Accidental Forever: Fake Romance Box Set

by Hazel Parker

  It was a challenge in a way that sex usually wasn’t, but Brett found that enticing. When the kiss that he was placing on her mouth wasn’t convincing enough, he pulled away a little, then recalculated, placing another kiss on the side of her mouth, then a series of small, deliberate kisses that trailed the line of her jaw all the way to her neck. He breathed on her ear for a moment, his breath warm and wet, before running his lips agonizingly slowly down her neck toward her collarbone. She didn’t push him off—in fact, she was leaning into the whole interaction now, her hands reaching around him and pulling him closer. The hand that had been at her cheek reached around the back of her head and entangled itself in her hair, careful not to tug even though it was still a little knotted from her shower.

  The angle was becoming uncomfortable as the kissing got more passionate, so Brett adjusted to sit forward and pulled her into his lap so that she was facing him, her knees on the sofa on either side of his hips. He knew that she could feel him getting hard against her pelvis, her warm body draped over him like a blanket. He kissed her with both hands on her face and felt her lips part slightly, just enough to allow his tongue to slip past her defenses and into her mouth, where hers was all too eager to meet his. They kissed until he was breathless, then he pulled away and opened his eyes to look into hers just as they fluttered open.

  “I’m still mad at you,” Anna muttered against his ear, but she wasn’t getting off his lap, wasn’t moving out of his strong grip. He had every intention of releasing her after he’d apologized with the kiss, but if she wasn’t going to stop him, then he had to admit to himself that this was something that he’d always wanted to do.

  “Then let me change that,” he murmured. He dropped his hands from her face and gripped her firmly around both thighs so that when he stood, she was still pressed against him. Anna wrapped her arms around his neck and supported herself as best she could by hooking her ankles together, but it wasn’t necessary: she was light enough for him to carry unassisted. As he carried her to the bedroom, Anna pressed her mouth to Brett’s neck, sucking hard enough that he had to interrupt her with a kiss—after all, it wouldn’t be professional to show up to his first day of work with a bruise like the one she’d be leaving. She was already taking off his suit coat and undoing the buttons of his shirt as they walked, probably caught somewhere between desperate desire and wanting to get this over with before she talked herself out of it. The door to her bedroom was open so by the light of a small lamp on her bedside table, he found her bed and laying her flat on her back before pinning her with his own body. He was already completely shirtless, but she hadn’t even begun to undress yet, so he leaned in to kiss her and sat her up without breaking contact, then tugged her shirt over her head and pulled away from her to toss the shirt on the ground. Since she’d gotten comfortable and ready for an evening in, she wasn’t wearing a bra, so he enjoyed the view while she made quick work of his belt, then the top button of his pants, and he stood to kick them across the floor with the other clothes while she discreetly added her pants and black panties.

  “Before we do this, I need you to know—I’m a…this is my first…”

  “You’re a virgin?” Brett guessed, feeling a little surprised when she nodded. Anna was a beautiful woman, and more than that, she was smart and funny and likable. Maybe she wasn’t as into partying as Brett himself was, but it wasn’t as though she was antisocial, and he knew that her abstinence until this point was not by accident.

  “I don’t want my first time to be pretend makeup sex,” she warned. So she hadn’t completely forgotten why he came over in the first place. Damn. He thought maybe he was just that good.

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  Anna shook her head, looping her legs around his body and pulling him in for another hot, heavy kiss. “I just don’t want to go all the way. But I want you.”

  Brett wanted her, too, and he’d take whatever she’d give him. “Then just tell me when to stop, and I’ll stop.” He pulled out of the grip of her toned thighs but didn’t go far.

  Even in scrubs, Anna was attractive, so it didn’t surprise him that naked, she was show-stoppingly gorgeous. Every detail of her golden tan skin was beautiful, and he took her in for a moment: the light stretch marks on her breasts, the freckles on the tops of her shoulders, the surprisingly defined muscles she’d likely gained from lifting patients day in and day out. Brett was attractive, he knew, in a way that showed it off whenever he could. However, Anna was beautiful in a different way.

  “You’re stunning,” he couldn’t help but mutter. The compliment was a knee-jerk reaction, almost just the polite response he automatically gave when he saw a girl naked for the first time, but the moments of speechlessness that had preceded it were entirely new. He already knew that she didn’t want to go all the way with him tonight, so he wasn’t trying to get something in return for the compliment. It was simply true, so he’d said it, but he lied often enough that she didn’t seem to believe him and raised one eyebrow skeptically.

  “You’re pandering,” she accused, “but I’ll allow it.”

