by Cora Kenborn
Then it hits me. I’m supposed to be a single mom. There’s supposed to be a kid living here with toys and shit a six-year-old boy would like. Not the last six issues of Vogue and the complete box set collection of Sex In The City on DVD.
“I don’t think—”
“That’s the problem,” Niall says, his accent growing heavy with desire. “You think too much. Way too feckin’ much.” Before I can object, he snakes a hand around me and turns the doorknob.
The minute I fall backward into my apartment, I lose my hold on all reservations as well as my sanity. I’m doing this. I am so doing this. Screw morals, screw what’s right. Go ahead and call me every name in the book for my deception, or bending of the truth, or whatever the hell you want to label it. Tonight, I’m going to be immoral as fuck. I’ll worry about the repercussions tomorrow.
Holding up a finger against his lips, I shake my head and take a deep breath. “One second.”
“What the hell for?”
My anxiety heightens as out of the corner of my eye, I see Shelby’s bedroom door standing wide open. Anatomy diagram posters and framed certificates and awards hang on the walls like a shining beacon to my lies. My gait falters as more lies tumble from my mouth.
“Didn’t clean. Shit everywhere. Be right back.” Running to Shelby’s door, I lock it from the inside, slam it closed, and give it a quick tug to ensure no one can get inside. I know for a fact that Shelby has a shift at the hospital until six a.m., so there’s no chance of her showing up and shitting all over my parade.
I barely turn around when Niall fists my hair and gives it a tug backward. His lips are on me before I can react and my mind blanks. It’s frantic. It’s hot. It’s about to happen right here against Shelby’s door if we don’t move.
“Bedroom,” I manage to mumble against his lips.
As soon as we stumble through the door into my room, Niall kicks it closed and our hands and mouths are everywhere. One minute I’m facing the door, and half a heartbeat later, he’s spinning me around and slamming me so hard against it, all the air rushes out of my lungs. Entwining our fingers, he lifts my arms over my head and pins them against the wood. He’s holding me immobile, and I pause, expecting my usual fight or flight instinct to rear its ugly head, causing widespread panic. Instead, all it does is amp up my already explosive desire and I press myself harder against his rigid body.
“Christ, Laken,” he mumbles against my lips. “I’m tasting every inch of you tonight.” Reaching behind him with one hand, he pulls his t-shirt over his head and tosses it aside.
I swallow hard as I roam my eyes down his body. His chest is hard. It’s defined. Hell, it’s beautiful, and I want it pressed against me in the worst way. Not waiting for a response, he dives his tongue deep between my lips again, tangling mercilessly with mine as we both fight for air.
I have no idea what I’m doing.
Okay, that’s a lie, I know exactly what I’m doing and I have no intention of stopping. What I don’t know is why that little voice inside me that normally stops me from being impulsive and irrational isn’t screaming at me in her usual shrill voice to start thinking with my head instead of my hormones.
I’m not used to casual sex. Hell, I’m not used to sex period. If I got laid on a regular basis, maybe I wouldn’t be pushed up against my bedroom door like a starving dog in heat and could think clearly.
Niall wraps his hands around my face and stares at me. My stomach flips and I feel a level of exposure that I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable with, so I lower my gaze to the floor. He stops me as his grip on my cheeks tightens and he lifts my chin.
“What’s holding you back, Laken?”
“I don’t know. Before, it was…it was all pretend. Here, with you and me like this? This is real. You’re real. What we’re doing is real. We can’t uncross this line once it’s crossed, Niall.”
And there it is. What’s been bothering me since we left the bar. Once we have sex with this lie between us on the table, the game changes. It will no longer be as simple as handing the ring back to him and walking away at the end of the night.
What happens when the clock strikes twelve? Does Cinderella turn back into a pumpkin, left with only memories of one really amazing night? Or does she get the prince, the mice, the job, and the corner office?
