Page 34 of The Pucking Fake Marriage

A win, from where I’m standing.

I scour the restaurant, counting the people currently seated. Twelve.I try not to be disappointed, especially since around this time yesterday there were fourteen.

The numbers haven’t gone up to twenty at any given time yet, and I’m hoping to reach that milestone by the end of the month.

I lead Haley away from the main restaurant and into the cramped spot we use as our joint office. There’s a huge filing cabinet storing all the restaurants’ documents and a desk with two chairs. There’s a thin layer of dust on most of the surfaces—we’ve both been manning the counter for a while and haven’t used this space.

“Any ideas?” I ask Haley, wiping dust off the table with a rag. “We need more customers. Think we should hire another waiter?”

Haley’s eyes are twinkling. “Come on, you’re really going to make me ask?”

I squint at her. “What are you talking about?”

She sits down on one of the chairs and grins at me,excitement dancing in her eyes. “Seriously, how does it feel living with Ken Edwards?”

Now that’s a question I never thought I’d have to answer. Also, one I never thought I’d actuallystruggleto answer.

“Fine.” The word comes out a little too quickly, a little too calmly. I know that, even before Haley’s eyes widen in pleasure.

“Something has happened, hasn’t it? I knew it!” She screams the last sentence with so much glee I half-jump out of my chair.

“Nothing hashappened.” I try to speak slowly and assertively, doing everything in my power to make sure I sound truthful.

Haley stares at me for a few moments. I stare right back, refusing to blink. A few seconds later, she sighs in frustration.

“I can believe it. Ken Edwards is literally a Ken doll. And you’re going to let all that testosterone walk around the same house with you and not take a bite out of it?”

There’s no chance for me to get a reply in. Just then there’s a sharp knock on the door, and one of our new servers pokes his head in. “Miss Donaldson,” he says to Haley. “We’re having an issue with the till, and we wondered if you could help.”

I still haven’t gotten used to the fact that we actually have employees now. Apparently, neither has Haley, because she gets completely distracted by his use of the word “Miss.” Pulling on a serious, I’m-the-boss expression, she walks out after him.

Leaving me alone, filled with relief…and a little bit of guilt.

There’s nothing to feel bad about though, I remindmyself. I amtelling the truth. Nothing has happened. And nothing willhappen, not on my watch.

But then…

I press the insides of my thighs together. The shock of pleasure generated by the friction soothes me somewhat, but it’s not nearly enough to calm the flaming desire that has been awakened in me over the past few weeks.

Ever since I moved in with Ken.

I couldn’t have asked for a better transition. His apartment is miles better than mine in every way: a couch spacious enough for multiple people to lounge on comfortably, a kitchen that put even the one in my restaurant to shame, a king-sized bed in my bedroom, and the bathroom opposite Ken’s room actually has a jacuzzi andheated tile floors. I loved everything about his place.

But the best part of all is that Philly Titans were on the road for a large part of the month, starting the day I moved in. This meant I spent most of my time at Ken’s alone, living luxuriously.

Until he came back three days ago.

Ken’s presence didn’t exactly change my routine. He mostly left early and came home late, going off for practices or team meets. Plus, ever since the humiliating episode where I cried in his arms, the block of animosity between us has been chipped away to almost nothing, like a thin layer of ice. We could actually talk about our day without ripping each other’s head off.

Everythingshouldbe fine, really.

Except for the fact that Haley’s right. Ken is a goddamn gladiator, sculpted to perfection. One that is harder to ignore when I catch a glimpse of him at the kitchen counter in the morning, making himself eggs. Shirtless. With his morning wood proudly displayed.

The past few days have been torture. Something about having him close after he promised not to touch me is making me go crazy. Not an exaggeration. Last night, it took hours to fall asleep because I was imagining him breathing in the next room, his beautiful body sprawled on the bed, his dick hardening…

My cheeks burn as I remember sliding my fingers down my body, cupping my breast with one hand and thrusting into myself with the other. I had a choice between pleasing myself or caving and going into his room to beg him to fuck me.

That wouldn’t have gone well. Especially because Ken seems to have found a way to burn off every iota of his desire for me. When he looks at me or talks to me nowadays, it feels like he might as well be talking to a middle-aged woman he met on the street.

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