God, I’m thinking abut it right now.
I swallow quickly, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Well, at least we had the good sense to pass out.”
“Oh, totally.” He furrows his brow, nodding. “Definitely the right move.”
“Definitely,” I repeat, aimlessly as I start to lose myself in those deep eyes. “That would’ve been a huge mistake.”
He leans close, and I can smell the heady scent of him - like soap and man. I can feel my pulse pounding like a hammer as he grins and brings his lips right against my ear.
“I’m a great mistake, princess.”
Oh, God.
I’m kissing him before I even know what’s happening, moaning hungrily and feverishly into his mouth as I melt against him. His arms circle me, hands sliding across my back and down to grip my ass through the fabric of the robe.
My own hands slide up over his chiseled chest, up to hold his face as I let him claim my mouth. He pushing us back, and I gasp as I feel the stone and mortar wall of the house against my back, the ivy tickling at my ankles as I whimper into his mouth.
He growls into my lips, and I gasp as I feel the throbbing thickness of him pressing against my thigh. The tie on the small bathrobe barely holds as the whole thing threatens to slip from my body. And I’m so close to just shrugging it off, and tearing at the waistband of those pajama pants of his to feel him pulsing in my hand.
And right there, somehow, the last shred of my sanity comes clawing out from behind the mush I’ve become in his arms. And suddenly, I’m gasping for breath and shaking my head as I step back from the magnetically attractive shirtless man standing so close to me that I can feel the heat off his skin.
“We need to go to bed.” I say, stumbling over my words. “Separate ones,” I say quickly, blushing bright red as his eyes flash fire at mine.
His hands are still pressed against the wall on either side of me as he catches his breath mere inches from my lips. “It’s early.”
I look up, feeling my pulse racing a I meet his piercing gaze. “I’m tired.”
I can see him swallowing thickly, and for a moment, I want him to say no. For a moment, I want him to ignore everything I’m saying and just take me, right here against the wall.
But he doesn’t.
He gives one last piercing look before he steps back from me, his arms dropping. “If you insist,” he says evenly, his chest rising and falling.
“Uh, night.” I hastily turn and start to walk as fast as I can back down the wrap-around terrace.
“Night wifey.”
Back in my room, I barely make it under the covers before I’m pushing my fingers deep between my legs. The raw, inescapable and desperate need is like a burn, and the touch of my fingers to my heat is the only balm.
I moan into my arm as my hands find me soaking wet and aching, my fingers dipping slowly through my slickness as I gasp and bring a pillow to my face. My hips arch off the bedsheets, my fingers curling inside of me as my thumb brushes lightly against the throbbing bud of my clit.
“I make a great mistake.”
And there in my bed, with those eyes burning into my mind, and his name on my lips, he’s my favorite mistake. I come with the taste of his lips on mine, the need for his body against mine, and the thrill of the forbidden racing through my mind.
16
Austin
I’m rock hard as I slam the door to my room shut and lean against it.
Fuck.
I swear as I bring the bottle of wine that apparently costs four times as much as my first truck to my lips and take a big slug from it. I swallow, shaking my head before taking another ludicrously expensive mouthful.
I could almost laugh at how perfectly this describes me right now. Me, the blue-collar redneck who finds himself with more money than he knows what to do with, drinking thirty-four-year-old red wine out of the bottle like a goddamn savage. I know enough to get that something as rich, and classy, and fancy as this probably deserves some sort of glass of some kind - something crystal, something that costs a small fortune.
Fuck that, I grumble to myself as I take a third swig.
This was a huge mistake.
On the surface, Derek’s plan has merit, I’ll give him that. And I’m hardly the first professional athlete, or public figure in general, who’s tried to clean up his image with an arranged marriage. Hell, I’ve played with guys who’ve got “marital brand managers” on their fucking payroll - painted, silent, gorgeous women who trot out to smile for the cameras and the Family Magazine interviews and then disappear back into wherever they came from while their husband/employer signs off on another fast food commercial.
Except I fucked up, hard: you’re not supposed to fall for the fake wife.