Spreading his thumbs across my cheekbones, he runs his nose from my ear down the slope of my neck, his hot breath igniting an inferno that has been building all night. Placing a light kiss at the base of my throat, he brings my face against his until our noses are touching. “I want to cross every line with you, Laken. It’s time to drop all the bullshite. Just you and me and a question.”
“I’ve already said I’d fake marry you, what other question could you have?”
Niall lowers his hold and stares at me, his jaw twitching and heat glinting in his amber eyes. “Well, if we’re going to have a fake engagement, then I figure we should be able to bypass the fake marriage and get to the fake honeymoon.”
“I still don’t hear a question in there.”
“Oh, my mistake. Let’s make this official.” Tugging my hips hard against him, he grinds his thick erection into me as he whispers against my lips. “Do you, Laken Cavanaugh, want me to fuck you right here, to drive my cock so deep into you that you feel me for days afterward? To have and to fuck right here against this door so hard you won’t ever be able to walk through one again without screaming my name?”
Oh, hell yes, please. All that and more.
I whimper as he shoves a knee between my legs and pins me harder against the door. “I’m sorry, Miss Cavanaugh. Could you speak up? You seem to have lost that smart arse mouth of yours.”
“Yeah. I mean, I do. I will. Mmmhmm.”
And that is the exact opposite of how not to talk dirty to your man. I promise you, in my head, all sorts of naughty phrases like, “give it to me,” or “my pussy aches for you,” roll through my mind. But me being me—what comes out instead? “Yeah” and “Mmmhmm.”
“Well,” he says, grabbing the back of my thigh and hitching my leg around his waist. “By the power vested in me by the fact that I’m two seconds away from ripping that tiny scrap of lace you call panties off, I now pronounce us about to fuck like wild animals. You may now kiss the man who’s about to make you come harder than you’ve ever come in your life.”
“I, uh—” I swallow the rest as Niall crushes his lips to mine.
Men, if you want to shut a woman up, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. Telling her to shut up? Wrong way. Absolute wrong way, and nine times out of ten, you should probably sleep with your hand over your dick. Quieting her with a passionate kiss that curls her toes and makes her forget her own name? That’s going to end with a happy ending for both of you. Trust me on this.
Alcohol swims through my veins and as his one hand holds my thigh tight on his hip, his other snakes under my dress and he runs a finger down my panties circling the damp fabric.
I know I said it’s technically been a while since I’ve had sex, but it’s not like you forget the mechanics of how it’s done. You especially don’t forget how the tease of a hand can send your mind racing over to the other side of crazy. And that’s how Niall Mackay makes me feel. Certifiably crazy. Losing my hold on reality and skydiving without a parachute.
Niall groans my name as his kisses get harder and more forceful. I have no idea what’s come over me to egg him on, but he’s pushed me past the point of thinking this through. All I can think of is having the cock that’s pulsing against my stomach lodged deep inside me.
As he grazes his teeth down my throat, I somehow manage to find my voice. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
His eyes widen as he lifts his head and a wicked smirk curves his lips. He doesn’t answer me, only slips a finger underneath the edge of my panties and presses it lightly over my clit. Sparks shoot across my field of vision and I ache for more. Groaning, I push against him, wanting him
to touch me more than I’ve wanted anything in a long time. With a chuckle, he makes a light pass over my clit again, circling it with the tip of his finger, and before I have a chance to protest, he slides it down my wetness and drives it inside.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
As he finds his rhythm, he adds a second finger and returns attention to my throbbing clit with his thumb. I’m now clawing the door and riding his hand as pure heat incinerates me from the inside out. The minute he leans down and sucks my breast through the thin fabric of my dress, incoherent babble falls from my mouth, and honestly, I’m not even sure I’m speaking English as the voodoo he’s working causes a thunderous orgasm to buckle my knees and shatter my world. Crying out his name, I slump against him and bury my forehead into his chest.
“Jesus!” I pant.
Releasing my leg, Niall hooks a finger underneath my chin and forces my eyes on his. Once he’s positive I’m focused on his hooded gaze, he takes his fingers and sucks them deep into his mouth, swirling his tongue around them, approval rumbling deep in his throat.
