Married for a Month

by Cate Ashwood

  He tore at my clothes, pulling my shirt up and over my head with rough hands. I knew my lips would be bruised with how hard he kissed me, and my cock jumped at the demanding pressure. I loved the way he handled me, like he was too far gone to worry about breaking me. He broke the kiss, and his gaze latched on to mine. His eyes were wild, unfocused. I was drowning in them when he smiled, just a quirk of one corner of his mouth.

  “You’re fucking addictive,” he said, hauling my body harder against his. “I thought it would feel strange to touch you like this, but I can’t seem to stop.”

  His words went straight to my dick, and I bit back a moan as he massaged my ass with rough hands. “Then don’t stop,” I managed before he kissed me again.

  Waves of need crested over me. I could feel the hardness of his erection pressed up against mine, and I bucked against him, my movements limited with the nearly nonexistent space between us. He held me tighter and lifted me up enough to deposit me on the surface of my desk.

  I could hear the crinkling of paper. There would be a mess to clean up when all this was done, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. All that mattered was getting access to more skin. I fumbled at Alec’s shirt hem, trying to make my hands obey. I was shaking too badly, though, so Alec leaned back, pulling his own shirt off. He tossed it onto my chair, then turned back to me.

  I wrapped my legs around his waist as he leaned forward, his hand at my back holding me to him as he slid his mouth along my neck, lighting up the nerve endings in the sensitive flesh below my ear. I whimpered and rocked against him, desperate for pressure, friction, anything. Every single one of my brain cells was obliterated when Alec groaned, grinding his cock against mine.

  It was exactly what I needed—the slide of cotton as my clothes rubbed against heated flesh while we rutted against one another in an increasingly frantic rhythm. Coherent thought had long since abandoned me, and I was a trembling mass of desperation. Alec crushed his mouth against mine, and that was it. The moment I felt his neediness, I shuddered hard, my body racked with pleasure as I came with a gasp.

  He broke the kiss, holding me tight enough to squeeze the breath from my lungs. His voice cracked when he choked out my name, and his body shuddered against mine.

  For several long seconds, we stayed that way, the both of us with sticky wetness filling our jeans until Alec chuckled and let his hands fall away from me. “Fuck, I don’t think I’ve come in my pants since I was in the eighth grade,” he said, inserting a breath of levity into what had been a very intimate moment.

  I laughed, knowing I was grinning like a fool. I loved that we’d blown our loads like teenagers, humping up against each other, and I was relieved I wasn’t the only one who was in over his head.

  “We didn’t solve our problem, did we?” Alec asked, his voice still rough.

  “Nope. Are you going to freak out and fuck off on me again?”

  He shook his head.

  It wasn’t a promise, but it was better than nothing. I met his gaze with my own, making sure he heard me. “Then we’re good. Fucking is just fucking, and let’s face it. Neither of us has ever had a problem with casual hookups. There’s no reason to let a little no-strings-attached sex fuck things up. I’ve put up with your ass for this many years, there’s no reason to start acting like a couple of dickheads now that you’ve been in mine.”

  Alec rolled his eyes at me, and I laughed.

  “So we ride this thing out for the rest of the month, temporarily friends with benefits—”

  “Fake husbands with benefits,” I amended.

  “Right. Fake husbands with benefits. And then when the month is up, we go back to the way things were and skip all the emotional fallout bullshit that comes with breakups.”

  “Yep,” I agreed. “Because it’s not a breakup. It’s a termination of the bet and nothing more.”

  “Sounds like a good deal to me.” Alec grinned.

  I didn’t know if I was going to survive this, but if I did, Alec and I were going to be all right.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alec

  Stepping into my apartment after work, I was immediately greeted with Chase in my arms, like he’d been hiding behind the door ready to pounce on me the moment I walked in.

