Best Fake Fiancé: A Loveless Brothers Novel

by Noir, Roxie

  When we break the kiss I can barely breathe. I’m holding myself up, over her, one elbow on the rock and the other on her thigh, hitched around my hips.

  “Condom?” I whisper, even as I irresistibly buck my hips forward, my cock seeking her heat like a magnet seeking north.

  “In the car,” she whispers back. Her freckles all stand out in the dark, constellations across her face, the negative of the sky above, her eyes bright and her lips plush and I want her, I want her, I want her like it’s the only thing I’ve ever felt.

  Charlie guides me to her, the tip of my cock suddenly at her entrance, and my eyes slide shut despite myself.

  “Wait,” I say, leaning my forehead against hers, even though there’s nothing I want to do less.

  “It’s okay,” she says, her lips on mine, the words muddled. “Just pull out.”

  “We should—"

  “Please?” she asks, and that’s all it takes.

  I know better and I’ve been careful for years but all it takes is that one breathy, murmured please and I throw caution to the wind and sink into Charlie’s tight heat with a single thrust.

  I go deep, deep enough to hit the spot that makes her fingers dig into my back, makes her legs tighten around me as she groans, her eyes closed, her head turned to one side.

  “Like this?” I whisper in her ear, bending over, pulling her legs tight around me to get deeper. “You want me bare, like this?”

  “You feel so fucking good,” she whispers, her eyes opening to half-mast.

  The hairs on the back of my neck are standing and there are goosebumps down my spine with the sheer pleasure of Charlie, skin to skin like this, nothing between us. It’s dangerous and perfect all at once, all-consuming, unstoppable.

  I try to go slow, to savor this. I want to etch every detail in my memory: how beautiful she is right now, eyelids fluttering and hair half-wild, my name on her lips. I want to make this last, the pure bliss of being inside her with nothing between us, the knowledge that I might never get closer to heaven than right now.

  But I can’t, not now, not when we’re fucking outside, not when she begged me to fuck her with no condom, not when she’s dragging her nails down my back and whispering harder please God Daniel, please. Now I fuck her hard and deep and I growl you like that don’t you into her ear and she just gasps yes and it makes me want her harder, deeper, faster.

  She brings out some primal, base instinct in me. Charlie turns me into a feral animal with no control, no power to stop my impulses. Right now, I’m nothing but a working cock slamming into her over and over again, feeling her twitch and shudder, feeling her body as it collides with mine and she draws me in, always wanting more, taking anything I can give.

  I love this about her. I love that it’s always been the two of us, through everything, and now it’s the two of us here as close as two people can get. I love that she’s never backed down from me and I’ve never backed down from her.

  I lean over her, elbow over her head, the thumb of my other hand on her clit because I can’t last much longer and her channel contracts around me when I do. I have to take a deep breath, clench my teeth, keep control.

  I have to keep control.

  “Come,” I tell her, my voice low, guttural, pure growl.

  Her breath hitches and her eyes meet mine, unsteady, unfocused.

  “Don’t stop,” she murmurs.

  “I can’t last much longer like this,” I tell her, my voice bottoming out. “And I can’t come inside you, so if you want to come with my cock in you like I know you like to—"

  Her fingers curl against my back and I clench both fists, forcing myself to hold back just a little longer. I rub her clit harder and hit the spot she likes with every stroke and she flutters, squeezes, her back arching.

  “Oh fuck, Daniel,” she whispers, and I put my forehead to hers, every muscle in my body taut. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come, Daniel, don’t stop—”

  She comes. She comes so hard it nearly knocks the wind from my lungs and my vision edges black as I bury my face in her hair, her fingernails cutting ribbons down my back. There’s one second where I’m afraid I’ve lost control, too, that this was too reckless and too stupid, that of course there was no way I could resist her like this.

  I come half a second after I pull out, spilling myself all over her thigh and hip in spurt after spurt. I’m still coming as she sits up and kisses me and puts her hand over mine, stroking me until it’s done and I’m gasping for breath, holding her close, kissing her, tangled.

