Page 87 of The Match Faker

All my life I’ve heard that. I’ve known I was beautiful since I was old enough to pass for “old enough.” But the words have always been said in the context of what they do for someone else. I’m beautiful and that made a man happy, made him look good to his peers, made me deserving of his time.

To Nick, I’m beautiful. Like art is beautiful. Beautiful like one exquisite line of poetry. Beautiful like it’s his honor to behold.

He reaches for me, pulls me by my wrist into him. His body is warm, his T-shirt soft, the jeans a bit rough against my bare thighs. “Don’t hide, beautiful girl,” he says softly into my hair.

“Sorry,” I say, a reflex, and he tips my chin up, a quiettskon his lips for the unwarranted apology. His other hand travels down my body, skirting the side of my breast, my hip, running along the top of my thigh-high boots, the combination of the suede and his warmth laying a trail of shivers on my skin. His fingers glide up the inside of my thigh and finally he touches me like I need. He pushes his hand down the front of my panties, stretching the fabric, glides the pads of his fingers along my lips, and inside me.

I press my face into his shoulder, my mouth open.

“You can bite, baby.”

As he pumps his fingers inside me, rubs the heel of his hand against my clit, I do. More another reflex than a conscious choice. He sighs, grunts, as I bite, grip his waist beneath his T-shirt as I spread my legs further apart so he can fit more inside me, as I stretch for him, my body pliant. He takes his hand away a moment later and I cry out again. I can’t take another denial, but instead of teasing me he holds me by my hips as he gets onhis knees, his back against the cupboards along the floor of the bar, his mouth at my pussy.

“Hold on to the counter,” he says, the gentlest command.

“Keep your glasses on,” I say back, and I do, and he does.

I grip the counter. We watch each other as he closes the inches of space between us, his stubble the sweetest roughness on my inner thighs. His glasses tilt as he pushes his mouth deeper between my legs, his tongue stroking. I force myself to keep my eyes open. I don’t want to miss a moment of him like this, on his knees for me, flushed with arousal, his own version of beautiful. But I break my promise in the next moment when he pushes three fingers inside me once again, and I cry out, rocking against his hand and his face, coming, shuddering, held up only by my grip on the counter and his hand on my thigh.

He stands slowly as I catch my breath, not ready to open my eyes yet. He takes hold of me again, places a wet kiss on my shoulder. “Can I take you upstairs?”

I nod, my eyes squeezed shut.

“Can you keep your boots on?”

I laugh, seeing him finally. His glasses are perhaps permanently bent, his hair a mess, his lips shining in a way I’ve grown too accustomed to.

“Yes.” I kiss him. Because I can and because I want to taste myself on him and because if I don’t, I might hate myself for the rest of my life.

He places my coat over my shoulders and carries my dress and purse over his arm, gently herding me toward the back door and up the stairs. The cold in the stairwell, the transition to a new location, pull me from the sex haze I was in moments earlier. I shiver, the wetness between my legs no longer slick and warm. The intimacy and vulnerability between us crumbles away, leaving only a strange sense of embarrassment. Who did I think I was to undress in Nick’s bar, as if this was an auditionfor a low-budgetCoyote Uglyremake. Maybe I can blame the whiskey.

“I’m sorry,” I say, turning to face him as his apartment door shuts behind us.

“You’re good, Jazz.” He tucks my hair behind my ear. “Do you still want to do this?” he asks into my hair. “We don’t have to keep going, if you don’t want to.” After a pause, one where he breathes so deeply his chest expands against mine, he says, “What do you want, Jasmine?” The question far heavier than just a discussion of sex.

I step out of his reach. I can’t think with his fingers skimming the curve of my breasts and his exhales against my neck. He’s left the lights off, other than the weak lamp from the hood fan above the oven. I walk around his apartment, trailing my palms along the minimal, mix-matched furniture, the few wood accents he—or his father—made.

What I want is for him to do whatever he wants to me, but it’s moments like these, the ones I want the most, that are the hardest to let myself have. There are so many lies, omissions, and half-truths, and not enough time between us to make it possible for me to trust myself.

He follows me at a distance around the apartment. When I stop at the edge of the bed, he stops, too. Nick’s T-shirt looks soft, worn, well-loved. I ache to feel it between my fingertips because I know it will be just as it looks. It will smell like him, too. The dim light casts us both in shadows, his skin turning silver and blue, but his eyes are kind.

His eyes are always kind.

“I want…” I say, spreading my hand across his comforter. He’s changed the sheets from the ones we slept under and that makes me sad even if I applaud the hygiene.

I want a way for Nick to be my perfect match. If I was perfectly honest with myself, with him, that’s what I would say,but since I can’t be that I might as well settle for what I want in this very moment.

“I want you.”

I drop the coat from my shoulders, sit on the edge of his bed, lean back on my hands. I spread my legs. If this is our last night together, the least I can do is be real, and the real me wants to get absolutely railed by Nick Scott.

He pulls his T-shirt over his head, unbuttons his jeans, closes the space between us to brush the back of his fingers across my cheekbone, follow my hairline from my temple around the shell of my ear.

He gets on his knees between my legs, slides his hands up my boots. His eyes follow the path his hands take, and when he ghosts his lips across mine, arousal and want burn in my core.

“Nick,” I whisper. He moans his response, and I let myself fall back on the bed as he crawls over me. Together we push his jeans off his legs, he toes off his socks between kisses. His fingers find me again, wet, wanting. I push down the elastic waist of his boxers, his cock hard silk and soft, the flared head dripping pre-come.

He takes the underwear off and starts to roll away, toward the cabinet where he keeps his condoms and lube. I stop him, squeezing his forearm before he can leave the cradle of my spread legs. “I’ve never had sex without a condom before.”

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