Real Fake Love

by Pippa Grant

  My heart stutters out a protest that would be bigger if today hadn’t been the doozy of a day that it’s been. I should argue with him.

  He can’t protect me forever, and the implication that he wants to suggests we’re both insane.

  But I don’t want to argue.

  I want to indulge in the fantasy that is Luca Rossi wanting me.

  Not only wanting me, but wanting me on a night when I’ve basically been at my worst. Jealous, sobbing, breaking out in hives, my tongue swelling, my entire body revolting…and he’s still standing there with his eyes dark and hooded, glaring at me like I’ll be the one breaking him if I refuse to let him protect me from myself.

  “This isn’t real,” I whisper.

  “Fuck real.”

  Fuck real.

  I can do that.

  For one night, at least.

  So I hold out a hand to him, and I leave my pajamas on the bed, and I tug him down the hall to the bathroom.

  He peels back my light cardigan, wincing as every new bit of rash is exposed. “Does that itch?”

  “The lace—”

  “I hate this shirt.”

  “You liked it a few hours ago.”

  “I was an idiot a few hours ago.”

  “Luca—”

  He skims his fingers along my belly as he tugs at my lacy tank top, and I wordlessly lift my arms so he can pull it off.

  And then he stares.

  I don’t know if he’s looking at my bare breasts, or the rash all over them, but when he speaks, his voice is low and husky. “You weren’t wearing a bra.”

  “It’s built-in. Small miracles. That would’ve itched like a mother.”

  His lips quirk in a half-grin, and that little bit of seeing him relax is enough to make my shoulders sag with relief. I didn’t realize how tense I’d gotten. He leans back, lifts an arm to grab his own shirt by the back collar, and pulls it off in one smooth motion, and my tongue swells up and goes dry again.

  Not because of the alcohol, or the Benadryl, or for any other reason than that I will never not go tongue-tied watching Luca Rossi strip.

  He leans into the tub and twists the faucet handle, then shucks his pants.

  Did I say tongue-tied?

  I’m whole-existence-tied.

  Dogzilla wanders in, and Luca gives the cat a side-eye that makes me laugh for what feels like the first time in decades. “She doesn’t like toys.” I gesture to his hard, thick, proudly-standing-tall length, and heat rushes to my cheeks.

  It’s not that I’m a prude.

  It’s more that it’s still astonishing to me that a man like him—strong, athletic, attractive, on top of the world—could be turned on by me.

  He wasn’t the first time we showered together. And I haven’t seen him look at another woman with the intense, determined, you are mine to take care of look in his hooded green eyes in the entire time I’ve known him.

  My breath catches.

  Does he—does he actually like me?

  Or does he have a fetish about women with whole-body rashes?

  “In the shower, Henri. You’ll feel better.” He closes the distance between us and tugs at the waistband of my jeans.

  Not pulling them down, but giving me a nudge. The I want this, but not if you don’t nudge.

  I want.

  I very much want.

  I unbutton my pants and nod, and when he slowly lowers my jeans over my hips, I catch his face in my hands and kiss him.

  It’s a cautious kiss. An I want to thank you but I don’t know if you want to be thanked kiss.

  A please don’t hurt me kiss.

  Because I don’t think Luca’s been cranky tonight because I’m annoying him.

  I don’t think I annoy him at all.

  And that’s by far the most terrifying thought I could have.

  Every last one of my fiancés was looking for love.

  Luca, though?

  He doesn’t want it.

  He’s not looking for an easy path to love. He’s not looking to make his family happy or to get a good job at my dad’s bank, nor is he having a professional crisis, and he doesn’t have any hang-ups about only sleeping with women he intends to marry.

  He doesn’t want to get married at all.

  But tonight, he wants me, in all of my messy glory.

  I kick off my shoes and tug my pants the rest of the way down when it becomes clear that he’ll have to stop kissing me if he’s going to finish the job. There’s no stumbling to get into the shower—it’s all easy, smooth movements, like we’re a professional dance pair who’s been together for years.

  The spray is borderline cool and gentle on my sensitive skin, and I sag into the relief that comes with being exactly where I’m supposed to be.

  This isn’t forever, Henri, I remind myself, and then Luca’s pulling back, gazing down on me not like I hung the stars, but like I’m the one star he’s been searching for his entire life, and now that he’s finally found me, he can’t look away.

  “I’m not trying to seduce you tonight, Henri,” he whispers thickly. “That wasn’t the plan. I just want to take care of you.”

  “What if I seduce you?”

  He visibly swallows. His pupils are so big I could count the galaxies inside them. “I’m here for whatever you need.”

  I need you to love me.

  Yep.

  I’ve done it again.

  Of course I have.

  But right now, I don’t care.

  Because when I’m eighty-five, rocking in my chair on my porch at my farmhouse, watching all the neighbors’ grandkids that I’ve adopted as my own, I’m going to tell them all about the time that I fell in love with a baseball player who was hiding his massive heart behind walls that other people built for him, and about how he loved me the only way he knew how, for one night, when I was at my worst.

  “I need you, Luca. I need you.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I’ll tell you if you get too close.”