  “That was close,” I say, still standing between her thighs, my feet still in the cold water. I’m getting my own semen on me, but it’s not like I care.

  “That was good,” Charlie says.

  “It was,” I say, her face in my hands. I kiss her, and I don’t think about the next thing I say in this moment, I just say it.

  “I love you,” I tell Charlie.

  “I love you back,” she says instantly, and I kiss her, and the water’s cold on my feet and the night air is cool against my now-overheated skin and Charlie kisses me slowly and I feel like I’ll never want anything else, ever again.

  We break the kiss. She looks up at me, hazel eyes wide, face pale and freckles dark in the moonlight, and her lips part like she’s about to speak.

  Whoop!

  We both freeze, and it’s been so long that it takes me a moment to realize what the sound is.

  But then I see the blue lights blinking through the trees, and I remember.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Charlie

  A blue light strobes through the trees across the creek, behind Daniel’s head, and for a second I just freeze. I shut my eyes, then open them, thinking that maybe if I do nothing they’ll just pass by or go away and I won’t have fucked up royally yet again.

  Instead, there’s the slow crunching sound of tires on a crappy dirt road.

  “Shit,” I hiss, jumping off the rock, pushing Daniel backward. “Shit, shit, I’m sorry.”

  “At least it’s not an old man with a shotgun,” he says, but his voice is tight, clipped.

  “They never actually shoot,” I say, still pushing him backward, into the water. “They just shout some and then let you go.”

  He grimaces as he goes deeper, behind a stand of rocks, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “Sometimes they shoot,” he says, watching the shore behind me as he goes still.

  I turn my head. We’re both waist-deep in the water now, the lights getting closer, my stomach in ten thousand knots. Daniel’s tense, his jaw clenched, and I know exactly what’s going through his mind.

  He’s wondering how an arrest would look at a custody hearing. He’s wondering if skinny dipping with me would land him on the sex offender registry. He’s wondering whether everyone in Sprucevale will know about this by tomorrow morning, whether Crystal will know about it, how she’ll use it against him.

  I hate her. I really do.

  The crunching stops. I’m holding my breath, the lights still playing on the trees above us. There are a couple big rocks between us and the police cruiser, but I’ve got a pretty good suspicion that they’ve stopped behind my car and, at the very, very least, they’re issuing me a ticket.

  Please just give me a ticket, I think. Just give me a really expensive, obnoxious ticket and then drive away, I can’t let Daniel get caught trespassing naked—

  A car door opens. The lights are still going, the glow of the headlights reflected off the trees, making it harder to see here in the shadows. The door closes with the heavy click of a serious car, and I realize I’ve got my hands in prayer formation, the knuckles of my thumbs against my forehead.

  “Just go,” I’m whispering. “Just fucking leave.”

  A powerful flashlight beam plays across the creek, lighting up the rocks and fallen trees opposite of us.

  Please. Leave.

  “All right,” a man’s voice calls out. “I know someone’s over there and by the looks o
f it you’re not wearing a lick of clothing, so just come on out with your hands raised.”

  Daniel and I look at each other. My heart’s hammering wildly, so loud I can hear it over the rush of the creek.

  “If you’re thinking that I’ll just turn around and leave if you don’t come out, you have got another think coming,” he calls. “You’re trespassing on private property, and if you make me put my waders on and come into that creek, I can assure you I’ll be in a much less good mood than I am right now.”

  “Charlie,” Daniel murmurs, and I shake my head.

  “He’s bluffing,” I murmur back. “He’ll just give my car a ticket, do some more shouting and then decide we’ve left—"

  “Old Man Williams is talking about pressing charges, you know,” the officer calls. “And right now, I’m inclined to talk him out of it, but make me look any harder and I might not be.”

  Oh fuck. Daniel exhales, his jaw clenched, but before he can step forward, I put a hand on his chest.