  “Well, hello to you too,” I said, spinning him around and pressing him against the wall. This was certainly a nice way to come home, and after a stressful day, the first thing I wanted was to find comfort in his body. Chase had always meant comfort to me, but now that we’d crossed the line from friends to husbands—even fake husbands—he offered a whole different kind of comfort.

  I leaned in to kiss him but was met with resistance as he pressed his hands against my chest.

  “No time for that,” he said, in what was—even for Chase—an overly excited rush of words. “Get your butt into the shower.”

  I stepped away from him but didn’t let go of his hand. Instead, I pulled him back with me, burying my face against his neck and inhaling the scent of him. He smelled so fucking good, and I don’t know how I’d missed it for all those years.

  “Not a fucking chance. If I get in that shower with you, we’re going to end up fucking. And then you’ll need a nap. Not happening.”

  I scoffed. “Since when is that a problem?”

  “Since tonight. Now, get a move on.”

  “Fine.” I dropped his hand and trudged through the bedroom into the en suite. There was already a towel—a clean one even—laid out for me. I ducked my head around the corner into the bedroom. There were clothes on the bed for me as well.

  What the fuck?

  I could hear Chase in the living room but did as I was told and hopped into the shower. It felt so good, and all I wanted to do was languish under the warm spray and let the water wash away the tension leftover from work, but curiosity got the better of me. Chase was acting weirder than usual that afternoon—since the day before, come to think of it—and I wanted to know what was up with him. So, instead of taking my time, I hurriedly soaped up, then rinsed off and stepped out into the steamy bathroom.

  When I was done in the shower, he was in the bedroom waiting for me.

  “Get dressed. I already have clothes for you.”

  “I saw that,” I said. “What’s with you tonight? You’re being fucking weird.”

  “I have a surprise for you, but you’re going to have to cooperate.”

  He looked so serious I wanted to laugh. I didn’t. Instead, I pulled on the jeans, T-shirt, and hoodie Chase had chosen for me.

  “Socks and shoes too,” he ordered.

  I did as I was asked, but as I stood up, Chase slipped a strip of fabric over my eyes and tied it behind my head.

  “I think I like where this surprise is headed. You shouldn’t have bothered getting me dressed, though. That seems like a waste of time.”

  I heard Chase laugh from behind me. “I could have left you naked, but you’d have probably been pretty embarrassed walking through the lobby of your building with your dick hanging out.”

  With that, he pushed me forward. I went willingly, but almost immediately, my foot collided with something unyielding.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Sorry,” Chase said sheepishly, grabbing my arm and maneuvering me around the doorjamb.

  “Where are we going?” We’d been on the road for a while, and I was getting more and more curious.

  “You’ll see,” Chase replied. I could hear the amusement in his voice.

  “You said that twenty minutes ago, and as far as I can tell, you’re driving us in circles.”

  Why I’d let Chase blindfold me in the passenger’s seat of my own truck, I couldn’t tell you. I hate surprises.

  “I am not driving us in circles,” Chase assured me. It did nothing to make me feel any better.

  I was tempted to take off the blindfold, but as I reached up to lift it from my eyes, Chase batted my hand away with his. “Don’t you dare. You’re going to ruin it.”

  �
�Ruin what?”

  “Nice try, asshole. You’re going to have to wait and see. We’re almost there.”

  The sound of traffic outside the vehicle had increased in the last few minutes, and I started to get antsy. Just as I was about to attempt another blindfold removal, I felt the car turn then come to a stop.

  “We’re here,” Chase declared proudly.

  “Can I take the blindfold off now?” The request was met with silence. For a second I thought he’d make me leave it on, but I felt his hands at the back of my head, and a moment later I blinked hard, trying to force my eyes to focus after being in the dark for so long.

  I looked around, taking in my surroundings and coming up short.

  “All that mystery for a parking lot?” I teased.

  Chase rolled his eyes at me. “Look behind you.”

  I turned to see TD Garden out the back window, and when I turned back to him, Chase was holding two tickets in front of my face.

