Page 65 of Making It While Faking It
Then Treasure said that she’s gained three love pounds since we’ve been living together, and then she put her hand on my cock, which was already hard, and rubbed as she said, “And he’s gained five.”
Treasure’s into getting me all hot and bothered in public places so that I can excuse myself and she can excuse herself as we find a quiet hiding place to fuck it out.
That’s why I can’t look toward Paisley’s den. Not long after Treasure rubbed my cock, Paisley made sure to separate us.
I picked up on something while we were at LTI’s undisclosed lab in the Bahama’s. Paisley and Herc know how to communicate their displeasures telepathically. I gather he and I are in his den drinking bourbon because she wants him to get a read on me. She’s worried that I’ll leave Treasure high and dry and broken hearted. That’ll never be my intention. But still, if I’m not mistaken, Hercules is taking a tone with me, and I don’t like it because he should know better than to see me the way she does.
“What about Pen?” Hercules asks.
“What about her?” I bite back.
Hercules steadily holds my gaze.
“What the fuck is this interrogation for? I’ve been living with Treasure for a month, Herc. She didn’t feel comfortable living in the penthouse, so I bought her a thirty-five-million-dollar townhome. I make love to her every day, multiple times a day. So don’t ask me about Pen.”
Hercules remains as steady as an iceberg as he folds his arms over his chest. “Do you love her?”
Say it.
My lips won’t move.
Say it, goddamn it.
TREASURE GROVE
“So…” Paisley says as if she’s singing a note in a pop song. “It’s getting pretty hot and heavy between you and Achilles.”
I’ve just showed her the school that’s my first choice. There’s a reason why I’ve been avoiding Paisley ever since Achilles and I went full-on sex. But Achilles agreed to have dinner with them without checking with me first. He thought it was time we come up for air, and I sort of agreed. However, I would’ve chosen a different set of friends to sit down and eat with than my overprotective cousin and her husband. That’s the nature of our relationship—she looks out for me, and I look out for her. But I’ve sensed Paisley’s discomfort about how close Achilles and I have grown ever since I said the word “love pounds.” I didn’t mean to use the L word. It just slipped out. Achilles didn’t cringe from the word. And when I rolled my hand up and down his cock, he was still hard after I said it.
“We have sex,” I come right out and say. Paisley has never known me to beat around the bush, and so I won’t start now. “Loads of it.” Actually, we should be banging right now.
Paisley is very quiet as we both stare at the computer screen. The longer we sit in silence, the more I know she’s waiting me out. It might not look like it, but we are indeed communicating.
“I’m protecting my heart,” I assure her.
“Because,” Paisley says as she whips my swivel chair around so I can face her. Her eyes are filled with so much emotion. “Because, Treas, I love Hercules so much that I ache if I think about ever losing him. But my blood is your blood…”
“And your heart is my heart,” we say together.
We smile at each other as love fills me, and I’m certain her love for me is filling her to the brim too.
Then she sighs. “It’s just that Achilles is all business, all the time. And he won’t talk to me or Hercules about how he feels about you.”
I sit up straight, absorbing what she just revealed.
“Why do you think that is?” I strain to say. It feels as if my head is floating away from my body. Perhaps, finally, the truth is ready to sit on my shoulders like a two-ton elephant.
“Truth?” she asks.
I’m only barely able to perceive that I am nodding.
Paisley frowns as she looks down, unfocused. “I don’t know.” Her eyes are back on mine. “But you know my dad and your dad.”
My shoulders slump as I sigh. “Yes, I do.” And I’ve been trying to think about whatever shit they’re up to.
“The double cross is coming,” she says. “And you know it.”
My chest feels heavy, and suddenly, the thought of being happy forever with Achilles Lord seems like a fantasy. “I know it,” I whisper.