  His eyes call me a liar.

  As they should.

  He’s already too close.

  I tell myself we’re both talking about physically hurting as I wrap a hand around the back of his neck and pull him closer for another kiss.

  He doesn’t resist, and I swear his body melts into mine in relief.

  Like he wanted me to want him.

  While he devours my mouth, I reach between us to stroke his hard-on against my belly. His silky skin is wet and slick, and touching him makes my clit ache with need, especially as his breath comes faster and he pumps into my touch as though he’s trying to stop himself, but he can’t.

  I want to taste him. I want to lick every inch of his body and memorize his scent and permanently imprint the feel of his skin on my fingertips.

  I want to make him lose control.

  He soaps up his hands and starts rubbing slow circles over my back, and my nerves light up like they’re fresh sprouts reaching out of the ground to be kissed by their first ray of sunshine.

  I arch into him, and he stills. “Too much?” he pants against my lips.

  “Don’t stop.”

  He doesn’t.

  He circles my rib cage until he’s cradling my breasts with his soapy hands, his thumbs brushing the tips of my pebbled nipples and making me moan and squeeze his cock harder, because I need something to hold on to.

  He groans too and drops his head to my shoulder. “Fuck, Henri.”

  “Yes, please.”

  He lifts his head and smiles at me, and I have no idea how any woman, ever, could resist that full-on Luca Rossi smile. His fading unicorn hair is wet and tumbling in his eyes, his green eyes are crinkling at the edges, and his entire body is vibrating with an energy that screams you are the only woman in the world to me, and if that’s not a turn-on, then I don’t know what is.

  “I missed you,” he whispers before he leans in for another kiss, his palms and fingers and thumbs still teasing my
breasts and sending thunderbolts of extra-strength lust straight through my heart and to the pit of my belly, where my clit isn’t the only thing aching now.

  I need him inside me.

  I need him inside me now.

  As if he’s reading my mind, he draws one hand down my belly, cups my mound, and strokes me between the legs.

  My eyes cross.

  I gasp in sheer pleasure.

  His thumb finds my clit as he pushes two fingers inside me, crooks them just right, and I’m suddenly coming so hard and fast that fireworks explode behind my eyelids and my legs go numb and I scream his name while I double-fist his cock and hang on for dear life, riding the sensations rocketing through me.

  I need more.

  I don’t know if I can take more, but I need more.

  I need all of him.

  Tonight.

  Tomorrow.

  Every day.

  My legs go numb.

  His fingers are still deep inside me, coaxing my orgasm longer while my clit pulses in undiluted pleasure and he pants heavy against my shoulder and his hard-on twitches in my hands like me getting off is going to send him over the edge.

  “Inside—me,” I order.

  I’m not bossy. Not usually.

  But if I don’t have Luca right now, this fairy tale is going to fall apart and I’ll never have him again, and I’m not ready to be done with him.

  I’m not ready to be done with the way his brows crease like I’m a little nutty but he likes it when I’m talking about my characters. I’m not ready to be done with listening to his rhythmic breathing deep in the middle of the night when I jolt awake and don’t remember where I am until I hear him, and then know I’m safe.

  I’m not ready to be done with a man who thinks to ask what my cat wants to wear today, or who sends me lunch randomly in the middle of the day when he knows I’m writing and might have forgotten to eat, or who has an electric tea kettle delivered to his house even though he doesn’t drink tea, but because he knows I do and that there’s a better way to make tea than by heating water in an ancient microwave or in a rusty tea kettle.

  He says he doesn’t do love, but love is in the little things.

  And Luca Rossi’s little things mean more to me than any engagement ring ever has.

  “You’re so damn sexy,” he growls as he turns me against the shower wall and lifts me.

  “I’m a raspberry shaped like a woman.”

  “You’re you.”

  My legs go around his hips, mostly because he helps me get them there, because I still can’t feel them post-climax, and he pauses. “Does this hurt?”

  “Being empty hurts.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut. “Fuck, Henri.” And then he’s driving inside me, with the cool shower wall against my back and his hot, hard body against my breasts, and his long, thick cock stroking me deep inside, hitting that secret, magic spot over and over, pumping hard and fast while I grip his shoulders and rock my hips against his, feeling that glorious coil spiraling tighter with every thrust, his tip teasing me right where I love it most while he pants my name, tells me I’m beautiful, that I feel so incredible around his cock, that he could drown in my sweet pussy, until I’m falling over the edge again.

  I don’t know my name.

  I don’t know what planet I’m on.

  I don’t know if time and space exist.

  All I know is the blinding hot passion that’s turning my body into a massive flaming ball of euphoria as Luca strains into me, groaning out my name as his cock twitches out his release while my orgasm rips through me.

  My legs shoot straight out.

  My toes curl.

  My stomach drops and my nipples tingle with so much pleasure that I almost can’t stand it.

  I love riding Luca’s cock.

  My body has never, ever felt so sated.

  Until this moment, I’ve always been the caterpillar.

  But loving Luca has turned me into the butterfly.

  Tears touch my eyeballs, and I let them fall as Luca sags against me. “Henri? Ah, baby. You’re crying.”