“Delicious. Just like I knew you’d taste.”
Something dark shifts in his eyes and my lips part. Not sure how much more I can take, I plead with him. “Niall…”
Removing his finger from his mouth, he traces it across my own lips as he fists my hair with his other hand. Involuntarily my tongue darts out before my lips close around his finger. If he wasn’t holding me, I’d probably drop to the floor.
Stepping back, he reaches in his pocket and pulls out a foil packet and holds it up between us. “You do it.”
“Um, what?”
“Touch me, Laken. I want your hands on me.”
He doesn’t have to ask twice. I’m primed and ready for him. Reaching between us, I unhook his belt, shocked to see my hands are steady and not at all shaking. Emboldened by my own assuredness, I make quick work of his zipper and push down his jeans, gasping as my hand touches his hot length.
He’s huge. I don’t mean, “Oh, wow, that’s going to feel nice,” huge. I mean, “Holy fuck, the man should bronze it and hang a picture frame around it,” huge.
I must be staring because an impatient groan tears from his throat as I stroke him a few times. “Laken…” Quickly rolling the condom on, I barely have time to look up before he slams my back against the door and, reaching under my dress again, rips the flimsy string holding my panties together. “Wrap your legs around my waist,” he commands hotly in my ear.
Readily obeying, I hook my legs around him and his fingers dig into the flesh of my ass. Rearing back, he gives a sharp thrust upward. A tiny squeak slips out, and that’s all I can manage before he pulls out and drives back in, repeating the move over and over until I’m about to lose my mind. Our combined groans along with the sound of skin slapping are the only things I hear as the zipper of my dress digs into my back and the unforgiving wood slams against my spine.
Niall fucks like a man possessed, alternating punishing thrusts with smooth, long plunges. Sweat drips down my brow, and I feel my muscles clench around him.
“Niall! I’m coming again!”
“Do it. Come, baby,” he growls in his deep Irish accent, his teeth sinking hard into my shoulder.
Screaming, I stiffen as my orgasm rips through me with a relentless intensity that rocks me until I don’t even know my own name and the only one on my tongue is his. Niall powers inside me, spurring aftershocks that cause another round of spasms.
“Christ!” He lets out a tortured groan into the hollow of my neck and jerks inside me, bottoming out as his thrusts slow and eventually still.
Coming down from the high, I suddenly feel awkward. What we just did complicated an already bizarre situation. How would we walk away from each other now? How the hell could we possibly stage a public breakup and still work together after this?
Millions of questions float through my head as Niall shifts our bodies, still buried deep inside me, and heads toward my bed.
“Where are we going?” I ask, confused as to why he’s not getting dressed and leaving.
He chuckles as he lowers us both to the bed and climbs over me. “If you think the honeymoon’s over, Mrs. Mackay, you need to brush up on your rom coms.”
“But…”
That’s the last word I speak as Niall begins a heated trail of kisses down my stomach, and the minute he finds his destination, my world explodes for the third time.
Chapter Nine
Niall
The ruse is over.
It stopped the minute she scraped her nails down the length of my back and screamed my name. The sun is barely peeking through the blinds in her apartment as her bare arse is pressed up against me. We’re entwined, spooned together, her back to my front, completely naked in her bed, and for the first time in my life, I’m not panicking. I don’t have the insatiable urge to disappear before she wakes or leave cab fare on the dresser while I spend the morning drinking coffee at Starbucks until she gets the hint that I’m not coming back.
It scares me how right this feels. When I said the vows to Laken last night, part of me meant them. Some deep and crazy mental part of me wanted to pretend they were real. That maybe I’d wake up this morning and it wouldn’t have been just words said during amazing sex.
