FRAUD: An Unfit Hero Novel

by Faiman, Hayley

  The first time was when he slipped into my life a decade ago. The second, again, is now that he’s back.

  “Okay.” I nod.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Beaumont’s lips turn up into a grin. It’s not cocky, but rather, genuine. “Swear I’ll do right by you, Hutton.”

  I don’t know if I believe him, but God do I want to. I want to believe every word that drips off of his silver tongue.

  He jerks his chin toward the food as he takes a step back. He turns and I follow him, allowing him to straighten my chair and push me back against the table. He sits across from me again and after a few moments of stilted silence, the conversation between us finally begins to flow.

  After an hour ticks by, I’ve almost forgotten the fact that I was determined to run from him, instead I’m completely entranced by the life and stories of Beaumont Griffin.

  He doesn’t tell me just famous things. He mostly talks about his friends and their wives. He tells me how he met Channing and then how they all met Exeter. I find that those are the stories I’m most interested in, because that is the real Beaumont. The man who loves his friends as if they are his blood relatives.

  Chapter Eleven

  BEAUMONT

  I want to take Hutton to bed. I want to fuck her more than I’ve ever wanted to fuck another woman. Inhaling a deep breath, I go against my baser needs and guide her over to the couch. I watch as she looks from the cushion to me, then back again, as if she’s waging a war inside of her head.

  Ultimately, her head loses the battle with her heart, or more likely her body. Slowly, she sinks down next to me.

  “C’mere, Hutton,” I murmur, lifting my arm and placing it along the back of the couch.

  She bites the corner of her lip, her green eyes wide as she looks from my side to her lap and back again. It’s frustratingly adorable. She’s frustratingly adorable. But I have to remember that I hurt her all those years ago.

  Destroyed her.

  I took her virginity, her trust, and her heart and I turned my back. I was her Chelle and I hate myself for that.

  “If you could go back in time, if you could change anything about your past, what would it be?” she asks. Her voice is soft, sleepy, husky and so damn sexy.

  She moves, pressing against my side, kicking her sandals off and bringing her feet up to the couch, curling them beneath her. I inhale the scent of her hair as she rests her head against my chest. Wrapping my arm around her, I gently stroke her bare arm with my fingertips.

  I don’t have to think about her question. The answer is easy, it’s one that I’ve been thinking about more often lately, anyway.

  “I wouldn’t have allowed Chelle’s actions to play such a big role in my life, in my future. What she did was bullshit, but we were both young. I didn’t love her. I don’t even think that I did back then. I’ve just been angry for the past ten years. Angry and unable to allow myself to trust another person again. I also would have forgiven my mom for doing what she did a long time ago.”

  Hutton hums, turning her head, I look down into her eyes as she shifts her gaze up to meet mine. “Trust is hard,” she whispers.

  I dip my chin in a slight nod, then continue to close the distance between us until my mouth touches hers. She whimpers, turning toward me as her hand cups my cheek. My fingers dive into her hair, gripping the back of her head as my tongue drives inside of her mouth.

  Growling, I rip my mouth from hers, my cock straining against my jeans, begging to be freed. “Hutton,” I warn.

  She bites her bottom lip, her eyes dancing playfully. I don’t think she’s trying to be as goddamn cute as she is, but fuck, she’s adorable.

  “I should go home,” she breathes.

  Shaking my head, my fingers tighten in her hair again. “Not yet,” I practically beg.

  She inhales a deep breath, then lets it out with a sigh as she looks at me through her lashes.

  “Beaumont,” she warns.

  Her arms shift between us as her palms press against my chest, pushing herself up slightly. I grin at her, my hand never leaving her soft as fuck hair, my eyes never leaving her sea green ones staring back at me.

  “This night was supposed to be closure and nothing else. I know you didn’t mean to use me, to hurt me, that you were hurting too. I know that now, so we can end this night and hopefully move on,” she murmurs.

