The Accidental Girlfriend
Page 18
“You know, this family could stand to have a few casual, quiet get-togethers once in a while.”
“We could, but then we wouldn’t get any incriminating videos for the future. Nobody ever did anything embarrassing while sitting around the television and eating Thai food.”
“Well…”
“We are not discussing my birthday last year.”
I laughed. “Please.”
“No, Mason. Listen to me—forget my birthday. I’m glad we got this cleared up. I’m going to have a word with your sister about her meddling in your life and running her mouth.”
“Aunt Pru knew, too.”
“Yes, well, Pru is in a world of her own. She can do what she likes.”
I grinned. “You know she’ll kick your ass.”
“That’s enough of you.” She skirted to the edge of the sofa and motioned for me to shoo. “Go and be useful somewhere.”
“You called me here,” I reminded her as I stood up.
“And now I’m getting rid of you. Off you go. Bye, son.”
I laughed as I made my way to the front door. “Bye, Mom!” I heard her laughter echo through the house as I stepped outside and made it to my truck. When I was safely in there, I pulled out my phone and texted Lauren.
MASON: Crisis averted. My mother is happy with our newfound relationship.
Her response was surprisingly fast.
LAUREN: We’ll see how your food tastes. Then we’ll talk about relationships.
***
Lauren gasped, her nails digging into my shoulders as her back arched beneath me.
I gripped her thigh even tighter and moved inside her, thrusting my cock into her wet pussy harder than I had before. Her moans of pleasure as she writhed beneath me were straight out of a wet dream, and if her nails weren’t slicing into my skin so firmly, I’d say that it was a fucking wet dream.
Jesus, she felt so damn good.
We moved together until my balls went so tight that I knew I was about to cum. I gritted my teeth as I held onto the sensation. I wasn’t going to go before she did—I was determined to hold it back until I couldn’t any longer.
It was fucking painful. All I wanted to do was cum, but she was so close. So close that I couldn’t let go.
Instead of focusing on how badly I wanted to come, I focused on her. On her clenched, wet pussy as I moved my cock inside her. On the way she moved beneath me and against me the longer I fucked her.
It felt like an age before her entire body clenched and she went rigid beneath me. Her cry of pleasure filled my room, and it took mere seconds for me to join her in an orgasm. My balls throbbed and my cock pulsed as I came, lowering my mouth to take hers in a firm kiss that drowned out my groan.
Our bodies were slick with sweat, and it took everything inside me not to collapse on top of her. Her short, harsh breaths were hot against my skin, and she slowly relaxed her grip on me until the sting from her nails dissipated.
She ran her hands over my back. Her fingers were so soft compared to her nails, and I relaxed under her confident touch.
“Burgers and an orgasm,” Lauren breathed, rolling her head to the side. “This fake relationship might work like a real one after all.”
“Homemade burgers,” I reminded her, sitting up straight to ease my cock out of her. Her hips bucked as I pulled out of her and released her legs. “Homemade makes a big difference.”
“It does.” She blew out a long breath and, after sitting up herself, ran her fingers through my hair. “I’m stealing your conditioner.”
“My what?” I got up and rolled off the condom.
“Your conditioner. Your hair is soft. I’m jealous.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You don’t know what conditioner is?”
“I use the same thing for my body and my hair.”
Lauren flopped down onto her back again dramatically. “Men. You get it so easy.”
“Get an erection in a pair of jeans and then tell me we have it easy.”
“Your horniness goes down. My horniness stays in a damp patch in my panties.”
“I’m so glad we had sex before you said that.”
“Same. But, just so you know, there are more genius little quips where that came from.” She groaned as she rolled over and got up. “Where’s the bathroom? Do you have anything I can use as a… you know.”
I peered back at her over my shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“A wedge. For drippage purposes.”
Slowly, I turned around, meeting her eyes as I did so. “For what purposes?”
“Drippage. You’d put a cup under a leaking radiator, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes. Are you saying you need a cup for your vagina when we’re done having sex?”
She cocked a brow. “No. I don’t want to catch the excess to water my plants, Mason. A towel will do just fine.”
I had no response to that except for laughter. I’d literally pay anyone who could come up with something to say to that.
“Would you like a towel?” was what I finally settled on.
“I’d love a towel. Thanks.”
I grabbed one from the radiator and threw it across the room to her. “I’ll make a note to keep one within reach on your side of the bed.”
“My side of the bed? Ooh, you fancy.” She stood and stuffed the towel between her legs. She was stark naked otherwise, and it was quite the fucking sight. “You want a picture?”