  “Seriously?” I asked, hardly able to believe it.

  I’ve never seen Chase smile more broadly than he did then. “Yep. Your jersey is in the backseat. Puck drops in an hour.”

  In one motion, I unbuckled my seat belt and hauled Chase across the center console into my lap before slamming my mouth down on him. His sound of surprise transformed into one of satisfaction as he clutched at my sweatshirt and let me kiss him deeper. I poured everything into showing him exactly how much I appreciated his surprise.

  “So hockey makes you horny, huh?” Chase said once we’d come up for air.

  “Not particularly. You do, though, and if this parking lot wasn’t packed with people, I’d show you exactly how happy you’ve made me.”

  Chase quirked and eyebrow, wickedness shining in his eyes. “Come on, Montero. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  I slapped his ass.

  “That’s more like it.”

  Somehow we managed to disentangle ourselves and slip from the car without making too much of a scene. I grabbed my jersey from the backseat and pulled it on over my head. This was only the second live game I’d ever attended, the first having been five years earlier—the tickets a gift from my parents for Christmas. I brimmed with excitement, and I wasn’t the only one. Hockey fans were already flocking to the arena.

  “You want to grab something to eat first?” I asked, looking at my watch to see it was only a little after six. We still had plenty of time.

  “I heard there’re mini donuts in there.”

  “You want mini donuts for dinner?”

  “Of course not,” Chase replied like the suggestion was ludicrous. “They have hot dogs too. And beer.”

  “Three of the most important food groups.”

  “I knew you got me.” Chase pretended to swoon, and I pushed him hard enough he almost lost his balance.

  We followed the flocks of Bruins fans over to the entrance marked on our tickets, and Chase presented them to the guy in the vest with the scanner.

  “Have a good time,” the man said as we passed through the doors into the building.

  Chase grabbed my hand and hauled me up the stairs and toward the entrance to our section. The fact that we were only up one flight made me anxious to see where our seats were. When I’d come years earlier, I nearly needed a team of Sherpas and a full pack of provisions to get to my row.

  We found our row and excused ourselves as we shimmied by the people already sitting until we reached our seats. Looking over the ice felt like a religious experience. I could have baptized myself in the players’ sweat, we were so close.

  “Jesus, Chase, this is incredible,” I said.

  “Not bad, huh?” His words were flippant, but I knew him better than that. It was tough to bullshit someone who knows all your deep dark secrets, and Chase had a few. I let it slide anyway.

  “Incredible,” I repeated. “How long have you known we were coming?” The arena was beginning to fill up, most of it a sea of black and yellow, but hardly anyone had seats as good as ours. Unfortunate bastards.

  “Since yesterday. I was offered a couple of perks for finishing up the park project on time and on budget, and I chose the tickets. The seats are supposed to be pretty good.”

  “You hate hockey.”

  Chase shrugged. “And you love it. You should have seen your face when you realized where we were. That was very nearly a hands-free orgasm.”

  A wave of something washed over me—gratitude, affection, and maybe something deeper—something I wasn’t ready to acknowledge yet. I didn’t know what was going on with us, and frankly, I didn’t want to think too hard about it. Chase and I had always had a go-with-the-flow kind of friendship. There was no reason to change it now that we were also fucking.

  The sex was only a perk—a fucking amazing perk—but a perk nonetheless. We were the same people we’d always been, but now we’d seen each other naked. And then I was thinking about Chase naked and my blood pumped faster, flowing a little more southward than should be allowed in public. When I looked over, he was staring at me, an unreadable expression on his face.

  The lights dimmed before I could figure out what was going on in that head of his, and the giant spotlights began sweeping through the crowd. Music blared and thoughts of anything else fell away as the skaters took the ice. The other team sucked and it was almost guaranteed to be a shutout, but excitement overtook me. I was still in shock Chase had surprised me with something this big.

