The Husband Game: An Arranged Marriage Romance

by Penny Wylder

  I’ll be there, I answer. Then I hop off my bed and beeline for the shower, kicking my ass in gear. When Fiona calls, I answer. That’s just how it’s always been, and how it will always be, as long as I’m doing these projects at her behest. And I keep telling myself that’s okay.

  I almost even believe it.

  12

  After two full days of wedding preparations under Fiona’s watchful eye, I am more than ready for a break from thinking about all of that just now. The ceremony we’re planning might be fake, but Fiona wants to have a real officiant there, along with real decorations, food, guests, a dress for me… the works. Granted, she’s paying for most of it through sponsored product placements that we’ve got going with the website, but still.

  It all feels like a lot.

  Especially when Charlie and I receive an invitation to visit his family at their cabin in the mountains. Meeting the family? Already?

  But this is what we signed up for. If we’re going to do a full ceremony, it means both of our families will need to be in attendance.

  Still, even though I’m grateful to escape from Fiona’s wedding-hungry clutches for a little while, I can’t help feeling strange about doing this. Charlie picks me up in his car, and even comes up to meet me at my doorstep so that he can carry my suitcases to the trunk for me. But I can’t even appreciate how gentlemanly he’s being because my nerves are eating me alive.

  “Have you told them that this is all fake?” I ask as I slide into the passenger seat—the door to which he held open for me, of course. He never lets me touch a door handle if he can help it.

  Part of me is starting to enjoy this treatment. To even think that I could get used to it one day. Except, isn’t this exactly what I’m supposed to be claiming will doom any decent relationship? All those traditional “the man treats the woman right” beliefs?

  Uncertainty is my constant companion these days.

  “Honestly?” Charlie pauses, both hands on the wheel. Then he glances sideways at me with a frown. “No. I think my parents would react to everything way worse if they thought I was doing some fake thing.”

  I chew on the inside of my cheek. But I can’t blame him. Telling my mom certainly didn’t help hamper her anxiety. At least she’s stopped asking me if I’d been brainwashed or if Charlie was some cult leader trying to kidnap me—or get me pregnant. But now she sends me regular articles about reality show stars’ fake relationships blowing up in their faces. She’s intent on convincing me not to do this wedding, real or fake.

  So, yeah, I guess I understood not wanting to be completely honest with one’s family. But still. “Aren’t they worried, though, about you proposing to me so quickly?”

  “Oh, yes. Extremely.” He slides into the driver’s seat and side-eyes me with a smirk, before he leans over to catch my hand and squeeze. “They’re all worried I must have knocked you up or something.”

  My laugh quickly shifts into a groan. “My mom wanted to know the same thing. What, like there’s no other reason people get married young these days?”

  “I know, right?” Charlie shakes his head, looking disapproving. “It’s like someone can’t fall head over heels for a girl they’ve just met, and already know right off the bat that she’s the one they want to spend the rest of their life with.” As he talks, he curls his fingers between mine, until my palm sits flat against his, the heat from his hand making my skin tingle.

  My chest tightens. The past few days might have been spent in wedding planning terror with Fiona, but the past few nights we’ve had all to ourselves. And the more Charlie and I talk about our dreams for the future—about how we both want to succeed in our careers, to be with people who support us and help us chase those dreams; and about how we both want kids someday, whether that’s supposed to be something people in our generation want or find practical or not—I can’t help but feel like we’re more in sync than I ever could have imagined. Considering the circumstances under which we met and started spending time together, it feels too random. What were the chances I’d meet someone I agree with so much, just out of the blue like that?

  And then, of course, there’s how we spend our nights after our heart-to-hearts and date evenings. The way he touches me, makes me think I’ve never really made love before now. I’ve fucked plenty of guys. But none have felt like they’re worshipping my body. Last night, Charlie kissed and licked and sucked every inch of me, from my temples all the way down to my toes, which he sucked between his lips and trailed his tongue across until I squirmed. Only then did he kiss his way back up my legs, to bury his tongue between my legs, deep in my pussy, making me cry out with pleasure.

