Not the Girl You Marry

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  No one else seemed to think an after-dinner fight over something as trivial as a stupid comment and an offensive nickname was a big deal. And when Michael slapped his brother on the back of the head and Jack laughed, she wondered if she was making a mountain out of an intersibling-violence molehill.

  Michael looked at her with a toothy grin, not missing any teeth, and said, “Congratulations, he really likes you.”

  “What?” She was so very confused.

  Bridget piped in. “They beat each other down at least once a month. And usually, when Jack likes a girl, he gets his ass kicked. But you really add something to his right hook.”

  “I had to defend your honor, Duchess.” Hannah looked at Jack, still perplexed. He was flexing and bunching his hand, inspecting his bruised knuckles. “If I hadn’t, he would have jumped me on the way to the car and jeopardized my good-night kiss.”

  The way he smiled at her made her soften, just a smidge. She could probably hang in for a few more days.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EVEN THOUGH THIS PART of the plan would have Jack pushing Hannah out of the Lyft as it slow-rolled past her door—or making her take her own car and pay for it herself—he wasn’t about to end this night before securing a kiss. It just didn’t seem right considering that his heart was full of her laughing at his dad’s terrible jokes and paying close attention to his sister’s complaints about some douche at work.

  Not to mention that none of his other girlfriends had ever beat him at Cards Against Humanity. She hadn’t beat his dad or Bridget, but no one could beat them. They were savants. None of the other women he’d dated had ever fit so seamlessly into his family. She hadn’t even run out the door after he and his brother had tried to beat each other up. Clever, kind, and beautiful Hannah fit everything about the Nolans. And he wanted her to be all his. For real.

  If not for the story and the threat of losing his job, he would brush her hair aside and tell her that under the floodlight at the door to her building. He’d tell her the truth and let her go inside and think about whether she was willing to give him a second chance.

  As it was, he was prepared to leave her at the door. When she looked up at him with the doe-soft gaze that he knew she saved only for him, he couldn’t help but touch her. Even though he was still lying to her, he couldn’t help but get as much of her imprinted on his skin as possible. He’d never been so wound up in a woman before. And even though he was the one who was supposed to do the hurting this time, he knew that her walking out the door would cut much more than his ego.

  If he wasn’t careful, he would turn into the crusty husk of man his father was, and he wouldn’t even have the three kids and eighteen years of marriage to show for it. Less than two weeks, and he could feel it in his bones that Hannah was it for him. She was everything that he’d been trying to force with Maggie, Katie, and Lauren.

  Instead of following his instincts and spilling his guts, he kissed her. After just a split second of hesitation that told him that his plan to lose her was working, a little bit, she opened her mouth and kissed him back. Just like every other time before, her scent and taste wound their way into his blood, making his heart pump faster and his dick try to punch out of his pants.

  She grasped the sides of his jacket and pulled him closer, biting his bottom lip as though she wanted to brand him as hers. Her hard edges made him even more desperate for her. He settled his hands on her hips and pulled her close so that she could feel how much he wanted to sink into her softness.

  If this farce were real, it would be the right time for them to get it on, and only a thread of decency was keeping him from giving in and asking her if she would show him her etchings upstairs.

  As it was, her mouth invited him to take a taste, and he complied.

  Even more than making time with her, he wanted to wake up with Hannah. As compelling as all her sharp elbows and rough edges were, soft Hannah made him feel as though he had access to something rare and precious that no one else could touch. He wanted to bathe in the way she sighed when opening her lips for his tongue. Wanted to pump his fist in the air when she went soft against him. Because he knew that she didn’t give that to just anyone, knew that she gave it only to him right now, in this moment between the two of them.

  She pulled back and looked down at the front of his pants, biting her swollen lower lip. “Want to come up?”

  When he hesitated for a moment, he somehow knew that she was about to claw back her invitation. That was how well he could see her. He felt like she was made for him. Enough pushback to call him on his shit, but open and genuine and vulnerable in exactly the way he needed.

  You can just keep it to kissing and heavy petting. If you make this all about her, you’ll both know it’s real when the shit hits the fan.

  The shit had already hit the fan for him—he was most of the way in love with her—and he couldn’t seem to say no to it. “Yeah, I’d love to come up.”

  * * *

  —

  HANNAH WAS SHAKING WHEN Jack took her hand as she led him up the stairs to her apartment. Sasha was visiting her parents back east this weekend, so they had the place to themselves. Her best friend probably wouldn’t approve of her sleeping with Jack right now, but Hannah didn’t have it in her to care one bit about whether she was following “the rules,” or whether Jack would respect her in the morning.

  She’d always thought any rules, other than basic respect, were stupid when it came to dating anyway. And the way Jack clutched her hand and looked at her like he couldn’t wait to hear what she was going to say next made her feel like the only rules that applied to them were the ones they made up.

  If she’d followed any other set of rules for her life, she would be married by now. Probably have a baby. But the rules, even when she’d tried to follow them, had never seemed to fit right. They were a little tight in the crotch, to be quite honest.

