Fake Love (For Now)

by Penny Wylder

  As he brushes past me, I realize that I didn’t turn on any lights other than the fireplace. The whole atmosphere is much more romantic than I intended. I’m not exactly mad about it. But I wonder what he’s thinking right now.

  Hudson has a bottle of whiskey and two glasses that he puts on the coffee table. “Sorry,” he says, that rich as chocolate voice brushing across my skin. “This was all I had.”

  “That’s okay.” I clear my throat, trying to make my voice less breathy. “I like whiskey just fine.”

  He chuckles. “Woman after my own heart.”

  I curl into the corner of the couch, somehow comfortable enough to do that, and he pours us each a glass. The warmth of the whiskey is comforting. He pours himself one too, leaning back on the couch and slinging his arm over the back of it like he was born to be there.

  Silence.

  It’s both awkward and not. I feel like I should say something, but at the same time the quiet with the crackling fire is nice. We both sip our whiskey.

  “So you pretended that you were having a great time here?” He asks softly.

  “I did.”

  “Is it everything you hoped for, now that you’re really here?”

  I smile. “I was thinking while I was waiting that this would really be the best place to get away for a while. When I’m not here with my parents, of course.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll be able to take the time to come back.”

  “Maybe.” Another sip. “Though I really am sorry about them. I had no idea that they would end up…like that.”

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “They’re definitely not the worst that we’ve had. Though I have to say that when you showed up with them yesterday, I was surprised. Doesn’t seem like your crowd.”

  “It’s not really.” I hesitate. I already told him the truth once earlier. Should I tell him again? Hudson—basically a stranger—didn’t sign up to hear all of my drama when he asked me to have a drink with him. But the way that he’s looking at me right now makes my tongue loosen a bit. Though that could be the alcohol, too.

  Fuck it. I do work too hard. And I don’t have anyone to talk to about it besides my parents, and if I did talk to them about it, I would only get scolded for keeping things from them. But they were also so disgustingly supportive of me in every aspect that I can’t vent to them. I can’t bitch or let anything out. Not really.

  Hudson raises one eyebrow, questioning my hesitation.

  “You don’t want to hear about that,” I say softly.

  “Why not?”

  I laugh quietly. “Why would you want to listen to a stranger’s problems?”

  My glass is empty. Hudson leans forward and pours me a glass. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “Oh?” I ask. “And what is that?”

  “I will trade you. A problem for a problem. You tell me one of yours, I’ll tell you one of mine, and we’ll go back and forth until we can’t think of any more problems or we’re too drunk to talk.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  Hudson shrugs. “Everyone needs someone to listen to them. I’m not an exception to that rule.” He grins at me. “So, are you in?”

  4

  Hudson

  I cannot stop looking at this woman in front of me. The firelight is painting her like a fucking masterpiece, catching the reds in her hair and making her practically glow. There’s not a time in my recent memory that I can remember being this captivated by anyone. Everything about her is intriguing. From the way she’s curled into the corner of the couch to the way that she’s clinging to that glass of whiskey like it’s a lifeline.

  She believes what she’s saying—that I wouldn’t be interested in what she has to say or listening to her at all.

  Nothing could be further from the truth. I want to dig into who she is and find out what it is that’s drawing me like a moth to a flame. I’ll listen to anything that she has to say purely for the chance to hear her talk. Erin’s voice is musical and lovely.

  “Okay,” she finally nods after thinking about my offer for a bit. “A problem for a problem.”

  “So tell me why you’re really here then?”

  She sighs. “I’m here because my parents thought it would be good for me. They worried that I would just sit on the couch all weekend and watch Netflix, and they’re not wrong. Though before doing this,” she gestures to the two of us, the drinks, and the fire, “I was seriously regretting the decision to come.”

  “Glad I could make it more bearable,” I say with a smile.

  “You’re the only part that’s been bearable,” Erin says quietly, though she doesn’t meet my eyes when she says it.