  He always makes me come multiple times before he even lets himself finish once. He’s considerate, giving.

  He sure as fuck knows how to get me off. My thoughts drift to last night, the way he bent me over the kitchen sink before we’d even finished cleaning up from dinner, because I’d started kissing him and apparently he just got so hot he couldn’t wait. The way it felt when he took me from behind, hard and fast, growling my name as we both came undone…

  Shit.

  I’m getting wet again just thinking about it. I cross my legs, and glance over to find Charlie watching me, smirking. “You seem distracted,” he teases, like he can see right through me. Straight into my brain, where he’s reading all my dirtiest thoughts.

  “Late night,” I reply lightly, which makes him chuckle and slip his hand from mine to trace up my inner thigh instead.

  “You know, I had a feeling you were thinking about something naughty.” His hand keeps moving, almost lazily. Over and over my thigh in slow, tantalizing circles. Each loop inches his fingers higher. Closer to the hem of my jeans.

  “How could you tell?” I ask, tilting my head to one side, watching him as he watches the road.

  “You always look a little bit worried about getting caught.” He flashes me a quick grin. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take to teach you that you don’t need to worry about that.”

  “I don’t know,” I answer, my tone purposefully light now, forcedly so. “Seems like you find plenty of opportunities to tease me publicly. In places where people might easily notice what we’re doing.”

  “Is that so?” His fingertips have reached the hem of my jeans now. With a deft, practiced motion, he undoes the top button of my jeans. Then he starts to inch the zipper down, his thumb grazing against my smooth stomach underneath, making me tingly from my toes all the way up to my scalp and the nape of my neck. “Well, I can’t imagine why. Not like you’re impossible for a guy to keep his hands off, or anything.”

  I laugh, a sound that turns breathy as his fingertips delve further beneath my jeans, the tips brushing along the lace of my panties ever so lightly. “Two can play at this game though, you realize,” I respond, as I reach across the gear shift to mirror what he’s doing. I reach for his jeans, too, and tug at the buttons.

  His grin just widens. “And you blame me for being the one who almost gets us caught. You’re far more obvious.”

  “How so?” I protest. Then I have to bite my lower lip, because he pushes his hand deeper, his fingers sliding under my panties to stroke over my mound, down, down, until they brush against my clit. It’s a light, barely there touch, and yet it electrifies my whole body, making me take a sharp breath in through my nose and tense in my seat.

  “Well, you’re just a passenger. I’m driving. If you distract me too much, it’s going to get pretty obvious.”

  “Sounds like a challenge,” I respond. But then I lose track of my thoughts, because he parts my pussy lips with his fingertips, one finger stroking along my slit slowly, and I can already feel that I’m soaking wet, dripping all over his finger.

  He chuckles. “You say that, but you feel far too excited to stay on track…”

  I set my jaw. He has a habit of doing this. Distracting me so badly I can barely focus at all. But it’s my turn to make him lose his mind. In response, I scoot
forward, and lean my whole body over the gear shift.

  Whatever Charlie expected, it’s not this. He glances down at me, where I’m practically lying in his lap, peeling his jeans down hurriedly, like I can’t wait to get access to what’s underneath. Which is true. I can already feel the hard bulge of his cock through the denim, and it makes me hungry for him.

  I want to watch him lose his breath the way he makes me when I come. I want to lick and suck him until I can feel him lose total control, all because of my hot mouth. I pause to tilt my head and grin up at him, and then I finish peeling his boxers back next.

  His cock springs free, thick and hard and long, so fucking ready for me that there’s already a glistening spot of precum gathered at the tip. “Fuck, Lila,” Charlie murmurs, deep in the back of his throat, his eyes hooded with distraction. He has both hands on the wheel now in a death grip, like he needs all of his concentration to maintain current velocity with what I’m doing down here.

  I grin at him. “If you say so,” I reply, and then I lean down and slowly lick that drop of precum from the quivering tip of his cock.

  The breath he sucks in through his tightly gritted teeth makes fire unfurl in my stomach, racing through my veins. I want him to do that again. Over and over. I want to hear him shout my name as he comes.