  And if she’d followed the rules, Jack wouldn’t be in her apartment. She wouldn’t be about to have sex with him. Sex that was sure to be awesome because the things he could do with his mouth made great promises about the things he could do with his hands and all his other pertinent parts.

  It felt right to have him in her space, and she didn’t try to explain all of the pictures of her and Sasha and their other school friends sprinkled on the walls and shelves. All she had to do was look at his face to see the amusement and curiosity. The way he took his time in taking in where she lived told her so much about him. He wasn’t here to judge her; he was curious about her, as hungry to know her as he was to get naked with her.

  Jack was different from any other man she’d ever known, and that was why it was so easy to let him in when everything in her conditioning told her to shut him out and push him away. He was perfect, and she struggled to believe she deserved him. But here she was. Here they were.

  She sort of trailed after him, not so close that he would think she was hiding something, but close enough to reach out and touch. Until he suddenly turned, and he was right in her face. The heat of his body blanketed her front and she had a hard time using her legs for their intended purpose of standing.

  She must have leaned into him, because he grasped her upper arms and nearly incinerated her skin beneath the sweaterdress. A drop of sweat wound its way between her shoulder blades, and the collar felt as though it would block off all her air. She was so turned on that her body was feverish, and the only thing that would make the fever break was his hands and mouth all over her.

  She looked up at him, and his gaze had gone molten. His teeth dug into his bottom lip as though he was trying to stop himself from saying something. She didn’t want him to censor himself around her—she certainly didn’t watch what she said around him.

  “Kiss me,” she ordered.

  He lowered his head and pressed his lips against hers, pulling her close. She wound her arms around his neck and we
nt up on tiptoes, licking the seam of his lips until he opened up for her. Her heart picked up speed, and she whimpered. She wiggled against him, nestling closer, and felt how turned on he was. But his hands didn’t wander below her upper back. She wanted him to palm her ass, maybe pick her up and drop her on the couch. She just wanted more of him.

  “Touch me,” she said when he pulled back for a moment to get a breath.

  “I shouldn’t.” That was not what she’d expected him to say. In fact, she expected him to just do what he was told.

  Indignation rose inside her. “Why the hell not?”

  “I should go.” And then he actually pulled away from her. Unbelievable.

  She grabbed two fistfuls of his sweater and pulled him closer. She must have caught him off guard because he stumbled close enough that their thighs were touching. She felt as though she was on fire from her quads to her lower belly. And one part of him definitely didn’t want to leave. When he stayed close, she said, “You should stay.”

  “It’s really soon.”

  She might have felt shamed by that. With anyone else, she definitely would have. But not with Jack. Fisticuffs with his brother aside, he was too good a guy to deny her for any other reason than he thought he would be protecting her. She simply had to show him that the best thing for her in this moment was for him to kiss her and touch her and do all the things that she’d wanted him to do since the first night they’d met.

  Even though she should be keeping the walls up because this would all be over within a few days, she wanted to get naked with Jack. More than any other guy she’d been with, he’d shown her who he was. She didn’t like everything, but the fact that he’d been less than perfect made her trust him more somehow. She wanted to go soft for him in a way that she hadn’t ever wanted with any other man.

  She’d never felt this way about anyone else. And she needed to show him how she felt about him because she didn’t have the words yet. That need was what made her go up on her tippy-toes and press her mouth to his.

  His grip on her upper arms tightened for a moment, as though he was going to push her away, and she internally braced for the hot spray of that humiliation shower. Only she would go from shunning all romantic relationships to throwing herself at a man in less than a week.

  But he surprised her when he pulled her closer and took over the kiss. One of his hands moved to cup the back of her head, and that same sense of security she’d felt when he’d introduced her to his brother washed over her again.

  This was how she’d always wanted to feel in a relationship. Although she’d never been able to explain it, she’d never felt the mix of attraction and utter safety with anyone else that she felt with Jack.

  Actions spoke louder than words in this case, and they could talk about everything later—much later. After they’d stopped breathing like one being. Post everyone’s clothes coming off and everyone coming.

  Jack pulled back. “Dammit, Hannah. I promised myself I wasn’t going to do this with you.”

  “Why?” What they’d been doing until he’d stopped kissing her was set to become her most favorite hobby, and she only wanted more of it. More than any conversation they were going to have about this being too soon. That kind of conversation would remind her of Noah and how the timing for moving their relationship forward had never been right until the time had been right to dump her. She couldn’t take that kind of shit from Jack—it would hurt so much more from him.

  He gripped the sides of her face, and she could see and feel his conflict by the way his touch was sort of desperate and his eyes wild. Lust and pragmatism warred there, and she wanted to tell him that that’s what made him wonderful.

  “It’s really soon.”

  She placed a kiss on his stubbled chin. “This is like date four, and you’ve already gone down on me.” Another kiss. “I think this is plenty slow.”

