Page 26 of The Fake Boyfriend Fiasco

Yes, Aria. What?

“Um… In the box.” Her words blurred together awkwardly. Her heart felt like it might burst out of her chest and flop around on the floor like a fish. How the fuck could one man be so disarmingly, stressfully sexy? “My menstrual cups,” she repeated, “are in the box.”

He paused. Then, rather than blushing, or stuttering, or—the ideal scenario—leaving the room, Nik said, “The box you supposedly are not sitting on.”

She sighed. “Obviously, I’m sitting on a fucking box, Nik. And the corners are starting to hurt, so if you could just piss off—”

“What,” he cut in casually, “is a menstrual cup?”

Oh, dear. She really hadn’t thought this through. Good thing she refused to be embarrassed about good, old-fashioned menstruation. “Well, it’s a little silicone cup thing that you kind of… fold up, and shove up your vagina—you know, like a message in a bottle—and then it pops open again, kind of like those tents kids play with, and it catches the blood—when you’re on your period, I mean.”

He stared. “I… have never heard of that.”

“It’s all the rage. Very environmentally friendly. And much more convenient than tampons.” All true; all irrelevant to her current situation.

Nik cocked his head to the side. “And you expect me to believe, Aria, that you are so horribly embarrassed about your little cups, you sat on a box to stop me seeing them?”

“Well—”

“Last night you told me about the time you lost a vibrating egg up there and had to lay it like a chicken.”

Her cheeks flushed. “I was drunk!”

“Barely. What’s in the box?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She’d had quite enough of his knowing stare and his sexy smirk. Plus, the corners of the sox were really digging into her bum, and frankly, he was right—she wasn’t embarrassed about anything. Not bloody menstrual cups, not the various items she’d lost in her vagina, and definitely not the toys she used for her perfectly natural activities.

All of which inspired Aria to stand up and snap, “It’s my sox. Are you happy?”

Nik stared down at the slightly squashed box on the bed. Or, actually, at the assortment of sex toys inside it. “Your what?”

“My sox. My sex box. Get it?” He didn’t reply. He didn’t even look at her. He appeared to be mesmerised by the dildos. “Me and Jen made it up,” she added, “when we were younger.”

“Jen,” he said finally. “The friend who got married on the day we met.”

“Yes.”

He fell back into silence, but she didn’t think he was considering Jen and Theo’s holy matrimony. In fact, if his mind was behaving anything like hers, he’d be thinking about that kiss. Their first. The one that had carved out a place for itself in the dirtiest corners of her memory, where it radiated a constant, thrumming pulse of heat.

That kiss, Aria decided woefully, was where all of her problems had begun.

Problems? If problems always came with a gorgeous fake boyfriend and enough money to give you your dreams on a platter, the world would be a far better place.

Okay, true.

She ran her tongue nervously over her lip ring as Nik reached out and—oh, God—picked up the purple vibrator she’d dropped. He stood, his eyes on the thick dildo in his hand. Then he ran his thumb over the rabbit’s ears and asked, “What is this for?”

Aria couldn’t decipher his tone, but she managed to sound lighthearted as she replied, “Figure it out.”

He looked up, something dangerous glittering in his eyes. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”

Aria bit down on the insides of her cheeks, barely resisting the urge to press her thighs together. Something about that low, smoky voice was flooding her pussy with need, swelling her already sensitive clit. Surely, he wasn’t coming on to her right now, was he? No. He just liked to tease. For all his supposed playboy ways, she had yet to see any evidence that Nik understood seduction. Not when he was on the receiving end of it, at least.

She didn’t usually mind his flirting, but right now she was too close to the edge for games. Time to lighten the mood. Aria injected a spark of humour into her voice and nodded at the toy as she said, “Intimidated?”

“No,” he replied. Simply. Instantly. He didn’t sound cocky, or even confident—just unconcerned, as though he couldn’t imagine why he would be.

Considering the glimpse of him she’d gotten last night, Aria wasn’t surprised. The memory dragged her traitorous gaze south, just for a moment—which was long enough to notice the unmistakable bulge straining the front of Nik’s shorts, the flushed head of his cock visible above the waistband.

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