  I shift in my seat and wrap both hands around the base of his cock, leaning down to trail my tongue up the length of his shaft, along the underside. He feels rock hard, solid as steel, and yet the soft, velvety skin on top makes my tongue glide easily along his length, tracing the seam beneath, then the veins that bulge from either side of his cock. God, it’s a fucking beautiful cock.

  “That fucking mouth of yours,” Charlie murmurs, practically taking the words right off my tongue, smirking down at me. “You are so fucking sexy right now, Lila, you know that?”

  “Oh am I?” I lower my eyelids, tilt my face so I can brush his cock along my cheek as I gaze up at him, playing coy. “Tell me what you want me to do, then.”

  Heat flares behind his eyes. I swear I feel the car shift a little for a second, like those words alone almost caused him to lose control. I should feel worried, I guess, about what happens if he gets too distracted as he’s driving. But I’m feeling too amped up on adrenaline, too excited by being down here in the first place, to care. It’s hot, it’s exciting. I’ve never given a guy road head before.

  I’ve never trusted a guy enough to be sure he’d keep driving while I did something like this. But Charlie is nothing if not in control.

  Something he perfectly demonstrates in the next second when he tells me, his voice low and filled with command, “I want you to put my cock in your mouth, Lila.”

  My pussy throbs at the sharp commanding tone. And I obey, shifting so I’m right above him, my mouth poised over his waist. Then, slowly, I lower myself, my lips pursed tightly, then pressed hard around his shaft as I lower my face toward his lap, letting his cock slide over my tongue, inch by slow inch.

  Finally, when his cock has reached the back of my tongue, and I can’t go any further, I stop and start to pull back up. Before I can, though, I feel Charlie gently bring one hand to rest on the top of my head, and he slowly pushes me back down onto his cock.

  “More,” he says, still in that low, commanding tone. “I want my cock in your throat, Lila.”

  My pulse speeds up. I’ve never deep-throated a guy before. I’m not even sure if I can. But Charlie’s already pressing me back down, and all I can do is obey.

  He must sense my hesitation, because his hand curls in my hair. “Relax,” he murmurs.

  I do. I let my jaw go, relax every muscle in my body, as far as I’m able.

  “That’s it,” he says softly, his breath hitching a little as I feel the tip of his cock brush against the back of my throat. I suck in one last quick breath, and then he pushes my face toward his lap, pushes the tip of his cock past the point I thought I’d need to stop at. Turns out, I’m better than I thought.

  My body tenses at one point, and I choke a little, but Charlie just eases up, lets me pull back up off him. I obey the motion of his hand now, slide my mouth all the way back up the length of his shaft to the tip of his cock, then tighten my lips around him and press all the way back down again, one slow motion, his hand on the back of my head guiding me.

  “That’s it, my naughty girl. God, that fucking sexy, tight little mouth of yours is—fuck,” Charlie hisses, as yet again, the spongy tip of his cock brushes the back of my throat, goes deeper.

  Before long, we find a rhythm, and I’m pumping up and down him, while Charlie’s hips thrust up off the seat of the car, until it feels like he’s practically fucking my mouth, we’re moving together so quickly, at a steady pace. I can feel ropes of my saliva sliding along his shaft, and he groans in the back of his throat, encouraging me.

  “That’s my good girl, my sexy fucking dirty girl. Lila…” He whispers my name, then starts to pull me up and down, faster. “Take it all, that’s it. Take my fat cock in your mouth, fuck…”

  I moan around his shaft, the words turning me on so badly that my pussy, already wet at the start of all this, feels like it must be drenched by now. I curl my tongue upward to drag it along his length as he pumps in and out of my mouth, and that draws another sharp inhale from him. This time I really do feel the car lurch slightly around us, before he curses and rights us, and I know he’s right there at the edge, I can feel it in every inch of his throbbing, desperate cock.

