Page 48 of The Pretender

“I can’t imagine why,” I add with a glare.

The girl who fucked me up so badly that I haven’t been able to date since ‘the incident’ lets out a long sigh. “It’s not a trick. Can you just trust me?”

I want to be a shit and say no. I don’t trust her. But deep down—very, very deep down—my gut tells me I can trust her. She might have tricked me for months, but she didn’t do anything with the information. She didn’t expose me like she could have. I exhale and roll my shoulders back, looking to the ceiling. I don’t want to make eye contact with her. “I trust you.” Sometimes. Occasionally. When I’ve had enough alcohol to make me forget everything. “I trust you more often than not.” There, that’s more truthful.

I lower my head and see her pained smile. “I deserve that.”

She does. I’m not even going to lie and say she doesn’t. But she only deserves it this one time. I’m man enough to give second chances.

“It’s the last time I’ll bring it up,” I promise. “I said we could start over and I meant it.”

I hold my hand out for her to shake. She switches the lipstick tubes into her other hand and we shake on it.

“To a do-over. For real this time,” she promises, and for some reason, it really does feel like a do-over. This isn’t a fake shake-my-hand-because-I’ll-say-anything-to-get-you-to-agree-to-my-terms-so-I-can-win-this-money. This is a real handshake—a real promise.

“For real this time,” I agree.

We lock gazes for a moment before Vee breaks it with, “Okay. Since you’re back on the trust wagon, can I show you what I mean about the lipstick decision? I sort of need your help anyway. If I keep us too much longer, we’ll lose the good light.”

I promised a do-over. I promised I would trust her.

“I’m listening.”

My stomach does this weird thing like I’m hungry.

“Okay,” Vee says softly, bringing my attention back to her and not my empty stomach. “If you insist on wearing that shirt—”

“What’s wrong with my shirt?” I pull the bottom of my shirt out, so I can see it better. “Is it wrinkled or something?”

The corner of Vee’s mouth crinkles. “No, no it’s not wrinkled. It’s just—”

She looks up at the ceiling for just a moment. It tends to be our go-to move when things get awkward. “Let me show you,” she finally says, scooting closer, the warm core of her body pushing into the front of my pajama pants.

I want to step back. Wait, no. That’s a lie. I don’t want to do anything of the sort, but I feel like that’s the gentlemanly thing to do.

But what the fuck am I thinking? I’m no gentleman.

Vee pops off the lid to one of the lipsticks and, with a shaky hand, applies it blindly to her lips.

“Impressive,” I muse, trying and failing not to stare at the fullness of her lips. They are more than impressive. I know. I felt them once and all hell broke loose afterward.

She presses her lips together, and I mask a groan with something like a growl. “I’m getting a cramp. Can we hurry this along?”

So, so shitty, Sebastian.

But my dick… fuck. My dick doesn’t give two shits about what happened between me and Valentina Lambros. He wants to feel those lips again. He wants them around us like a tight, wet vise— “What are you doing?”

I startle back when her hand wraps around the back of my neck. Surely I didn’t say all those things about my dick out loud? Did I? That would be weird and—

“I thought you said you trusted me?” Her grip is firm, and, I’ll admit, I’m so hard I could be the guy who pops the holes in doughnuts. I know. That’s not a real job, but it should be.

I swallow all the teenage-like nerves and let the cool camera-ready Bash slide over my expression. “Do your worst.”

I don’t mean it though. Her worst could be my demise.

Valentina shakes her head like she knows I’m full of an epic amount of shit, but she pulls me closer until her lips are on my neck and her breath is warm against my jaw. “Be still,” she whispers.

My balls ache and my dick is rabid. I don’t nod—I’m afraid to move any closer to her face. Instead, I grunt out a word that doesn’t exist in the English language. Vee doesn’t stop to question it or even poke fun. I think she, too, is worried about accidentally letting my dick poke her center.

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