  I watch as she licks her lips after she speaks and all I want to do is kiss them again, then watch as they wrap around my cock. I shake my head, my eyes staying focused on hers.

  “Maybe you wanted closure. I want a new beginning.”

  “That’s not fair,” she whispers.

  I snort. “Life isn’t fair, Hutton. If it were, we would always get everything that we want the way we think we want it, the moment that we want it. However, that’s not the way life works and thank fuck for that.”

  She frowns, licking her lips again. She tries to push away from me a bit more, but I don’t let her. My grip in her hair stays strong. I have her right here next to me and there is no way that I’m going to let her push away from me. She tried earlier tonight, and I didn’t allow that shit then, it’s not happening now, either.

  “What do you mean by that?” she asks.

  Releasing my tight grip in her hair, I cradle the back of her head instead. I search her face with my eyes, my lips twitching in a small smile.

  “It means if I got what I wanted when I wanted it. I probably would have ended up with Chelle, miserable as fuck, instead of right here with you, happier than I’ve been in years.”

  “Happy?” she exhales.

  My smile widens, my teeth biting my bottom lip before I release it and lean forward, pressing my mouth against hers for what feels like the millionth kiss tonight. I’ll take them all though, every single fucking one that she wants to send my way.

  “Happy, Hutton. You in my arms, couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be, except maybe with you naked in my arms,” I chuckle.

  I hear her gasp, choosing to press my lips against hers and swallow the sound before she tries to speak and deny what this is between us. Deny the beginning that this is about to become. Because we’re starting something right now, whether she wants to believe it or not, I am in this with her—all in.

  “I don’t know what to do with that,” she mumbles as she breaks the kiss.

  Her lips are touching mine with each word that she speaks. Her mouth, her temptingly beautiful mouth is all that I want right now, until she’s ready for more, until she’s begging me for more.

  “Let me deal with it,” I offer.

  “You’re dangerous for my heart, Beaumont.”

  “I know.”

  HUTTON

  Inhaling a deep breath, my eyes flutter open. Looking around, I freeze when I realize I’m not at home and in my bed. Instead, I’m on a sofa, in the middle of a dark room.

  Sitting up, I collect my bearings and once I look to the left of me, I see the gigantic monstrosity that is Beaumont’s television, then everything comes flooding back to me.

  We were cuddled on the sofa together, we talked about the future, about us. He basically told me that he wanted to start something with me, but he didn’t really clarify what that meant and I was too scared to even ask. In fact, after the comment about lying naked in his arms, everything else is pretty much a blur.

  Reaching for my abandoned purse on the floor, I fish my phone out and glance at the time. It’s two in the morning. Frowning, I glance around in search of Beaumont, but the entire living and dining area are eerily silent.

  Pushing off of the sofa, I slip my feet back into my sandals and start to walk around the large empty house. I shouldn’t snoop around his home, but beyond wondering where he is, I’m curious about the life that he lives.

  He was fairly open with me last night, but it wasn’t like we talked about a ton of inner personal things. He’s still kind of a stranger and I am to him as well. He doesn’
t know the woman that I am now, just like I don’t know much about the man that he has become.

  Venturing down a dark hall, I pause when I see a light shining through the crack beneath a closed door at the end. Biting the inside of my cheek, I wonder if I should continue on toward the door, and knock, or go back to the sofa and try to sleep.

  Shaking my head, I know that there will be no sleep for me until I find out what’s happening on the other side of that closed door. My feet carry me closer until I’m right in front of it. I know that pressing my ear against it is wrong, but I do it anyway.

  Unfortunately, I can’t hear anything. Closing my eyes, I knock on the door and wait for a moment. When everything is still silent, I reach for the knob and gently twist it as I push the door open.

  I stand in shock and awe at what’s in front of me.

  It’s a recording studio.

  Not just a little room with buttons and knobs, but a full-on recording studio. I’m standing in the lounge area, looking over a bunch of buttons and slides and through a glass window, I see him. He’s sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, his guitar in his hands and his head dipped down.