  “Stay there,” I murmur, and before he can do or say anything, I cross my arms over my boobs and step out from behind the rock.

  Instantly, there’s a bright light in my eyes and I can’t see a goddamn thing.

  “Just one of you?” the voice says. He sounds very skeptical.

  “Just me,” I say, still squinting. I want to shade my eyes, but I don’t want to move my hands.

  “Is that so?” he asks. Footsteps come closer, then stop.

  “Yes, it’s so,” I say, annoyed despite myself at the light. “I just… I was really hot today, so I wanted to take a quick swim. Alone. By myself. Officer.”

  I tack that last bit onto the end in the hope that it sounds respectful enough to work.

  “There seem to be two pairs of pants on this here rock,” he points out.

  I say nothing. He sighs.

  “Miss, if you can’t tell me the truth, I’m still going to have to—”

  There’s a splash off to my left, and Daniel steps from behind the rock. We’re still both waist-deep in the water, so when the light hits him, he shields his face instinctively.

  “Daniel,” the officer says, and now that the light’s not on me, I squint through the dark, trying to see him. I can make out that he’s stout, middle-aged, but that’s all.

  Daniel clears his throat.

  “Hello, Officer Sherman,” he says.

  “I thought you’d cleaned up your act, son,” Officer Sherman says. “I haven’t seen you in years.”

  Daniel doesn’t say anything.

  “It’s my fault,” I say, still hugging my boobs. “This was my idea, I talked him into coming here.”

  “And you’re the fiancée, correct?” he says. “Congratulations, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” Daniel says.

  “Right,” I say. “Charlotte McManus.”

  Finally, he turns his flashlight off, though the police cruiser’s headlights are still on, bright in the dark night.

  “McManus,” he says, both hands now on his hips, his feet shoulder width apart, still in a fighting stance. “Do you know an Elizabeth McManus?”

  “She’s my sister,” I say.

  “She’s coordinated with the department for career day at the middle school the last few years,” he says. “Very nice woman. Responsible. Responds promptly to all my emails.”

  “Yeah, she’s good at that,” I say, still cold and hugging my boobs, wondering how long we’re going to have to talk about how great my sister is.

  “All right, you two,” he finally says. “Since there seems to be no actual harm here, I’m going to turn my car around and wait for you to appear at the mouth of this road. If you’re not there in five minutes, then we proceed according to the letter of the law. Otherwise, I came down here and couldn’t find a damn thing. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Daniel responds promptly, and I echo him.

  Officer Sherman nods briskly, then turns. He starts to walk away, stops, looks back at us.

  “Thomas was a good man and a good officer,” he says, suddenly. “I don’t believe I ever gave you my condolences after he passed.”

  Daniel’s stone-still, momentarily struck dumb. Then he swallows, his hands rubbing each other mindlessly.

  “Thank you,” he calls, and Officer Sherman walks off. He gets back in his car, slams around a three-point turn in the small clearing, and then bumps back up the road, leaving us in the moonlight.

  We waste no time getting dressed, getting back into my car, and driving off.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Daniel

  “You gonna walk me to my door?” I ask as Charlie makes her way up the long driveway.

  “Does that make me a gentleman?” she says, laughing.

  “I hope not,” I say, leaning one elbow on the windowsill of her car, the windows rolled down to the night air.

  After the swimming hole, we went out and got a drink at Strangeways, one of a few bars in town, and then we talked until they kicked us out at midnight. I told her how much I always hated it with the cops in town called me son, especially after my dad died.

  I don’t bring up the close call with Officer Sherman. I don’t bring up what an arrest or prosecution could have meant for me; I don’t bring up that if I’d gotten really unlucky, I could have landed on the sex offender registry.

  I know she didn’t think any of that through before taking me there. She wanted to do it, and she did. There’s a beauty in the simplicity of it, a beauty that I envy when I feel like every decision in my life is a complex flow chart.