  I owed him one hell of a blowjob when we got home.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chase

  I scrubbed at the ring my coffee cup had left on the desk, my attention elsewhere. The day had been an absolute disaster from the very beginning. A pileup ahead of me en route to the office stalled my commute by almost forty minutes and had set the tone for the day. Every event afterward had followed suit.

  I hoped more than anything the afternoon would be different. With a little less than twenty minutes left in our workday, the e-mail from the head of the development department was bound to arrive at any second. There were only so many times I could refresh my inbox to see if it had arrived. We were set to find out which design had been chosen for the northwest industrial revitalization project.

  My team and I had put in more hours on this project than any other since I’d started with the city. It was one of the most important jobs I’d worked on. The northwest industrial neighborhood was where Alec’s shop was located, and so any changes I envisioned for the area would directly affect him.

  I’d never been involved in shaping a part of the community that changed the lives of me or my friends before. One of the things I’d always loved about my job was the opportunity to have a direct impact on the city, but this hit closer to home than a pocket park or the addition of lanes to busy streets.

  I guzzled the rest of my latte and refreshed the screen one more time. As the page loaded, Joy and Jesse both poked their heads in through my door.

  “Any word yet, boss?” Jesse said. It always made me feel weird when he called me that. I suppose technically I was his superior, but Jesse put every bit as much energy into these projects as I did.

  “Nope, but it’s gotta be soon.”

  We’d already made our presentations and sent all the pertinent information over to the department head. That was hard. The waiting was worse. Very soon, we would find out if all the time we’d spent meticulously planning, designing, and ironing out every minute detail, was a complete waste or not.

  “Ready to get absolutely annihilated?”

  Behind Joy and Jesse stood Marcus. In terms of incendiary remarks, his comment wasn’t going to win any awards, but I couldn’t help but let it get under my skin. If I were to tally up the projects that had been awarded to his team over mine, he’d win by a landslide, and over time my armor against his little jibes had worn thin. Schooling my features, I did my best not to let him see he’d affected me. I did my best not to let him see I’d even heard him.

  Joy and Jesse both
took a few steps closer, coming to stand nearer to my desk. Marcus took their change in positions as an invitation to enter my office, and he smirked as he crossed the room, lowering himself into the chair directly across from me so it was nearly impossible for me not to keep his smug fucking face out of my field of view. I wanted nothing more than to wipe the self-satisfied expression off his face using the bottom of my boot, but somehow I didn’t think my boss would appreciate blood stains on the carpet.

  “Where do you think I should take my team out to celebrate our victory tonight?” Marcus asked.

  For a moment I thought maybe I’d missed the memo, but a stealthy refresh told me my inbox was still devoid of news.

  “Maybe it’s best you don’t count your chickens,” Jesse replied in the same sweet, naive way he always defended our designs against Marcus’s douchewaffle comments.

  “It’s a foregone conclusion,” Marcus replied full of bravado. If he’d puffed his chest out any farther, he’d have pulled something. “Your plans were… cute… but the city is never going to hand over a project with this much opportunity for revenue. Sure, you might have convinced a few of the tree huggers to give up an undersized retail space in favor of some greenery, but the northwest industrial revitalization is a huge undertaking and best left to those of us with some experience under our belts and an understanding of what the city really needs.”

  By the time Marcus had finished his little diatribe, my blood boiled. While the speech had been directed at Jesse, there was no doubt he meant to badger me in the process. I hated him, and I hated that he got to me. There was something about him—something I couldn’t easily deflect as I’d done with others in my life who tried to undermine me. If it were possible for a thirtysomething man to have an honest-to-God arch nemesis, Marcus was mine.

  Before I could formulate a response on Jesse’s—and my—behalf, movement on my screen dragged my attention back to my e-mail. The head of the department’s name was there, the sans serif font so official. I clicked the message and skimmed through the opening comments down to the information about which team they’d chosen.