Page 59 of Gilded Fake

“Don’t get all sappy,” he said, leaning in and scooping me up, his arm around my lower back. He laid us down on the bed so we were lying facing each other. “But if you’re feeling like doing something for me, anal’s always a good way to show your appreciation.”

“I can’t believe you got my fingernail marks tattooed on your arms,” I whispered, feeling unaccountably emotional about his gesture. “That’s… Permanent.”

“Relax, it’s not like I got your name tattooed on me. Any bitch I fucked could scratch me up while I’m fucking the stuffing out of her. I just wanted the reminder of what a stud I am.” He leaned forward and gave my nose a quick kiss. “Don’t worry, Butterfly. I know this isn’t long-term.”

“What if it was?” I asked, running my nails down the ink on his chest. He wasn’t bulging with muscles like Royal, but he was sculpted and hard, every inch an athlete.

“Then you’d deserve the title Ice Queen, because you made hell freeze over,” he said. “Now why don’t you use that mouth for something more useful than comments like that? If I can’t get anal, I at least deserve a BJ for wearing your mark on my skin for the rest of my life.”

After I obliged him, we ate Oreos and drank the diet soda I brought, though he pretended it was killing him and insisted it made men’s dicks shrink. When he said he’d bring real soda next time, my heart turned into a gooey mess of pure honey. Why had I never noticed that the words “next time” were the sweetest promise in the English language?

Just as we finished snack break, a light went on upstairs in the Montgomery house. My heart stopped, and I dove from the bed, my feet tangling in the blankets. I fell to the hardwood on my hands and knees, but I barely felt it. I lunged across the room and hit the lights, my heart racing a million miles an hour.

Colt didn’t say anything. He was still sitting on the bed.

“What are you doing?” I hissed. “Get the stereo!”

I didn’t wait for him to move, though. He might not know where I set my phone. I crept across the room in the dark, the only light from the pool outside. I grabbed my phone and disconnected the Bluetooth, wincing at the pop the speakers made when the music stopped. Then I stood there, my heart pounding, the last words of the song still echoing in the silence.

“You may say I’m a dreamer…”

It was a dream. A beautiful, sexy dream, and now it was over. I felt my breath hitching at the cruelty of our fate.

“Come here,” Colt said quietly, patting the bed.

“We should go,” I said. “Get out of here before they come out. Where’d you park? Could they see your car? They’ll know someone was here. Even if we can get everything in the dark, there’s crumbs all over the bed—”

“And cum all over the bed,” he said. “They’re not coming out. Someone probably woke up to go to the bathroom. Look, the light’s off again, and no other lights went on. That means they didn’t come downstairs. They went back to bed. Okay?”

My heartbeat slowed, and I sank onto the bed, shaking all over. Colt sat up and started rubbing my shoulders, and I leaned back into his warm chest and closed my eyes. He was right. I tried to steady my breathing, to get my racing heart under control, but my lashes were wet with tears.

“We can’t keep doing this,” I whispered. “We’ll get caught. We have to stop.”

“I can’t stop.” Colt slid his hand around my throat, and my pulse exploded instinctually. I survived Baron Dolce for a year, and this was how I’d die?

But Colt’s hand was warm and gentle, moving up to my chin and pulling my head around toward his. He angled his mouth down, his kiss calming me the way it always did.

“Is that what you want?” he whispered against my mouth. “Because if it is, I’ll try not to fucking stalk you like a psychopath. But you got me hooked here, Butterfly.”

“Don’t you mean pinned?” I teased, so relieved at his words I wanted to bask in them forever.

“Yeah, that too,” he said, stroking a strand of hair behind my ear and kissing the back of my head. “Maybe I’m the fucking butterfly here. Are you watching me struggle for your own amusement?”

“Colt,” I said, turning in his arms and linking my hands behind his neck. “I’m struggling too. I don’t want to stop, but we can’t get caught.”

“So, we don’t fuck in your neighbor’s pool house anymore,” he said, his arms sliding around my middle as he held me on his lap. “We do it at my grandpa’s treehouse, which is fucking epic, I have to say. Or we do it in the car like regular teenagers.”

“That’s where regular teenagers do it?”

“Not very glamourous for the queen, but I wouldn’t mind bending you over the seat and fucking you like a regular slut.”

“Hey,” I protested. “Don’t call me that.”

“Okay,” he said, nuzzling my cheek. “Though you shouldn’t be offended by it. If anyone here is a slut, it’s me.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I’ve only been with four guys. What’s your number?”

“More than four,” he said, laying us down on the bed and reaching under my skirt. “And you should be glad for that, because believe me, I didn’t get this good by practicing solo.”

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