  She parks, we get out and walk to my house, bumping into each other’s sides as we walk, glancing up at the stars. In front of the door she turns, and we kiss, ignoring the bugs buzzing around the porch light over our heads.

  “You want to come inside?” I ask, my hand on her back, even though my mom is home and nothing can happen.

  “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?” she teases, eyes sparking.

  There’s a slight rush of blood downward at the mere words, and I ignore it, looking away.

  “I’m kidding,” she says, one hand on my chest.

  “I know,” I say, leaning my head down, my forehead against hers. “That was reckless of us.”

  We were half a second from having to find an open pharmacy that carried the morning after pill, I think. We’re in the rural Virginia boondocks. I have no idea how far we’d have to drive. Hours, maybe.

  “It was good, though,” she says softly, and I bite my lips together, so I don’t agree with her aloud.

  “We should be more careful,” I say, pushing my fingers through her wild curls, some of them still slightly damp. “Of all people, I should know better.”

  Charlie sighs, takes my hand in hers, kisses the back.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ll be more responsible.”

  It’s not really what I want. I want her wild, impulsive; I want her skinny dipping and fucking me bare on the rocks, and I want to come inside her and hold her close and never let go.

  But I don’t want another kid, at least, not yet, and I know full well that Charlie’s not on birth control. She’d never remember to take it every day.

  “I love you,” I tell her.

  “I love you too,” she whispers, and we kiss, and then I go inside and Charlie drives away and I wish, for at least the thousandth time, that instead she were staying with me, that I could fall asleep next to her, wake up next to her, that when Rusty jumped on my bed in excitement for breakfast cereal and cartoons, that Charlie could be there, too.

  I fall asleep wishing for her, wondering how soon is too soon.

  * * *

  “It needs blueberries for eyes,” Rusty says critically, standing on a step stool by the stove. “And a nose. And you weren’t supposed to give it a tail.”

  “I’ll cut the tail off,” I tell her, carefully plonking two blueberries onto her pancake, approximately where a wombat’s eyes should be.

  Suddenly Rust
y hesitates, then looks up at me.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” she says. “I’ll eat it anyway. It’s fine.”

  I flip the pancake over on the griddle, the bottom perfectly golden brown. I’m no Eli, but I’m pretty good at blueberry pancakes these days, even if my art direction could probably use some help.

  “How was your date with Charlie?” she asks, still watching the pancake, suddenly sounding seventeen and not seven. She’s been doing that sometimes lately. I’m not sure how I feel about it.

  Well, sweetheart, we barebacked on some rocks because I thought with my dick instead of my brain and then we nearly got arrested, and I had a great time anyway, I think.

  I do not say that out loud.

  “It went well,” I tell her. “She says hi. How was your game night with Grandma?”

  “I won,” Rusty says, matter-of-factly. “I don’t think Grandma’s very good at games.”

  My phone buzzes on the counter, and I glance at it as I flip the wombat off the griddle and onto a waiting plate, then hand it to Rusty.

  “It’s Uncle Seth,” she says, leaning over to look at it.

  “Yo,” I answer.

  “We have a code fucking red goddamn disaster,” he says, more than a note of panic in his voice. “Someone didn’t put the release valve on the wort tank that’s brewing the double and it exploded last night, and now there’s fucking sticky half-beer everywhere—"

  “It exploded?” I ask, frozen in place, a wombat pancake in one hand.

  “Yes!” he says, sounding exasperated.

  “They’re not supposed to explode—”

  “No shit.”

  Rusty walks over, takes her plate from me, and starts eating quietly at the table. She can definitely tell something’s wrong.

  “It’s a whole batch, Daniel, we already had the orders in for the kegs and now we’re gonna have to delay those, not to mention that every goddamn thing in this place is sticky right now plus the floor is still covered in beer,” he says.

  Fuck. Fuck. The double IPA is one of our biggest sellers and missing a batch of it hurts.