  If she didn’t believe him, he’d have to convince her. He began to press his mouth to her ear again, blowing air softly against her earlobe and watching her break out in chill bumps as he let the kiss wander softly down her neck, but without the shirt in the way, he was able to take it past the collarbone and to her perfect breasts. He began to vary the pace of his trek down her body, kissing fast down her breastbone and then slowly, tenderly over her stomach, sometimes retracing the path over and over with his lips, sometimes with a feather-light touch and sometimes with more pressure. Anna’s hands grabbed at the sheets as he edged lower and lower. He kissed her thighs, eliciting a moan from Anna that she would have, if she could have, stifled, and it showed him that she was entirely engrossed in him that she couldn’t even think about anything else.

  Brett was no stranger to oral sex. He loved receiving it, of course, but this was the first time he’d really found himself enjoying giving it. It felt like an exploration of Anna’s sexuality, like he was mapping previously uncharted territory. He could press buttons that had gone unpressed through her life and watch the effects. Anna seemed as curious as he was, simultaneously completely at his mercy and completely in control. Her hand held the kill-switch, and at any moment, if he made a wrong move and made her uncomfortable, crossed a boundary she wasn’t ready to cross, she could throw him out of her apartment and tell him she never wanted to see him again, and mean it this time.

  With those things in mind, Brett proceeded caustiously. Keeping one watchful eye on the arch of her back as it rose from the bed in pleasure, synching up with her moaning, he took his time in exploring her until her breath began to hitch more and more frequently, gasping and moaning with the intensity of a woman completely satisfied. Then, all at once, she let out a final, definitively ecstatic cry before relaxing into the mattress entirely, and he pulled away from her thighs. She was grinning from ear to ear, her hair spread across the pillow.

  “That was amazing,” she marveled, scooting over on the bed so that Brett could lie next to her. He smiled mischievously.

  “Amazing enough that you’ll forgive me?” he asked, and she swatted his arm.

  “Absolutely not,” she replied, but her tone was light. “I’m forgiving you because you apologized, not because you gave me my first—well, you know.”

  Brett propped himself up on his elbows. “Your first what?” he asked, then his smile dropped. “Don’t tell me that this was your first time fooling around in bed.”

  “Of course not,” Anna said defensively, almost reflexively enough to make him doubt that it was true. “But it was the first time it’s ever felt like that.”

  Everything snapped into place for Brett at that moment. “Oh,” was all he could bring himself to say, not wanting to offend her again by acting shocked or worse, haughty. However, that didn’t prevent him from feeling a little proud of himself.

  �
�Yeah.”

  He shook himself back into focusing. “But the moral of the story is that you’re forgiving me?”

  Anna took a moment, then shook her head. “I’m giving you a second chance,” she corrected. “You’re not off the hook, but you’ve earned the chance to get another strike before you’re out. I’ll go to your sister’s wedding with you this weekend and put on the show for your family.”

  “Thank you,” he said, a sense of relief washing over him. “I won’t screw it up this time, I promise.” He stood just so he could pick up his underwear off the floor, but it made her apparently self-conscious because she worked her way under the bedsheets and tugged them up so that they hid her body up to the neck.

  “Well, this was quite an apology,” she began, looking a little dejected, “but I’m guessing that you want to go home, now that it’s over.” Brett blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected to be kicked out of her house after this, but he was already on thin ice and didn’t want to overstay his welcome. If she was trying to ask him to leave, then he should probably leave.

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” he stammered, “I can do that.” He picked up his clothes and changed as quickly as he could, feeling watched and a little awkward as he did so. “I’ll see you in two days for the wedding?” Brett watched for long enough to see Anna nod her head before leaving and locking the bottom lock of her door behind him.

  Chapter Seven: Anna

  The morning after Anna kicked Brett out of her apartment, she went to work in a weird mood that she couldn’t shake. It wasn’t quite guilt, nor was it even necessarily a bad mood, just the omnipresent inability to shake the fact that Brett was on her mind. Sipping at the cup of coffee she held in one hand, she groaned at the chart in the other—if she went onto her normal rounds for the day, she’d have to face Eustice, and she didn’t think that she could do that just yet, not without knowing what the hell had happened last night and whether or not those feelings were real.

  Brett had come over to apologize so that she’d continue to help him; that wasn’t terribly unexpected. She would have preferred that he called first, but honestly, Anna had been waiting for her phone to ring with that message. When he’d actually come over, he’d given her pretty much the spiel she’d thought she’d get from him: he was sorry; he didn’t mean it; he wanted another chance. Even the kiss hadn’t thrown her off that much, considering she knew he was a womanizer and was probably pretty used to getting whatever he wanted.