  There’s smoke lifting into the air from where his head is bent. I frown, wondering when he started smoking. Then all thoughts of smoke and cigarettes disappear when I hear him strum the guitar strings.

  A haunting melody fills the room. It’s breathtakingly beautiful, and it makes my heart ache just hearing it. He doesn’t lift his eyes as his fingers continue to move over the strings of his guitar. I don’t move, frozen in my spot as I listen to him.

  The music, it’s telling a story and I can only imagine what that story will sound like once he adds lyrics. When he’s finished, he lifts his head and his gaze immediately meets mine. He leans over, setting his guitar in a stand and stubs out his cigarette in an ashtray that’s sitting next to him on a small table.

  “C’mon in here,” he calls, lifting his hand and motioning for me.

  My body jerks and my feet become unstuck from the floor as I force myself toward him. The door separating the control room from the main area, where he is, is open and I hurry through and stop just a few feet away from him.

  He dips his chin between his spread thighs and I bite the corner of my lip as I slowly approach him. When I’m within reaching distance, his hands wrap around my hips and he tugs me closer toward him, my thighs nestled between his spread ones.

  Beaumont tips his head back, looking into my eyes as I tuck my chin down and look into his dark gaze.

  “I wake you?” he asks with a frown.

  Shaking my head, I lift a trembling hand up to cup his stubbled cheek. “Woke up on the sofa, didn’t remember where I was,” I admit.

  His lips twitch. “You wouldn’t have woken up if you’d have let me exhaust you.” He grins.

  “Beau,” I warn.

  His grin turns into a soft chuckle as his fingers squeeze my hips. “Just sayin’.”

  “I should go home,” I breathe.

  He hums, one of his hands sliding up the center of my back before his fingers wrap around the back of my neck. His palm is warm, his fingers firm yet tender in their grasp.

  “No, you shouldn’t,” he says. I don’t know if he means this morning, or ever. The way he’s staring at me, I think it could be the latter. “Did you hear me play?” he asks.

  There is a hopeful gleam in his eyes when he asks and he looks about twenty years younger. He looks like a kid that is proud of what he’s done and he’s waiting for praise.

  “It was beautiful, haunting,” I admit. “Does it have lyrics?”

  Beaumont shakes his head, his eyes staying completely focused on me. “Not yet. Wrote it in about fifteen minutes. Fuck, you could be my muse.”

  Smiling, I shift my hand from his cheek to slide my fingers through his hair. “I highly doubt that,” I say as I feel the soft strands of his hair against my fingertips.

  My breath hitches when I feel his other hand leave my hip and dance up my side. His fingers stop just beneath my breast. I expect his gaze to shift to where his fingers lightly dance, but they don’t, they continue to stay locked in on mine.

  “I don’t. You’re special, Hutton. I knew you were the night we met and I’ve been regretting my behavior for almost a decade. If you weren’t special, I wouldn’t even remember your face.”

  “Sounds as though you’ve tested that theory,” I say, my nose wrinkling, not wishing to think about all of the women that I have no doubt he’s slept with through the years.

  He tilts his head to the side, his fingers sliding down to the hem of my shirt, before slipping beneath and making their way up my side again, this time touching my bare skin along the way up.

  My entire body breaks out in goosebumps with each move of his hand against my body. I want more, I want it all, and I don’t know if I like myself for being so easy when it comes to him or not.

  “Do you want an honest answer?” he asks.

  “You’d tell me?”

  He nods once. “I’m working on my honesty along with my sobriety. It’s my downfall. I don’t lie, never have. I have, however, omitted so much in my life, that it has felt like lying more times than not.”

  I press my lips together thinking about his offer. Do I want to know the truth? I’m not sure that I do, and yet, I’m not sure that I can not know either. I can understand how he feels about omissions feeling like lies. I’ve been lying too, for far too long, to myself.