  I take a drink of whiskey and focus hard on not getting hard. “Okay, my first problem. I don’t know where I fit in at Blue Mountain anymore. I love it here, but things have changed a lot since my best friends—the other owners—have both fallen in love and are about to get married. Not that I’m not happy for them…” I trail off.

  “But things are different.”

  “They are,” I say. “Different isn’t always bad. It’s just hard to get used to.”

  Erin takes a sharp sip of her whiskey and turns more fully to face me with her legs crossed. “The reason I’m working at the clinic, and my parents think that I’m working too hard, is that I applied to veterinary school and…I didn’t get in. There wasn’t any alternate plan in my mind than getting in. And now I feel so fucking lost. I thought I’d worked hard enough, and I didn’t. Now I need all the extra experience I can get so that when I apply again, I can actually get accepted.”

  All the words rush out of her like she just burst a bubble. She’s breathing a little hard, cheeks flushed. I’m not sure if the whiskey is hitting her or if it’s just all the emotions around what she said. But we’re trading problems, and I’m not going to let her get bogged down in her shit. Not yet.

  “I’ve been spending more and more time in the woods just so I don’t have to deal with everything that’s changing,” I admit. “It’s easier when I’m the only person for miles and I don’t have to think about anything other than which path to take or if it’s time to camp for the night. Just be, for a while.”

  Erin shakes her head. “It was my test results. I’ve always been a bad tester. I know my stuff, but when there’s so much pressure and it actually matters and I know that I’m being judged on it, I overthink everything and it ends up fucking me over. It’s always been that way.”

  I nod. “I know a bit about that. Ever since Leo and Asher found their partners, I’ve been lonely and second guessing everything. Even though I never thought that that kind of life was for me.”

  She leans toward me and I don’t know if she consciously realizes it. “It’s embarrassing. I’ve wanted to be a vet since I was a kid, and everyone knows it. So the fact that I’m not, even if it’s still an option in the future—it feels like failure. I haven’t even told some of my friends because I don’t want to see that look in their eyes. The pity and the ‘I don’t know what to say’ or ‘Oh, I’m sure it will be okay.’”

  I smile and down the last of my whiskey. “It’s actually been forever since I talked to anyone like this because of that same embarrassment. What would my friends say to me if I told them I’m jealous? Or that I feel left out because they’re so happy?” I lean closer. “I don’t want to make my friends feel like shit. That’s the last thing I want.”

  “If I’m not doing what I always said I’d do?” Erin whispers. “I have no idea where I fit in the world anymore.”

  “I feel exactly the same way.”

  We’re inches away from each other now. Up close, her hair is even brighter. There’s a sheen of whiskey on her lips and it feels like the small truths that we’ve been admitting are pulling us together like there’s a string tightening between us.

  And now that we’ve ended up in the same place—two people who feel a little lost and who don’t have anyone else to admit it to—there’s no holding
back.

  I know that it’s a bad idea as I kiss her. But it doesn’t matter. It’s happening. I put my glass on the coffee table and just manage to get hers there too before I close the distance between us.

  Jesus fuck. Her lips are so soft under mine and she tastes like marshmallows and whiskey. The room suddenly feels hotter than the fire that we’re next to, and my mind is entirely blank. It’s only the feeling of her mouth and her tongue and my hands pulling her closer so that she’s in my lap. There’s no fucking way I can control my dick now. It’s hard and I don’t care if she feels it because Erin is kissing me back.

  I’m a little drunk, I know that, and she’s a little drunk too. But her hands slide around my neck and she’s grinding into me as hard as I’m pulling her into me.

  “You’re good with this?” I ask.

  Her words are a gasp. “What do you think?”

  “We’ve both been drinking, and you’re a guest here, Erin. So as much as I love the feeling of your tongue in my mouth, you have to tell me yes.” I yank her hips down into me—the way she’s straddling me pulls us together in a form of delicious torture. “But once you do, all bets or off.”

