Page 20 of Faking Ever After

He faced me for only an instant, but that one moment stretched into an eternity. My gaze climbed from his feet firmly planted on the stone floor, up his legs, over the significant mound of his underwear, and along his heavenly abs. After seeing his chest and biting my tongue, I met his gaze. It was as surely on me as mine had been on him.

He looked away. “Guess it’s time to sleep,” Percy said, more to himself than anything else. From that moment on, he very much didn’t look at me.

My feet tapped lightly against the stone floor as I neared my side of the bed. I moved the duvet and sat on the edge of the bed, aware of my quickening pulse and wondering if I’d be able to fall asleep even for a minute. Maybe a few nights of staring at the canopy with blood boiling in my veins will help me to pass out from exhaustion eventually.

When I lay on my back and covered myself with the soft, thin duvet Percy had placed there for me, I closed my eyes. He flicked all the lights off from his side of the bed. As he shifted and inhaled, I became aware of the deafening silence in the room. Every little move was audible, every sigh, and every absence of sound for every breath I held.

Following Percy’s lead, I turned my back to him, murmured “goodnight,” and focused on breathing evenly so as not to reveal just how heated my body was and how heavy the pressure was on my chest. Although I fell asleep at some point, I was very aware that he was almost naked and only inches away from the almost naked me. It shouldn’t have been a problem, and I definitely wasn’t complaining because it bothered me, but it left meflustered and confused, struggling with all the weird sensations soaring through my chest.

CHAPTER 8

Percy

Wakingup in my room felt like walking out of the mist and onto a sunny hilltop. The rays of sunshine warmed my bare torso and my uncovered left leg in concentrated beams of sunlight. As I opened my eyes, I became aware of the arrangement of bodies in my bed. Mine was pushed all the way against the edge, my left leg bent and my knee poking over the side, my left arm hanging limp in the empty space. A corner of my duvet was available to me, covering part of my right leg and the embarrassingly tall tent of my underwear.Did I have some interesting dream?I wondered momentarily before putting that thought firmly out of my head.

The remaining three-quarters of the bed belonged to the sprawling heap of limbs and muscled torso of Finn Connolly, who slept soundly with his face on my pillow, his left arm hugging his pillow on the other side of his torso, and his legs spread like…No!But it was impossible not to see the curve of his back sloping down to his waist and then rising sharply to define the roundness of his ass. He wore black boxer briefs that hugged his butt tightly, the waistband low around his waist, the leg bands rolled and pulled up from moving in his sleep. It was just as impossible not to notice his defined calves or his roundshoulders, the bulging of his biceps where he bent his arm to claimmy sideof the bed, and the adorable way curly locks of dark hair fell over his brow and eyes.

Shut up, I told myself firmly.Stop thinking about him. Stop thinking about everything.But I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t feel the heat of his body radiate and wash over me, that I didn’t know his forearm was a quarter of an inch away from the side of my ribcage, that my cock wasn’t excruciatingly hard. The last one was a mere coincidence, however inconvenient. It didn’t mean anything.

And yet, as my gaze caressed the taut skin on his rising and falling back, it throbbed eagerly.

I bit my tongue hard and furiously stared at the canopy above. There were only ever two ways to solve this problem and the other one was out of the question. So I wondered what Aunt Judith was up to this morning. Was she getting ready for the beach? It didn’t take long before the fire in my chest and groin went out.

Sighing with relief, I got up. My feet carried me lightly across the stone floor and into the en suite. Along the way, I picked up clean clothes and slipped into the shower. Cold water stabbed my skin and muscles like needles, but that was precisely what I needed. I hadn’t checked the time, but the pale freshness of the sunlight and the lightly cool air entering the bathroom through the small window meant it was still early.

I brushed my teeth and shaved my stubble for a fresh look, dried myself with a big, white towel, dabbed a touch of cologne on my neck, and dressed for the day. A light mint green linen shirt and black, knee-length shorts that emphasized my ass might have been, upon reflection, an intentional choice. Normally, I needed Kim to remind me about my appearance, but it looked like her droning about my wardrobe and physique had finally turned into an ingrained instinct.

As I returned to the bedroom, my gaze locked onto Finn. At some point in the last thirty minutes, he had turned around to lie on his back, a duvet tangled between his legs, one arm stretched out to claim the empty space on the bed, the other thrown above his head and bent as if he posed just to torment me. His torso was completely bare, the other tangled duvet trapped under the small of his back and forming a mound that made it look like he thrust his stomach out. And below…

I wheezed. Boy problems were universal and absolutely natural, but that didn’t make my heart beat any slower. His black underwear was stretched thin and a stiff bulge was hard to miss.

I cleared my throat as I spun away on my heels.

A sound escaped Finn’s throat and I knew I had woken him up. It hadn’t been my intention, but panic soared through me as the heat in my face threatened to slow-cook my brain.

“Mm…huh?” Finn’s awareness set in after a moment. “Morning. Oh. Erm. Oopsie.” He laughed shortly as fabric rustled around the bed. “That’s embarrassing,” he said lightly in a high-pitched voice.

I cleared my throat again, this time to announce that I was turning around. “Sleep well?”

Finn snorted. “Too well, apparently.” He was sitting up, just a touch red in the face, and the duvet was tossed over his lap. “You?”

A slight frown trembled on my brow. “Same.” My chest tightened with embarrassment. I only wanted him to remember it was normal. “Um, Aunt Judith tends to sunbathe topless after the second glass of wine.”

“Oh, Lord,” Finn said, slapping his eyes.

It wasn’t even a lie, but I doubted any odd fact about my extended family was a surprise to Finn at this point.

I walked around the bed and to the windows overlooking the beach and the endless blue sea, my attention resolutely onthings outside this room. In the meantime, Finn got up, coughed shortly, and his feet slapped gently against the floor as he went into the bathroom.

The minutes that followed were a blessing. The fire had returned to every inch of my body, which was the least welcome sensation in my current situation.

Finn Connolly was a friendly guy doing me a favor. I had no business lusting after him. If this was going to work, I needed to keep the lid shut on these feelings. And if things got really bad, I could always just hook up with someone downtown.As if, my own voice of reason said with contempt.When was the last time you hooked up with anyone?And that was the entire point. I normally didn’t care either way.

So why do I get so flustered around this particular man?The question rang through my skull, sparking both glimmering excitement and a significant amount of annoyance. The answer was obvious. He was acting like a boyfriend, and, however well my brain understood this arrangement, my body was getting mixed messages.

The only real and objective piece of information I had to remember returned to me when Finn appeared in the room with a towel tied around his waist and water dripping from his hair. “Do you ever get so excited about a good, long shower that you forget to bring your pants?” he mused. And that significant piece of information was clear as day; Finn wasn’t bothered by strolling like young Adonis around the room, flashing his body, letting the sunlight break and glimmer in the beads of water that trickled down his torso. Why should he be bothered by that? He couldn’t fathom a reality in which something like that might interest me.

Unlike me, Finn knew what the assignment was. And unlike me, he had no problem sticking to it.

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