  “I promised my priest that I would wait until I got married.” She froze and backed away slowly. He shifted on his feet and stuffed his hands in his pockets. For a second, she wasn’t entirely sure if he was joking. But then his face turned bright red. A clipped hysterical laugh came out of her mouth before she could clap a hand over it.

  Once she calmed down, she decided to try reasoning with him. “But going down on me was sex, Jack.”

  He shrugged. “We’ve been on the ‘everything but’ track.”

  “So, you’re—like—a virgin?”

  He pointed a finger up in the air for emphasis. “Not exactly, but P-in-V sex is for marriage.”

  “What?” Hannah turned away from him and walked toward the window. “You know they made up that rule so that they could control female sexuality, right?”

  “We can do other stuff,” he said as she felt him approach her from behind. And she was tempted to take him up on his offer. He’d broken the seal on her celibacy after all, and just being in the vicinity of his pheromones made her unbearably horny.

  Combined with the fighting-with-his-brother thing, his virginity pledge put the kibosh on her desire to stay in a relationship with him after the engagement party. So she might as well enjoy what she had while she had it.

  She turned to look at him and smiled. “All right. Let’s do this.”

  Once they were in the bedroom, Hannah became preoccupied with how she just couldn’t get a read on Jack. The night they’d met and on their first date, she’d thought him charming and confident. She’d actually felt a little bit bad because it had seemed like he liked her and she had an ulterior motive for dating him. But now he was a super-religious virgin who observed plenty of loopholes to his vow of chastity?

  Trying to square who he’d been with who he was acting like now distracted her as he kissed down the side of her neck. It felt great enough that she wasn’t going to stop him, no matter how much she wanted to interrogate him on his little living room proclamation.

  It almost took her back to college, when she’d made out with a seminary student for the better part of a semester. It was kind of thrilling—that he’d found her so attractive that he’d been willing to cheat on God with her.

  But this—he’d let her sit on his face, but his penis was sacred?

  He kissed his way down her belly, and that felt really good, but her thoughts were so loud that she didn’t spread her legs when he palmed her thigh.

  “Is something wrong?”

  She looked down at him. He was toying with the waistband of her panties and worrying his bottom lip. Damn, he was charming.

  “I’m just still surprised.”

  His face reddened. “Yeah—it’s— My best friend is a priest.” He shrugged. “It’s the guilt, you know.”

  She was intimately familiar with the guilt tradition of the Catholic Church, so she could almost understand. But she still had plenty of questions.

  “But you can do everything else without guilt?”

  He smiled up at her, looking boyishly sexy the whole time. “Nothing that brings you pleasure could ever make me feel guilty.”

  Just then, she forgot that none of this was really real. And she could see herself falling for Jack again. If she was smart, she’d use his chastity pledge to keep him at arm’s length. Close enough for Annalise to believe that they were in love, but far enough to protect her heart.

  But she wasn’t in the mood to be smart, not when she had this little window of time with a sexy, charming man all but offering to let her use him for pleasure.

  She could have her cake and have him eat her, too. The way he was looking at her right now, she could ask him for the moon.

  “Anything, huh?”

  His dimples deepened when she asked that. “Anything.”

  Before she could think better of it, she reached over to the top drawer and grabbed her favorite toy friend—the only thing that had made the last couple of sexless years bearable.

  “
What’s that?” Jack asked, but he didn’t look disgusted. Mostly curious.

  He held up the clitoral stimulator she’d purchased after breaking things off with the twat/urologist and turned it over in his hands. She felt her skin flush at the prospect of having to explain to him how it worked. And she almost grabbed it from his hands so she could throw it back into the drawer and try to make him forget that she’d taken it out.

  But then she remembered that she wasn’t trying to convince this guy she was perfect. She wasn’t trying to convince him to get married or spend his life with her. She was just going to have to keep him on the hook for a few more days. And he said that he would do anything to please her.

  She decided to go for it, but he beat her to the punch. He’d figured out how to turn it on and off and had figured out what to do with it without her having to tell him. “So you put this over—”

  “Yep.”

  “And then it—” He put his finger in and his gaze widened. She giggled; she couldn’t help it. He joined her and said. “Wow. Robots really are going to take all of our jobs.”

  “You do bring some things that the machines can’t reproduce.” She leaned down and kissed him.

  “I do.” He got rid of her panties with a smoothness a celibate guy shouldn’t have had and proved a quick study in using his new robot overlord in making her squeal and moan.

  Her head fell back and she squeezed her eyes closed. And then he used his fingers, and she actually saw stars when she came. But the cherry on top was the look on his face—total adoration—just before he kissed her.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  NOW THAT SHE KNEW they weren’t going to be having penis- in-vagina sex because of Jack’s religious views, which had so many loopholes they looked like Swiss cheese, it strangely felt more intimate.

  The only sounds in the room were their breathing and the drip from the bathroom faucet. The dripping usually didn’t bother her because she slept like the dead, but the slap of the water droplets against the ceramic was deafening right now.