still deciding what to do as I left River’s cabin, but then the first thing I saw was Ava standing on my balcony. She’d showered and changed, and looked just as fresh and young as she had that morning. My chest constricted painfully, and I felt a peculiar surge of anger toward everyone who had hurt her. I purposely left myself out of that group. The hurt I was going to cause her hadn’t happened yet, and I was still hopeful I could figure out some way to avoid it altogether.

  That was a subject I didn’t want to look into too deeply just now, so I forced a smile to my face and waved up at her. She grinned back at me, and my stomach flipped slightly. She smiled so easily. You’d have to be an asshole to take advantage of that.

  I was such an asshole.

  Ava was practically skipping down the stairs from the balcony to the courtyard, a bright smile on her face.

  “Feeling better?” I asked, and she nodded.

  “It’s amazing what a shower and some mountain air can accomplish.”

  The constriction in my chest eased. At least, whatever else happened, I let her feel relaxed, even just for a moment. I gave her a place that was safe.

  “You wanna take the tour?” I asked, offering her my arm. “Get some more of that air?”

  “I’d love to,” she said, and she latched onto my arm like she was used to it. Maybe she was. She must have been to her share of galas and red carpet events. Or maybe she just already felt as comfortable with me as I did with her?

  “Right this way,” I said, leading her into the courtyard.

  The ranch was laid out so that there was a horseshoe shaped line of cabins surrounding the main house. Each of the cabins had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living area, and a kitchen. There was a pool in the courtyard, fed by a stone fountain at one end that was designed to mimic a series of natural rock pools, one flowing into another.

  There were ten cabins in all, not counting the main house, and I led her to the farthest one on the right, the Timberland Cabin.

  “When I was little,” I said, pushing the door open, “we used to come here every summer. We always got the Timberland Cabin. Dad said he liked being as far as possible from the hippie kumbaya circles in the main house.”

  The cabin was a little dusty from disuse, but River kept them all in good, working order. That guy smoked more weed than anyone I’d ever met, but you couldn’t slow him down. I really didn’t care if he was high at work so long as the work got done, and it always did. I sometimes wondered what my caretaker might be able to accomplish if he weren’t stoned all the time.

  Ava looked around the cabin, peeking into cabinets and shelves. “It’s so cozy,” she said. “I bet you loved it here.”

  “I did,” I said softly, entranced by watching her discover, for the first time, this place that I had always known. In a sense, she was discovering me. I don’t know why I’d taken her to this cabin. I’d never taken anyone here before. Even River didn’t know that it was my family’s summer cabin. She was getting to me. I could feel her in my head and in my veins. I had never wanted to share so much of myself with someone.

  She wandered down the short hallway, peering first into the bathroom and then into the smaller bedroom. “Is this where you stayed?” she asked, smiling down the hall at me as I moved toward her.

  “Yep,” I said, stepping into the room. There were two twin beds, covered with handmade quilts in reds and browns. Between them was a whitewashed nightstand, a banker’s lamp on top of it. “Me and my brother.”

  I had definitely never told anyone else about coming here with Al.

  “Are you close?” she asked, sitting on one of the beds. I took a seat next to her.

  “We were,” I said.

  “What happened?” Her voice was quiet, gentle, like she knew she was poking into a place that didn’t get much sunlight.

  “He died,” I said, surprising myself with how flat my voice was. I didn’t like talking about Al. I avoided it whenever possible.

  “Oh, god, I’m… I’m so sorry,” Ava said, her small hand resting on my back, a warm weight against my spine, just over my tattoo. “How old were you?”

  “Twelve,” I said. “Al was seventeen. It was a... car crash.”

  I swallowed hard, feeling a lump forming in my throat and angry with myself for letting it. Ava’s hand began to move in slow, soothing circles on my back, and I closed my eyes. “The first time we came here without him,” I said quietly, not sure why I was even still talking, except that Ava made me feel comfortable, and I felt like I’d lied to her enough. She deserved the truth about something. “That first summer... it was so weird being here without him. I felt like nothing was the same again. I spent a lot of time hiking through the woods on my own.”

  Ava’s hand stayed on my back, and she leaned against me, her temple against my shoulder. She didn’t say anything, and somehow that made it easier. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He was always pushing me to be better. We used to do these... experiments. We’d head into the woods and experiment with snares or with making explosives out of kitchen ingredients. We got in a helluva lot of trouble.”

  Her hand stilled for a moment, and it didn’t move again until I resumed talking. “After he died... I don’t know. It wasn’t as much fun.”

  I hadn’t stopped, though. I’d just gotten more elaborate, started to run the experiments on actual people. That’s when all the pranks had really started. I wanted to get reactions out of people. Draw extreme feelings out of them, perhaps in an attempt to replace the deadness I felt inside myself.

