Page 16 of The Fake Boyfriend Fiasco

I want that. Bad.

The need hit harder than a set of studs to the gut, almost hard enough to stop Nik in his tracks. Fuck. If he didn’t stop thinking about this—about her—he’d be flashing his hard-on to the whole damn house in the next five minutes.

Nik tore his gaze from Aria and glared at Shenker instead, letting the man’s smug-fuck face erase every last scrap of desire. Ah. Perfect.

“Shenker,” he growled as he strode closer.

“Christou.”

The conversation ended there. His back firmly to the other man, Nik bent by Aria’s sun lounger and met her eyes. They were huge and doe-like without all the smokey makeup she preferred, tilting slightly upward at the edges. She gave him a teasing smile that set his racing heart at ease. Obviously, she didn’t like Shenker. Nobody with any fucking sense liked Shenker—Varo just had some primary school determination to ‘include everyone’, so the prick was always invited to these things.

In fact, Nik decided, Aria probably hated the guy. Sure, they’d only spoken for five minutes, but it was possible. In which case, she might be sitting here silently begging him to rescue her from the man’s irritating presence. And Nik could never abandon a lady in distress. So he slid an arm under her bent knees, wrapped the other around her waist, and picked her up.

She sucked in a breath so hard, he was surprised she didn’t choke. “What the bloody hell are you doing?” she demanded.

“You’ve been watching long enough, chrysí mou. Come and play.” Was it his imagination, or did she shiver in his arms at that last sentence? Maybe she was cold. Somehow. In thirty-degree heat. He held her tighter just in case.

The guys in the pool cheered as Nik came closer. Aria didn’t seem nearly as impressed, but he was kind of enjoying her iron grip on his biceps. He wondered if she’d dig her fingers into his skin like that when she came on his cock.

If she came on his cock. Which she might never do, if he fucked this week up.

“This is a health and safety hazard,” she said, her voice dry as ever. “You’re about to slip, drop me, land on your arse and crack both our heads open.”

“I can assure you, my motor skills are better than that.”

“Isn’t your knee fucked up?”

“It’s still stronger than the average knee.” According to his physio, anyway.

“Sounds like bullshit,” she sang. He liked the smile on her face, liked the sight of her eyes sparkling in the sunlight and the way she tapped her tongue against her lip ring. Her navel was pierced too, twice. He didn’t even know you could pierce it twice.

He wondered if she’d pierced anything else.

“Throw her in!” Varo shouted. Everyone in the pool cheered, and the shout caught on. “Throw her in! Throw her in!”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Aria whispered. And then, almost immediately, she winced. She must realise, then, that she’d said exactly the wrong thing.

Nik’s grin widened. “But sweetheart, I want to get you wet.”

“Oh, you filthy fuck—ooh!” she half-screamed as he started running, escalating to a full-on screech when he jumped into the pool, carrying her with him. As they plunged in, Nik pushed her up, so her head wouldn’t be submerged. He doubted she’d remembered to hold her breath in between screaming “You absolute prick!” Plus, he had a feeling that she might punch him if he got her hair wet.

The water felt ice-cold against his sun-warmed skin. When Nik’s feet hit the bottom of the pool, he pushed up and broke the surface again, sending a spray of water arcing through the air. He shook his head like a dog and grinned in the face of her death-glare. “What? You don’t want to swim?”

“For all you know, I can’t swim!”

He slid his arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest. “You don’t need to swim. I’ve got you.”

“Oh, bugger off,” she muttered. But her hand rose to slide over his jaw. She turned her head and kissed his cheek. It was that kiss, combined with her soft arse pressing against him below the water, that sent every drop of blood in Nik’s body rushing to his dick. He was hard as a fucking rock, painfully hard, within seconds. And he saw the instant Aria felt it, because her smile faded, and her eyes flashed up to his, wide and questioning.

He froze. They hadn’t discussed this, because he hadn’t expected this. He wasn’t some kind of depraved sex pest. Regardless of his hopes, he had not foreseen a situation where he ended up rubbing his erection all over Aria in front of about twenty people. And because of those twenty people, he now had to let go of her in a way that wouldn’t seem suspicious.

Or at least, he thought he did. Until she reached up and kissed him.

Because his friends were all five years old, a cheer went up the minute her lips touched his. Fireworks would have been more appropriate, because for the second time in his life, Nik was absolutely undone by a kiss. It was the way she arched her back, pressing her arse harder against his cock, and the gentle tug as she sucked his lower lip into her mouth. When the tip of her tongue teased his, Nik actually moaned. He wanted to shove down his trunks, slide her bikini aside and thrust his aching—

“Heads!” Varo shouted. One of the three footballs in play plopped into the water beside them, sending up a huge splash. Aria broke the kiss with a laugh, as if it was that easy. As if she could go from that impossible heat and uncontrollable need to carefree playfulness within seconds.

Which, clearly, she could. But Nik, for the first time in his life, was struggling to do the same.

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