Page 101 of Just (Fake) Married
“Multiple orgasms?” he teased.
“Ethan,” I scolded him. “I’m serious. All of this casual sex inside the parameters of a fake marriage is new to me.”
“It’s new to me, too,” he said, stepping towards me.
We didn’t touch in the middle of all these boxes, but the energy this guy threw out, the focus and the heat. It bounced around the room, curling in the edges, making everything smaller. Tighter. This guy could make a football stadium intimate.
“You want the truth?” he offered. “I haven’t had a date in about a year. The last time I tried to hook up with someone, my pager went off and I had to leave.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
He laughed. “Why not?”
“You’re a hot doctor. I think you walk into a bar and women throw themselves at you.”
He stepped closer again. Still not touching, but he reached up and tucked my hair behind my ear, his fingertips trailing over my ear. “I don’t walk into a lot of bars,” he said.
“Well, I’ve seen the shows, you know,” I lifted my chin and his fingers touched my jawline. Breathless desire rippled up and down my body. “Those supply rooms get a lot of action.”
“Those shows aren’t real,” he smiled at me like he hadn’t heard that a million times. He smiled at me like he was charmed by me. Like he could stand there with his hand on my face for ages. For as long as I let him.
“My boyfriend dumped me. That was the last guy I was with.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Five years.” The truth just came out. “That’s sort of why I made it a resolution this year.”
I hadn’t been touched in five years. Now that I’d opened my mouth, everything came out. “And he wasn’t…great in bed. You know? He acted like the things I wanted or needed were too…much. It got easier just to pretend.”
“Pretend?”
“Fake it. Then he cheated on me.” Shit. I was spilling all my secrets.
“What an absolute fuckhead.”
I laughed. “He was, kind of.”
“No wonder you were so hungry,” he whispered. Only he didn’t say it in a way that made me feel embarrassed for being that needy.
His hand on my cheek speared into my hair. He leaned forward like he was going to kiss my lips and I tensed. I don’t know why not kissing mattered, but it did. It was like putting sandbags against a raging river. It probably wasn’t going to do anything, but I had to try, right?
As if he knew what I was thinking, he tilted his head at the last moment and kissed my neck. My breath was shaky and out came a low moan I couldn’t hide if I tried.
My brain and body were flooded with images of him. Of us. I felt, impossibly, that low churn in my belly, like I could come just from this. From the promise and the threat of him.
“Safe kisses,” he muttered, running his nose against the spot he’d just claimed with his mouth.
The downstairs door to the apartment squealed open. “Harmony?” my mom yelled up. “You have a visitor coming up.”
The stairs creaked and Ethan winked at me and stepped away, finding some boxes to stand behind like he was hiding his erection.
His inability to control his reaction made me feel better.
Half my brain was mush, so it took me a second to realize who was suddenly standing at the top of the stairs.
Marion Blackfeather.
“Marion, what are you doing here?”