  The part that had surprised her, the thing that had led to an almost sleepless night and was still making her head spin, was the sex. It was a bold move on his part since she told him that she hadn’t forgiven him completely, but he’d been kind, gentle, and patient: three things that she had never thought she’d associate with Brett Riggs. For the last four years, ever since he’d rejected her asking him out in favor of a less monogamous lifestyle, she’d told herself that she would never again fall victim to empty charms like his. When he’d showed up in her life again, seemingly the same as always, she’d felt nothing, but last night…well, that was a new side of what she’d thought was a two-dimensional person.

  “Earth to Anna,” Josh called, startling her out of her thoughts. She must’ve been sitting at the table staring at her chart for a long moment because he looked concerned. Josh, the nice guy, the caring nurse, the intelligent scholar, the dreamboat. Anna forced a smile that he didn’t buy. “Are you feeling alright? You were all zoned out.”

  Anna nodded. “Just didn’t sleep much last night,” she said, which was true enough. “Would you mind trading patients for the day?”

  Josh raised one eyebrow. “Why?” he asked, but after taking a moment to consider, he pieced some things together. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that your college ex’s granddad is in your hallway, would it, Diaz?”

  “Of course not,” she denied, trying to will her face to stay unflushed. “The patient that threw up on me a few days ago is embarrassed around me, and it’s stressing her out. I want to give her a few days to cool down.” Even she was impressed by how quickly she’d been able to come up with the lie, and Josh didn’t seem to have a problem with that explanation, because he took her patient roster from her hands.

  “Mine is still behind the nurse’s station desk,” he informed. “I need a cup of coffee before I even have to think about my to-do list.” She toasted his cup with her own when he finished pouring it.

  “I’ll drink to that,” she said, looking at her watch and frowning as he sat down. Normally, she’d stay and talk to him—their schedules were fairly forgiving so a few extra minutes of break time here and there never hurt anyone, but she found that she didn’t want to sit and chat with Josh today. She blamed the sleepless night for that even though she knew it was probably not the root cause and muttered some excuse about having to get to work before shuffling out of the room to tend to Josh’s patients.

  Rounds were pretty routine and pretty quick, so much so that Anna managed to find time in the middle of the day to get her phone from her locker to check it, something she usually didn’t do until lunch, and read her messages. Surprisingly, under a missed call from her mother that she’d find the energy to deal with later and a few spam emails, there was a text from an unknown number, and she clicked it with her finger.

  “Hey, Anna, this is Martha Riggs. I got your number from Brett,” it read. “I wanted to know if I could take you dress shopping for the wedding tonight after you get off work. Let me know.” Her heart skipped a beat as she reread it, to make sure she got the information right. Brett’s sister wanted to take her dress shopping? Why? She looked around to make sure that her boss was nowhere in sight and ducked into a janitor’s closet to call Brett.

  “Anna?” he picked up after the fourth ring. “What is it? I’m at work, you know.”

  She’d forgotten that he had a job now and did feel a little guilty, but she shrugged it off. She had her read receipts on, so Martha could see that she’d read her message and she didn’t want to waste too much time in replying.

  “Just tell them it’s your grandpa’s hospice nurse if someone asks,” she dismissed his irritation. “This is important. Your sister just texted me and said she wanted to take me out to buy a dress.”

  There was a slight hesitation on the other end. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing, yet. I wanted to talk to you first.” Brett groaned.

  “Well, it’s Martha, so I’m sure she’s just trying to be nice. She probably feels guilty making you buy a dress last-minute and wants to make sure you don’t have to pay for it.”

  Anna breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, well that’s sweet of her,” she said. “So I should accept? Or would that be weird?”

  “She’ll talk your ear off, but she’s harmless,” Brett dismissed. “I say go with her. It’s usually easier just to do whatever Martha says.”

  Anna chuckled at that: Brett was the same way. “I’ll let her know I’m going, then,” she decided, hanging up the phone without even saying goodbye to Brett. She’d later blame the fact that her boss could walk in at any moment and scold her for taking personal calls, but she knew that the real reason was a fear that Brett would want to talk more and she wouldn’t have any answers for him.

  The day passed quickly. Anna went home to change into street clothes after work, and no sooner had she finished brushing her hair out of its bun than did Martha knock on the door to pick her up. This was casual, she reminded herself, just a little girl’s evening, something that Martha would do for anyone who had been invited to the wedding late. It wasn’t a cross-examination, and she didn’t have to worry about perjuring herself. She took a calming breath and opened the door with a smile.

  “Hi, Martha,” she greeted. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  Martha hugged her, a gesture that was a little too friendly but somehow still endearing coming from her. Anna had been so distracted by Brett’s presence that she hadn’t even looked at his siblings, but she could s
ee a little bit of the family resemblance. Martha’s eyes were dark and beautiful, and she had dark, thick hair that curled in all the right ways to frame her face.