  I suck in a shuddery breath that I feel in every cell of my body, but especially in the cells still cradling Luca’s cock. “Sometimes joy leaks out my eyeballs.”

  He shifts until he’s holding me, dropping soft kisses to my neck and shoulder. “So that was good?”

  “The utter best.”

  He kisses my shoulder again. “Thank god. I thought Dogzilla was giving me the you’re doing it wrong look.”

  I blink my eyes open, and then start laughing, which makes Luca suck in a breath as his cock twitches inside me.

  My cat’s in the shower with us.

  She loves showers. It’s a thing.

  But right now, we’re getting a heavy dose of stink-eye from Dogzilla, which makes me laugh harder.

  “There’s my happy girl,” Luca murmurs.

  Happy?

  Yes.

  Definitely happy.

  I don’t know how long it will last, but for this moment, I’m happy.

  31

  Luca

  Cuddling isn’t my thing, but I spend the entire night wanting to wrap myself around Henri.

  I don’t—I’m too worried I’ll irritate the allergic rash that she insists will go away in a few days—but I want to.

  It’s an odd sensation.

  So is the relief that comes when she rolls over in the middle of the night, finds me watching her, and then straddles me for another round of sex.

  I refuse to think about what it might mean that she’s embedded herself so firmly in my life, and how much I like it, because if I think about it, I’ll start thinking I can offer her things that I’ve never thought I could offer any woman ever again. That I shouldn’t offer any woman ever again.

  I’m up early the next morning, because I can’t sleep with all the plans taking shape in my head to figure out how to keep Henri safe from the world and herself while not offering her things I can’t actually give her.

  A nebulous plan is taking shape, and the harder I think about it, the more I wonder if it might actually work.

  Why couldn’t it work?

  It’s working today. It worked yesterday. It can work tomorrow.

  We’ll just take the timeline off our arrangement, and I’ll keep protecting Henri from any other assholes out there, and she’ll keep living in my house, which I will immediately get to work on finishing so it’s livable long-term, and we’ll just fall into both of us being happy and safe.

  If she goes for it.

  That’s the part I’m not certain about.

  However, I know Henri loved the French toast from this local joint in a strip mall not far from the computer repair shop where I drop her laptop off as soon as they’re open, so I pick up an order.

  Okay, fine.

  I take home seven orders of French toast, because she mentioned once that she likes to reheat them in a skillet, and I want her to have her favorite French toast every day.

  I might also charm the hostess into talking the chef out of his magic ingredient.

  Not because anything I can make will be that good, even with the magic ingredient, but because it’s the thought that counts.

  Henri’s the type of woman to appreciate the thought.

  She’s sitting up in bed when I poke my head into the guest room, rubbing her hair, which is curling in all directions and making her utterly adorable. Dogzilla is nestled between her legs, dressed like a furry cowgirl already, and she opens a single eye to give me the don’t make my human unhappy or I will shred your charging cords in the middle of the night look.

  I’d be concerned, except Henri’s frowning at her phone as she thumbs over the screen, and that takes priority over worrying that her cat is secretly plotting to ruin my chargers.

  Henri’s eyes are puffy over the blotchy rash still staining her cheeks, and I don’t know if she’s been crying or if this is a normal post-allergic-reaction look, but she looks up
, sees me, and immediately shoves the phone under the covers.

  Caught.

  I start to grin. “Somebody’s acting guilty.”

  Her face floods with more pink, and god, I could wake up to that every day for the rest of my life.

  It should be a terrifying thought, except this is Henri.

  She’s the last person on earth who would ever pull the bullshit that I watched man after man pull on my mother until my early teenage years, who would abandon her family when it got too hard, or who would date me because someone paid her to.

  The bigger issue will be convincing her that she can count on me.

  Good thing I have a week or two to figure out the best way to suggest she stay when the season’s over.

  Her nose wrinkles. “Family.”

  That puts me on alert like nothing else can. “Which family?”

  She mumbles something, and I narrow my eyes at her. “Your sister?”

  More mumbles.

  And now I’m getting irritated. “Henrietta, I forbid you to give your sister writing advice unless you’re giving her bad advice.”

  Swear to god, the cat snickers.

  But my bigger concern should be Henri’s narrowing eyes. “You forbid me?”

  “Yep.”

  Here it comes. She’s settling in for the laser beam eyes and the harping and the secret messages to her cat to hock up a hairball in my cleats.

  But as soon as she gets her eyes good and narrowed, she sighs and drops back onto the pillow, scratching idly at her face. “You’re right. I shouldn’t give her advice. Because I’m telling her that everyone loves a straight-laced hero who likes to eat oatmeal for breakfast every day, occasionally forgets to use his blinker, and spends hours meditating by himself.”

  “That sounds…”

  “Boring and unappealing?”

  “I was going to say ballsy and sexy of you.” I shouldn’t be smiling bigger, but damn if Henri being underhanded isn’t making my cock ask if she can play games with us too.

  She pulls the phone out from under the covers, pausing to scratch her arms. “I need to apologize.”

  “You need to come eat so you can take your medicine.”

  “Are you taking care of me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hm.”