  We sat there for a long while, her hand on my back, her head on my shoulder.

  “What was it like for you?” she finally asked. “Growing up? I mean... was he your only brother? What are your parents like? How did you... get to be you?”

  I shifted to look at her. She’d asked me this last night as well, but of course she didn’t remember. I smiled faintly. “It was... good. I had a good childhood. My dad worked hard, but he gave us a good life.”

  “How good?” she asked, and I could see in her face that she really wanted to know, wanted to learn about me, about her supposed husband.

  “Not private jet good,” I said with a smirk. “But we came here every summer, and we never had to struggle to make ends meet. Dad still made me get a summer job when I turned sixteen,” I said with a wry smile. “I think he thought it would help me make something of myself.”

  When I’d told her all of this last night, she had listened with the same sweet interest as she did now.

  “Why do I feel like I know you already?” she asked, leaning in a little closer, until I could feel the warmth from her skin radiating against my side.

  “Because you do,” I whispered, caught in the strange twilit magic of the moment. I raised a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and our faces were close enough that I could feel her breath on my cheek.

  She tilted her head, pressing her cheek
to my palm. “What happened between us, last night? I... I want to remember, but I’m only getting short glimpses.”

  That prickling guilt was back in my mind, and I knew this was the perfect opportunity to tell her the truth, but I just couldn’t force the words out. Not while I was sitting here like this with her, feeling more at home, more myself, than I could remember being in a long while.

  “You were in a bad place,” I said quietly, searching her eyes for some sign that I was doing the right thing. That I could still somehow get out of this without her hating me completely. “I wanted to make you happy.” That was just as true now as it was last night, but I knew my impulsive decision to pretend we were married coupled with my lack of balls in coming clean was going to make that impossible to believe.

  Her smile was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, and if I could see it every day for the rest of my life, I might be satisfied.

  She glanced down to my hand on the bed between us, the warm sunlight peeking through the curtains catching on the sapphire chips of my wedding ring. The symbol of my lie, and a reminder that everything I was feeling now was destined to come to a disastrous end.

  “You know,” she said after a long pause. “As weird as this is? I’m... I’m actually pretty happy.”

  She tilted her head up, and I reacted completely on instinct, dipping my head to kiss her, my lips catching lightly on hers. She met the kiss with confidence, sliding a hand up my arm to curl around the back of my neck. As broken as she was, as hard a time as she’d been having, she was still strong, still holding her own. It sort of amazed me.

  My arm slid around her waist, and she shifted, sliding into my lap without breaking the kiss. My hips rolled up automatically, and I remembered the last time we’d been in this position, with fewer clothes between us. I felt as much as heard her moan as she rocked forward, grinding down against me. My cock was already hard, throbbing in my jeans, and I moved again on instinct, rolling us both so that she laid back on the mattress, the bed squeaking slightly as I settled over her, her legs coming up to cradle me between them, bringing the heat between our legs closer together.

  “God, I want you,” I groaned, torn apart by my internal conflict, knowing this was wrong, that I couldn’t take advantage of her like this, even though I knew she’d enjoy it, knew that she was more than capable of deciding what she wanted in bed or out of it.

  “I want you, too,” she murmured, and her hand slid between us, cupping my erection through my jeans, the heel of her hand running along the entire, painfully hard length.

  “Fuck,” I breathed, reluctantly pulling her hand away. “Not now….”

  “Why?” She pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes. “We’re married right?”

  That answer was why, but I couldn’t say it. Instead, I gave into temptation only long enough to catch her lips quickly in a kiss that was meant to only be sweet and light, instead of raging with the passion and hunger that I was truly feeling.

  But Ava must have been having those same feelings, and she was determined not to let me get away so easily. She arched up into the kiss, fingers curling into my waistband as her breasts pressed hard into my chest.

  I almost caved, but then at the last moment I managed to wrench myself away with a groan, stopping her hand before it reached my dick and destroyed what was left of my weakening resolve. As I sat up, she looked up at me, confused, her cheeks flushed, eyes bright.

  “We have our whole lives for that,” I joked, but I knew it wasn’t true. I knew that as soon as I told her the truth, she’d be gone.

  I’d never have a chance with Ava Cassidy again.

  13

  Ava

  Bennett walked right out of the cabin, leaving me alone on his childhood bed.

  I didn’t understand. Things had been going so well, and it wasn’t like we hadn’t had sex before. Whatever else might have happened that night, many of those memories had already come back, and most of them were hotter than anything I’d ever done with Ken—and as such I was actually kind of looking forward to experiencing them again, but sober this time. For a long moment, I just lay there, frustrated and turned on with no outlet.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so turned on.

  No, actually, that wasn’t right. I could remember. It was just an hour ago, in Bennett’s room when he’d rejected me the first time today. Despite how unrealized both encounters had been, my whole body pulsed at the memories of being so aroused, my nipples tightened into hard little buds. I even briefly considered sliding my hand into my pants to take care of things myself, but a moment later, I heard a sound that could only have been a dinner bell.