She’s asleep, but I hope to hell last night meant something to her. I can’t remember the number of women I’ve fucked in my life, but never have I lost myself in one like I did Laken Cavanaugh. I watched her. I drowned in her. I wanted to bury myself inside her and never leave. After fucking her against the door, I’d carried her to her bed and I’d spent the entire night loving her body with my cock, my tongue, my fingers…hell, anything I could touch her with. As I whispered what I wanted to do to her in her ear, I willed her to read between the lines, to hear what wasn’t in my voice but what was in my heart, to see that this wasn’t just a one-night stand for me.
“I want to taste you all night.”
I want you forever.
“You’re so wet for me.”
You’re the one I’ve waited for all my life.
“I want you so much.”
I think I might love you.
I hope she felt in the way I made love to her that I don’t want her for just one night. I want her and Preston forever.
We’d fucked all night and early into the morning. Even when she fell asleep, I’d stayed awake and watched her sleep, knowing I’d dipped a toe into unknown waters that I had no idea how to navigate my way through.
And now, in the early morning, I know screwed doesn’t begin to cover what I am. Unable to take the rejection I know is coming, I give her one last kiss behind her ear and slip out of the bed before she can give me the speech I dread hearing.
As I close the front door to her apartment, for the first time since uttering the phrase to Gloria in the conference room of Tate & Cane that started this whole mess, I wonder if I can pull this off tonight, or when it’s all over, I’ll lose my job, Sophie’s future, and most importantly, the woman I don’t think I can’t live without.
***
I’ve heard the phrase “take my breath away,” but I’ve never experienced it until I arrive outside Laken’s apartment dressed in my tuxedo and stand anxiously waiting for her to open the door. The minute I see her wearing what can only be described as floor-length satin sin, the phrase makes more sense than anything ever has in my life. She still looks beautiful, but there’s an edge to her tonight that borders on seductress.
The dress seems modest in the front, with a thick tie that wraps around her neck and dips low enough in the front to show off her ample assets, but not scandalous enough to seem suggestive. It melts into a body-hugging turquoise satin number that pools at her feet with a thigh-high split that allows a hint of her leg to peek through when she walks. However, that’s where the demureness ends. The minute she turns around, I have no doubt that dicks everywhere will stand up and salute her, thanking God that she exists to walk the Earth. The entire b
ack of the dress is bare, the base of the material resting at the top of her arse and barely hugging the sides of her breasts. The skin of her shoulders and back are coated in some sort of shimmer glitter that catches the light when she moves, holding my eyes hostage. She’s all I see. She’s all I breathe. The world around her ceases to exist. I’ve never seen anything so exquisitely beautiful in my life.
Breathtaking.
But what does it for me are the shoes. Crystal-encrusted stiletto fuck-me heels that elevate her legs in a way that forces my mind on nothing but having them draped over my shoulders at the end of the night, hold my eyes prisoner to the floor.
“Eyes up here,” she laughs with a throaty chuckle, bringing my attention back to her face.
Ladies need to learn one thing. To entice a man, it’s all about the heels. High heels and nothing else will have him on his knees begging for your mercy. Forget the expensive lingerie.
“Shoes stay on,” I barely manage on a whisper.
Bending one knee, she seductively braces her heel against the wall. “Well,” she says, hooking a finger under my chin and bringing my attention to her heavily smoky eyes. “It’d be rude to take them off at the party, now wouldn’t it?”
“No, I mean after the party. Keep the shoes on when I fuck you.”
Bringing her lips within a breath of mine, a wicked smile plays on Laken’s mouth as she licks her wine-stained lips. “Let’s just see how tonight goes, shall we, Mackay? Depending on how well things go, I just may fuck you.”
Funny how foreshadowing works, huh?
In my head, I hear, “If we pull this charade off and both get what we want out of this, I’ll ride you until we both can’t walk tomorrow.”
I have no clue that Laken’s words are literal.
***
More than once, I consider asking the cab driver to make a detour and drop us off at my apartment instead of the gala. Even as we pull up outside the hotel, with swarms of paparazzi and reporters crowding the entrance, the thought still cross my mind, especially when she grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze, my grandmother’s ring sparkling brilliantly on her finger.