  Inhaling a deep breath, I release my own hold on my lips and finally speak. “I want to know. I also want to know what this means. You and me. I know that I’m not supposed to ask, it’s been one night, but I’m asking anyway.”

  He laughs, his teeth showing and looking perfectly beautiful. “I’ve tested the theory with dozens of women, Hutton. I’m not proud, but I was in my early twenties and rising to fame. Women come with the territory. Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, I guess. Truth?”

  “Truth…”

  “It gets really old, really fast. Nameless, faceless women when there’s one woman’s face still burnt in your brain. When you see her and the guilt for how you treated her fills you up and threatens to swallow you whole.”

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because you had sex with hundreds of women?” I snap.

  His fingers flex against the back of my neck. “It’s not about you, Hutton. Not really. It’s about me and lying to myself. You’re there, but what I’m telling you was my road to self-discovery, to self-healing. I didn’t find what I needed in those faces, in those bodies, and I never would. Because what I needed is right here, looking like I’ve ripped her heart out all over again with my honesty.”

  Without a word, I have none, they've all disappeared, I lean forward and press my lips against his. I kiss this man who just confessed to having sex with an astonishing number of women.

  I don’t kiss him because I feel sorry for him or because I forgive that behavior. I kiss him because over the past decade, he’s been at the forefront of my own thoughts, my own mind, as well.

  To know that I’ve been in his, it makes me feel. I don’t know what I feel, exactly, but for the first time in years, I know that I don’t feel anguish and anger, I feel something different—hope.

  Chapter Twelve

  HUTTON

  Beaumont’s kiss this moment is different than the ones he gave me on the sofa. It’s needier, more desperate. His fingers tug down the cup of my bra at the same time his tongue fills my mouth.

  Wrenching my head back, I let out a long groan as his fingers roll and tug on my nipple. His hand moves from my neck to cradle the back of my head. His lips move down, sucking on the column of my neck as he makes his way down to the hollow of my throat.

  “Beau,” I breathe.

  He lets out a raspy moan as his teeth gently bite my skin and his fingers continue to play my nipples. Then, he releases me, his hands falling away from my body and I stumble back a step, lifting my head to look at him.<
br />
  I watch in awe, licking my dry lips, as he reaches for the hem of his shirt and drags it from his body, tossing it somewhere on the floor. My boob is hanging out of my bra, thankfully covered by my shirt, my lips are swollen from his kiss and my hair is a mess from sleeping on his sofa and his hand tangling the strands.

  But I can’t be bothered by any of that, because Beaumont is standing shirtless in front of me and he looks like he’s seconds from devouring me whole.

  “Hutton.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, unsure of what he wants from me, I think that I know, but I kind of want to hear it from his own lips.

  He smirks at my question. His cocky grin is back and I find that I don’t mind it, in fact, I like it. My eyes flick down to the button of his jeans and I gulp when he pops it open. Slowly he drags his zipper down, then before I realize what’s happening, his pants are gone and his length appears.

  Beaumont Griffin goes commando.

  My eyes widen before I lift them to meet his. He’s smiling so big that it’s kind of ridiculous. He takes a step toward my frozen body.

  “Why do you look surprised, Hutton? Not like we haven’t seen one another before, darlin’ girl,” he coos.

  I gulp, my eyes shifting down to his hard, long, thick length. I bite the inside of my cheek. No, it isn’t like we haven’t seen one another before, but he looks a lot better than I remembered, bigger too—everywhere.

  Then I remember that I most definitely don’t look like I did that long ago. Unfortunately, much of me is a little bigger than it was back then, and not in the same way that he is. Taking a step back, Beau reaches for me, his hand catching my hip, not allowing me to turn tail and run, again, which is annoying.

  “Let me see you,” he rasps.

  His eyes, they’re glittering, but it’s not with anything that I recognize. Maybe it’s desire, or want, need, but it’s something I’ve never seen from him before. It makes me want to give him everything that he asks for and that is dangerous.