  “Fuck, I’m going to… Lila, I’m…”

  But I already know. I purse my lips around him, suck hard, just as he comes inside my mouth. I swallow, tasting him, every flavor I’m used to after days of us hooking up, but so much stronger, more concentrated. Like a potent drug, a taste of him that I’ll never get tired of, salty and savory and a hint of sweet and smoke all at once.

  I swallow a second time, then lick and lap at his shaft, the tip of his cock, cleaning every drip from him. His cock tenses and jumps as I lick him, sensitive now, and I grin, tilting my face to smirk up at him.

  He glances down at me with hooded eyes, his expression half-gone somewhere else. “You are… dangerously fucking good at that,” he finally manages to murmur, and the words curl through me, settle in my belly like a note of triumph.

  Eventually, I slide back over to the passenger seat to buckle myself back in, feeling accomplished for the afternoon.

  He hands me a napkin without a word, and I laugh as I lean in to wipe my lips gently in the side view mirror. “Okay, so maybe I’m a little easily distracted,” I admit, grinning.

  “You and me both,” Charlie responds, his eyes catching mine, holding for a moment, before he turns back to the road. “Maybe I shouldn’t bring you to meet my parents if you’ll misbehave the whole time.”

  I laugh. But the laughter fades into worry after a moment. “Charlie… If this is going to cause trouble for you…”

  He interrupts me before I can get any further, reaching over to bring his hand to rest on my knee. “The only way I’ll get into trouble is if I don’t let my family at least meet you before our wedding.” He winks. “Besides, joking aside, you have nothing to worry about. My family is going to love you.”

  I settle back in my seat, shifting a little, trying my best to get comfortable. “All right. But only if you’re sure.”

  His hand finds mine again, and his fingers weave through mine before he squeezes, tightly. “Trust me, Lila. I’m surer of this than I’ve ever been of anything.”

  Which is exactly what I’m worried about, I think, but don’t dare say aloud.

  But Charlie is right. If his family is nervous about our relationship, or about me, it doesn’t show. At least not right away. We’ve barely pulled up to the cabin—which, I really feel like he should have called a lodge, because to me it looks a whole lot larger than the cabin in the woods I’d imagined. It looks more like the sort of hunting or ski lodge that rich people weekend at in movies.

  I’m
still gaping at the building itself, with its pretty dark wooden exterior and cheerily painted red shutters on the windows, when a mob of people burst through the doors.

  “You must be Lila!” his mother exclaims almost before I’ve even managed to extricate myself from the passenger side of the car. “Charlie’s told us so much about you.” She wraps me in a tight bear hug before I make it more than a step away from the car.

  He has? I wonder. But when I glance over her shoulder, Charlie is busy hugging a tall man who must be his father. They’re the spitting image of one another. And another man hovers between Charlie’s parents, waiting to offer me his hand when we break apart.

  “Mark,” he says. “I’m Charlie’s brother.”

  Younger, I’m guessing by his fresh, unshaven face. But not by much. “It’s great to meet you,” I tell him truthfully, and shake his hand.

  Then Charlie’s father wraps me in a bear hug, and soon after, the family dogs arrive—two that his parents own, and a lazy black lab who apparently belongs to his brother. His parents’ dogs are little dogs who jump around my ankles barking. The lab politely sniffs my hand, whacks me a few times with his tail as he circles us for pets, and then leads the way up into the cabin, where we soon follow, after Charlie grabs our bags from the trunk.

  “I hope the drive went all right,” his mother is saying.

  “We weren’t sure what kind of food you ate or if you had any dietary restrictions,” his father is telling me. “So we went ahead and made a pretty big spread for dinner. There’s some meat, some fish, veggie options too…”

  “Well, even better,” I reply with a grin. “Because I’ll eat anything.”

  “Careful what you tell him,” Charlie’s mother warns me. “He’ll hold you to that. Next thing you know you’ll be trying kangaroo meat or some god-awful thing…”

  I laugh, as Charlie’s dad rolls his eyes and denies the accusation. But as Charlie’s younger brother grabs my suitcase from Charlie and leads us up into the loft, where our bedroom is, I can’t help but notice how similar Charlie is to the rest of his family. Nice, helpful, almost too obliging.