  Erin pulls back for a second, eyes so close and so glazed with open lust that it only makes me harder. “God, yes,” she breathes before pressing her mouth to mine again.

  My arms come around her hard, locking our bodies together as we consume each other. All the thoughts about whether this is a good idea or a bad idea evaporate through the kiss. Because this is the perfect idea.

  I’ve never had a kiss like this. It reaches inside me and yanks something out. I feel raw and exposed, and at the same time, I want more of it. I can’t get enough or have her too close. There are too many layers of clothing in the way. I want to touch her. Tease her. Taste her.

  Make her blush and forget that she has any kind of trouble or embarrassment. For tonight, she’s only going to think about me, and the pleasure that I’m going to give her—that we’re going to create together.

  I lift her up and lay her back on the couch before peeling her shirt up and off. She laughs breathlessly. “If I’d known someone as hot as you was going to see my underwear, I would have packed something sexier.”

  Looking down at the simple black bra she has on, and the way it contrasts with her pale skin, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything sexier. “Have you looked in a mirror today, Erin? Because I’ve been fighting my dick the entire day just being near you.”

  She shudders and arches up into me where our bodies meet. “I’m serious though. How do you not have women falling all over you?”

  “You have to leave the woods to have that happen,” I say with a smirk.

  But talking isn’t exactly what I’m interested at the moment. I drop my lips to her fire-painted skin, tasting the sweetness and the smoothness of it under my lips. I savor the sounds of her breathing and the little way that she gasps when I move somewhere more sensitive. The place where her neck meets her shoulder. The hollow of her collarbone. The valley between her breasts.

  Sliding my hands underneath her, I get her bra undone, and she helps me wiggle herself out of it so she can throw it aside. Her nipples are already hard, and they’re so perfect that they practically have my mouth watering. “God, you’re beautiful,” I say before capturing one of her nipples between my teeth.

  Not a hard bite—just a grazing that makes her gasp and her skin tighten even more between my lips. I swirl my tongue around the taut peak, enjoying the way her hands grip my shoulders and sink into my hair. There’s nothing quite like this feeling of teasing a woman. Sucking on her skin until she moans and wants more. Making her nipples swollen and aching because you can’t get enough.

  I switch to the other nipple, pinching the first one between my fingers. “Oh my God,” her voice is choked with arousal and lust. “I’ve never—”

  My head snaps up. “You’ve never what?” If she’s a virgin, that won’t be a problem, but I need to know.

  She smiles and looks a little nervous. “I’ve never had a man spend so much time with my nipples.” A small laugh.

  I raise an eyebrow and move my face level with hers again. “Really?”

  “No.”

  “Because it’s barely been five minutes, Erin.”

  Her cheeks turn pink. “I know.”

  Slowly, I kiss her, drawing it out until I’ve stolen all her breath. “I didn’t say that to embarrass you,” I say against her lips. “I’m just a little shocked that any man who had the chance to be with you wouldn’t spend time worshipping your tits. Because they’re fucking perfect.”

  Erin blushes deeper, the flush spilling down off her face to her chest and lower, and her eyes widen. “I—”

  “And I’m guessing,” I say even more quietly, “that if no man has taken the time to do that, then they haven’t told you how properly gorgeous you are either.”

  She shakes her head, lips pressed together.

  I draw my lips along the line of her jaw. “There’s going to be a few new experiences for you tonight then.”

  “Fuck.” The word shakes as she says it.

  I move my mouth back along her skin until I reach her breasts again, and there isn’t an inch of her skin that I don’t touch. The softness of the crease underneath, the valley between them, the edges of her nipples. I study her breasts with my mouth until Erin is boneless underneath me. Completely relaxed and still clinging to me like I’m the air she needs to breathe.

  And then I tease her nipples again, sucking on them until I hear Erin gasp. I brush them with my teeth and my tongue until they’re flushed a deeper red from all of my attention.