  I pulled myself out of the bed with a groan and shuffled through the cabin, pausing to touch a small, wood-carved horse. I wondered if Bennett had played with it as a kid. I wondered what he’d looked like back then, how he’d laughed.

  “Soup’s on!”

  I jumped a little at the sound of Bennett’s voice as he stuck his head in the front door with a grin, like he hadn’t just left me wet and wanting only moments before.

  “Come on,” he said, offering his hand.

  It was a simple touch, innocent, almost—except for the way it sent a spark of electricity up my arm and down my spine and straight to my clit. I cleared my throat searching for something to talk about to take my mind of the strength of his grip and the length of his fingers.

  The bell sounded again, and I laughed. “Is that really a dinner bell?” I asked, and Bennett grinned at me.

  “Isn’t it great? It was here when I was a kid, and I was never allowed to ring it. Luckily it was still here when I bought the place. Hell, if it wasn’t I might have never even pulled out my checkbook in the first place.”

  I was only about ninety percent sure he was joking about that, but I couldn’t help laughing anyway, leaning into him, like my body was craving his touch.

  It was.

  “I bet you ring it all the time now,” I said, looking at him in a new light. He’d been so honest with me back in the cabin, so sincere. Maybe I didn’t need to remember last night. I was already starting to see why I might have married this man.

  “All the time,” he agreed, tugging me up the stairs to where the bell sat in its frame. Layla was standing next to it with an enormous grin on her face.

  “This is a legit dinner bell, boo,” she said, holding the rope in her hand.

  “And you got to ring it?” I asked, the corners of my mouth still pulled into a wide smile at how whimsical and truly Bennett the whole idea of this bell was.

  Layla shrugged and gestured to where River was standing, mashing potatoes by hand in a huge bowl. He had a shirt on this time, but I was guessing it was only because he was working on our dinner. He looked like he couldn’t wait to get out of it.

  “I’ve got connections,” Layla said.

  “So do you,” Bennett said, nudging me.

  “Me?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he answered. “You happen to be fucking the owner.”

  Layla’s mouth dropped open, but I snorted. It was such a ridiculous statement that it finally burst through my cloud of arousal, bringing me back to the moment.

  “So how about it?” Bennett was saying. “You wanna ring the bell?”

  “Who would I be calling?” I asked, looking around the patio. “We’re all here. I don’t wanna rob it of its purpose.”

  “Suit yourself,” he shrugged with a chuckle, heading toward a long table overladen with enticing dishes, all of them—so far as I could see—vegetarian.

  “You have got to taste this food,” Layla said, moving to hook her arm through mine. Her eyes kept sweeping back to River. She was practically drooling. I wondered if she had already sampled the cook.

  I leaned in to whisper, “Maybe you should consider the quickie marriage option, too.”

  She elbowed me in the side. “Don’t even joke about that!”

  “What aren’t we joking ab
out?” River asked, dropping a pile of creamy mashed potatoes onto my plate as I served myself some strawberry spinach salad.

  “Marriage,” Layla said, and I felt my cheeks flush.

  “Whose marriage?” Bennett asked, dropping a slice of bread liberally smeared with avocado onto my plate.

  “Just marriage in general,” she said. “I mean...it’s okay for some, but you won’t catch me doing it.”

  “You and me both,” River agreed as we all took our plates to a patio table where there were wine glasses already laid out. “Don’t get me wrong, boss,” he added. “I’m beyond stoked for you two, and you look like you make a good team. It’s just not my jam.”

  Bennett sat across from me, and I felt the gentle nudge of his foot against mine. “We do make a good team,” he agreed.

  I looked away, taking a generous drink of wine. All I could think of was the hard heat of his cock beneath my hand. Why had he stopped me, if he really thought we were a good match?

  “So, boss,” River said before I had a chance to sink too deep into my thoughts. “Remember how I said the full moon was this week?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Bennett nodded.

  “So, I wouldn’t have scheduled it if I knew you were coming, but it’s kinda douchey to cancel on everyone last minute….”

  I frowned curiously at my new husband. It sounded like River was having a party tonight, and I was a little worried Bennett would be upset that he was using the ranch for his personal parties.

  But Bennett surprised me by just shrugging, the smile on his face not even threatening to waver. “No problem, man,” he said, then his eyes flicked in my direction. “In fact, would you be okay with us joining in?”

  “For serious?” River grinned and nodded, smooth and easy. “Yeah, man. You’re always welcome.”

  “How about it, wifey?” Bennett said, still focused on me. “You up for a party tonight? I know things got a little crazy the last time you drank, but….” He trailed off with a smirk, that mischievous sparkle in his eye.