Page 41 of The Temptation
“Enough!” I barked, far louder than I’d meant to. My fucking morning wood had only just subsided, and his words were stirring it back to life.
“But I’m your boyfriend. Isn’t that how I should wake you every morning I stay here?”
It sounded like an amazing way to wake up every damn morning, but it wasn’t going to happen. “You’re myfakeboyfriend. The show is for my parents.”
“You wanna do that in front of your parents?”
I closed my eyes and summoned what strength I could muster at eight in the morning on a Sundaybeforecoffee. It wasn’t much. “Simon,” I exhaled, pushing his name out between my clenched teeth.
“Pierce,” he answered, using the same irritated tone. “You might be my fake boyfriend, but I still want to suck your cock.”
My eyes flew open to see his eyes narrow on me and his expression a mix of fierce and annoyed.
“I want you to suck my cock,” he continued. Simon leaned forward, resting on his hand while rising on his knees as if he meant to crawl across the bed toward me. His hard dick was pressing against his pajama pants, seemingly begging to comeout. “I want you to fuck me so hard I see stars and forget my own goddamn name.”
And of course I got hard. My willpower had its limits. Simon was sexy and beautiful. He felt amazing in my arms, and his kisses were sweet enough to give me cavities. Part of me craved everything he was offering and so much more, but we couldn’t. Ever. Sawyer had made it obvious years ago; I wasn’t good enough for his brother.
It took me an extra second or two, but I pressed on in an even tone. “I think we need to talk about what happened last night.”
“You mean how you took care of me so perfectly? You gave me cheese and soft pajamas and held me until I fell asleep. No one has ever done that. I’ve never felt so safe and cared for. I think you should let me reward you.”
“No. What’s going on? How often are you crashing like that?”
Simon’s expression shifted from sexy to annoyed with a blink of his eyes. “I was exhausted last night. Don’t make such a big deal out of it.”
“It’s a big deal to me if you’re making yourself sick. If you’re pushing yourself too hard.”
“I’m not!”
“Clearly, you are if you practically collapsed in my arms outside Music Hall.” I shoved a hand through my messy hair and stomped closer, trying to get control of my frantic emotions so I could speak calmly and rationally with Simon. “If this bullshit with my parents is taking up too much of your time or distracting you from your work, we can stop. You don’t need to do any more dates or cater to their nonsense.”
“No! It’s fine. It’s not too much.”
I sighed. “Simon, please. Be reasonable. I feel like we’ve reached a comfortable place that works for both of us in this friendship. If you’re afraid I’ll go back to giving you the cold shoulder, you can stop. It was wrong of me. None of that wasyour fault. We don’t need this charade we’re putting on for my parents to be friends. I think we can have the kind of friendship that you have with Sebastian, Declan, and Rome.”
Simon dropped to sit on his heels, his face shifting into a frosty glare. “I’ll give you that it’s a step in the right direction, but I’m not interested in being ‘just friends’ with you. Not when we shared a kiss that almost ripped my soul from my body.”
“We’re not talking about that kiss,” I growled. That slip in my judgment was going to be the death of me. I still dreamed about that kiss, replayed how he’d felt in my arms, the little sounds that had escaped him as my tongue had plunged into his mouth. I’d loved everything about that kiss and craved it until I couldn’t think straight. But it was not happening again.
“Yes, yes. It’s safer to live in the land of denial.” Sarcasm dripped from Simon’s every word, and he waved a hand through the air as if he could use a spell to wipe away all the longing and desire I’d been battling since he’d first moved to Cincinnati.
Those first sparks of desire might have burned me as I’d glimpsed him at his graduation, but I’d tamped those feelings down. At least, I’d thought I had. But now that I was seeing him more frequently, I couldn’t escape the pureneedthat swamped me every time I saw him. It was his smile, his voice, the smell of his skin, the way he laughed. Fuck, the touch of his lips scrambled my brain.
Being near him was a constant battle to hold all these desires inside and keep him at arm’s length. I couldn’t give in to temptation. I’d made a promise, and I meant to keep it.
“Listen, I think we can be great friends. It doesn’t need to be more.” Without thinking, I crossed the bedroom and sat on the edge of the mattress with one knee up as I faced him. “Besides, if you’re honest with yourself, I’m sure you’ve already started to realize that I’m not a good match for you. There are eight years between us and a lot of differences in our personalities.I’m a boring lawyer. You’re a world-class violinist who captivates audiences wherever you go. This is infatuation at best. I’ve done the no-strings-attached hookups, and I’m not interested in more of that. We need to move forward and focus on steps to take so you can be healthier. You can’t continue collapsing after a performance and scraping yourself back together.”
Simon huffed at me. “No, the first thing we need is for you to get over yourself.”
“What?” I snapped, but didn’t get any further. He lunged at me, grabbed my shoulder, and tackled me onto the mattress. As I was still trying to gather my wits, the sneaky bastard climbed on top of me, straddling my waist while pressing his hands on my shoulders, pinning me in place.
“As I was saying, I’m not a moron, and you need to stop treating me like one. I know what infatuation is. I know what lust is. This is not it, and if you would give us half a shot, I can prove thatwehave more going on than sexual desire. The problem is that you’re scared to admit it. We had fun together getting pizza and cocktails. And we had fun together at Findlay Market. Fuck! When you let yourself relax, I think you even had fun dining with your parents.”
“All that is just for show for my parents. We’re fake dating.”
Simon rolled his eyes. “Mm-hm. All that stuff we did while your parents weren’t even around. Totally for them.”
“You said it was all for social media posts.”