  “They deserve more than that,” I say between laps of my tongue. “But there are other parts of you that I want to taste too.”

  “I—” Her chest rises and falls with a deep breath, just offering those perfect tits to me again. “I can’t breathe.”

  I just smile. “That’s part of the plan.”

  “You have a plan?”

  Shifting down her body so my hands are on the belt of her jeans, I smirk. “I do. And it involves you, your pussy, and my tongue. Possibly you screaming. And after that…I’ll play it by ear.”

  “This is the furthest thing from how I imagined this night ending.”

  “Not a bad thing, I hope?”

  Erin snorts and then covers her face with her hands, laughing. It’s adorable. “Fuck no.” She meets my eyes again. “I would have had my vibrator between my legs imagining this anyway. This is way better.”

  I undo her belt and tug her jeans off her hips, and she arches them off the couch to help. The thong she has on is a simple black one that matches her bra. But fuck, it’s the simple starkness of it that makes it so hot.

  Lace and lingerie are sexy, but not necessary. Lingerie would not make me want to be between her legs any more than I do right now. My cock twitches at the knowledge that I’m going to absolutely fucking bury my tongue in her in a few seconds.

  I get the jeans off her legs and toss them aside before pulling my own shirt off too.

  “Holy shit.”

  “What?” I ask with a laugh.

  Erin shakes her head, and she hasn’t taken her eyes off me. “Real people don’t look like that.”

  “I’m real. Want to touch me?”

  She just blinks. “How the fuck do you look like that?”

  “Luck, genetics, and spending twelve hours a day outdoors and hiking.”

  “That’ll do it.” The way that she’s consuming me with her gaze like I’m an ice cream to be licked makes me lightheaded. All the blood in my body is headed south to my cock. I barely stifle a groan. It’s almost painful inside my jeans and when we get there, it’s going to feel so fucking good.

  But first things first. I hook my fingers into her thong and strip them down her thighs. In the warm light of the fire, I can see that she’s already wet. Perfect and gorgeous.

  “Tell me,” I say, settling between her l
egs and kissing the inside of her thigh, “have you ever been properly eaten out?”

  “Define properly.”

  “That answer probably tells me, but by ‘properly’ I mean that you’ve come on a man’s tongue. That he’s made you writhe and scream until you don’t remember your own name. Taken his time and made sure that you’re satisfied before he takes a damn thing from you.”

  “No.”

  I press a kiss to her other thigh. Closer to the promised land. “No to which part of it?”

  “Any of it. No one’s ever…done that.”

  Again that blush that I crave. “Ever?”

  I watch her hands flex and grip the cushions on the couch. “Ever.”

  My eyes are locked with hers as I lower my mouth. “So I’m the first man to ever do this?” I brush my lips across her clit.

  “Yes.”

  “And this?” This time a slow lick.

  She moans. “Yes.”

  Fuck, she tastes sweet. Sweeter than her mouth, and the men she’s been with who were either too stupid or too selfish to skip this part of loving her, they missed out.

  “Good,” I say before sealing my mouth over her and sucking hard. Erin gasps and curses. I chuckle, drawing my tongue up and around her clit over and over again, paying attention to the way that she shakes when I lick her. And then I do it again.

  One long, slow graze of my tongue from the bottom of her entrance all the way back to her clit. “Let’s find out what you like,” I murmur.

  “I fucking like all of it.”

  I dip my tongue deep inside her pussy. She’s so wet that I can’t even breathe. This is absolutely everything. Her pussy is delicious and I’m the only one that’s ever tasted it. Something about that satisfies the deeply male part of me that wants to possess and conquer. I love the fact that this is mine. I’ll always be the first man to lick her clit and fuck her with my tongue.

  “Hudson,” she breathes as I move back to her clit, focusing on the underside of it with short, fast strokes. She’s tensing up. I can feel it with the way her thighs are squeezing and the way she’s arching.