Page 30 of The Fake Boyfriend Fiasco

“You, querida,” Varo said.

Georgia blinked. “Oh. Oh, yeah!” She tossed back a shot. So did an impressive number of the circle, including Nik. Honestly, Aria felt kind of left out.

But she redeemed herself over the next few questions. Except for the weird ones, like “Never have I ever swum with sharks.” She wasn’t surprised when Nik drank to that, either. Personally, Aria would rather live to a ripe old age with only a vibrator and a bottle of vodka to thrill her than run around inviting predators to take a bite, but she tried not to judge.

As the game went on, Nik’s hands roamed over her body, so slow and casual that no-one seemed to notice he was essentially groping her. He stroked lightly over her breast, then glided down her ribs. A second later, his fingers would breach the hem of her dress to skate over the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. And then he’d be back at her chest, his fingers nudging her tightening nipples, his lips grazing the dip where her neck and shoulder met.

“Do you need something, agapi mou?” he asked her suddenly. Which was when Aria realised that she’d begun rocking against his erection, desperate for pressure on her swollen, sensitive pussy.

“No,” she bit out.

“Mmm,” he murmured dryly. He might as well have called her a liar. His hand rested on her hip, feeling hotter than it should. “I don’t know why you stopped things, earlier, but I think you still want me. Am I wrong?”

She turned her head, met his eyes, and her sarcastic response dropped out of her head. She was caught, as if in a spider’s web—but the trap lay in the expression on his face, the gentleness that belied his teasing tone, as if he really cared about the answer. He held her gaze, unflinching, as he waited for a response.

Before she could manage one, the next challenge was shouted in Shenker’s deep voice. “Never have I ever had a fivesome. Public or otherwise.”

Nik’s expression soured, and he looked past her to glare at the grinning blond. Then, his face still hard, he drank.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. How the hell was she supposed to compete with a fivesome? “At that point it’s just a bloody orgy,” she muttered.

Nik chuckled, and her cheeks heated. She always spoke too loudly when she was drunk. He kissed her neck, replacing her flush of embarrassment with a different source of warmth. “If I’d known one person could make me feel the way you do,” he murmured, “I’d have used all that energy to hunt you down.” This time, when she met his eyes, all she saw was hunger. Somehow, she didn’t doubt him for a second.

In a moment of drunken clarity, Aria asked herself: how the hell did she get here? Not here, as in a pro footballer’s debauched house party in Marbella—but here, in the lap of a man who seemed to want her more than he should. A man whose desire and affection weren’t swallowed whole by the bottomless pit in her chest, whose presence surrounded her like a shield.

Then the moment passed, and she was just drunk and horny again.

“Never have I ever been married,” hollered the next girl. Aria grimaced and took a shot. Behind her, Nik stiffened—well, the parts of him that weren’t his cock, anyway. That thing was already stiff to begin with.

She giggled at the nonsensical thought. Understandably, since he couldn’t read her mind, Nik didn’t laugh along. “For real?” He whispered in her ear.

“What?”

“You’re married?”

Aria rolled her eyes. “I’m divorced.”

“Aren’t you twenty-seven?”

“That’s more than enough time to get divorced, sweetheart.” She’d been divorced at twenty, as a matter of fact, and married at eighteen. It certainly wasn’t the worst decision she’d ever made.

Or the best.

“Who was he?” Nik asked, after a pause.

“My husband.” She snickered at the joke, but he didn’t join in.

Instead, he asked, “Do you still see him?”

With a sigh of exasperation, Aria turned to look at him. “Do you care?”

She regretted her flippancy immediately—because Nik didn’t laugh or even smirk, and he certainly didn’t snap back. He didn’t say a word, but his expression answered, loud and clear: Yes.

“Aria!” Georgia called from across the circle. “It’s your turn.”

Oh, right. She turned to face everyone as her mind, conveniently, blanked. “Um… Never have I ever…” She really should’ve thought about this earlier, instead of dry-humping the man who was paying her to be here. “Never have I ever played football!”

The room practically exploded. There were cries of astonishment, of outrage, of what appeared to be genuine disgust—interspersed, of course, with gulps as everyone else downed a shot. Literally, everyone. Every single person in the room.

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