“Of you with a towel between your legs? No. Of my cock between them? It’s a little too early for that, isn’t it?”
She waddled across the room, holding the towel in place with one hand and her tits with the other. “Holy shit, we’re gonna have to find a middle ground on the witty, snarky chat here. You’re exhausting.”
“Given that you just came so hard you need a towel between your legs, I’ll take ‘exhausting’ as a compliment.”
Lauren shot me a look as she continued her penguin-like walk into the bathroom. She shut the door behind her, leaving me standing where I was, shaking my head.
Then, out of nowhere, I laughed.
I’d just watched the woman I was falling for waddle into the bathroom with a towel between her legs, and here I was, laughing.
Yet it all made sense.
That was why I was laughing.
She was fucking funny. She was shameless. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her unless she cared about them, too—but right now, she really didn’t care.
She was so goddamn real it hurt.
Had I ever seen another woman shove a towel between their legs in case of ‘drippage?’
No.
Never in my life.
But Lauren—fuck me. I’d said it a thousand times, and I had a feeling I’d say it a thousand more: she was something else.
She was fucking special.
Special.
The bathroom door opened and Lauren stepped out, now wrapped in a different towel entirely.
She paused in front of me. “I put the other towel in your laundry basket. I’ll even do your laundry to make up for getting lady juice all over that one.”
I sighed. Heavily. “Are you going to be like this in twenty years?”
“No. In twenty years I’ll probably be a jaded mother of pre-teens who doesn’t have time for sex with you. Enjoy this while you can. I’ll be snarking about the lack of bread and milk one day.”
“And you’ll look just as sexy as you do right now.”
“Careful. I might kill you and feed you to the pigs before that happens.”
“The pigs? What pigs? Who is getting pigs?”
“We are.” She patted my cheek again. “Keep up, soldier. This is your life now.”
I tried not to smile, but fuck it, I couldn’t.
Yeah, this was early days, but if I knew one thing about Lauren Green, it was this:
She could be the one.
With her snark and her jokes and her shamelessness, she had e
verything I never knew I wanted in a woman.
And if I had to keep a towel down the side of my bed and fixings for a burger in my fridge to keep her happy, that’s what I would do.
Even if her contribution was the weekly babysitting of a tiny human being whose head was smaller than my hand and cat who liked to sit on my head while I held said baby.
It hadn’t happened yet, but I was preparing myself.
I’d take it.
I’d take her laughs and jokes and smiles until my cheeks hurt from doing all that myself. I’d take her craziness and her wildness and her sometimes reservedness, because I knew that beneath it all, Lauren was nothing but a mess of softness and emotion.
And it was that softness that had her wink at me before she delved into my drawers and pulled out one of my old, blue t-shirts. She pulled it over her head, and it absolutely drowned her. It was huge compared to her, falling to her knees and swamping her gorgeous frame.
She sat on the edge of the bed in nothing but that faded, navy t-shirt. Then, she looked at me with her eyes sparkling and said, “I’m hungry. Can I raid your kitchen?”
And that was that.
EPILOGUE – LAUREN
Nine Months Later
“Hawaii.”
“No. Bali.”
“Bali? Do you know how expensive Bali is?”
“Do you know how expensive Hawaii is?”
“Why don’t we go somewhere closer? Like Cuba. Or the Bahamas?”
“How about a staycation?” I suggested. “It’s too cold to go anywhere now, but we can head somewhere in the summer. Florida is too hot then.”
Mason sighed and dropped his head back. “A staycation wasn’t how I pictured our first vacation together.”
“Yeah, well, Uncle Charlie accidentally sent me nudes last weekend, and I wasn’t expecting that, so…”
“Fine, fine, fine. Where are you thinking?”
“I have a couple ideas. We could go to the beach.”
“Lauren, babe, we live in Florida. The beach isn’t a vacation.”
“Ugh. You know what I mean. This isn’t a vacation.” I waved my arm around.
All right, so we were sitting on the beach, but who cared?
“All right. Humor me. Where do you wanna go?”
“There’s this little town I know in South Carolina. I went to school with a girl who lives there—her name is Halley. Their town makes a big deal out of summer, and they have this huge festival. She runs the kissing booth and is their reigning champion. It’s just inland enough from the beach that’s it’s not a full beach vacation, but close enough that it is.”
Mason leaned across the table. “That’s not a vacation. That’s a trip.”
“Okay, so let’s take a trip, then do the vacation to make sure we don’t kill each other.”
He rubbed his hands down his face. “You know what? That seems like a good idea. Let’s do that.”
I grinned. “I love it when you agree with me. It’s like Christmas all over again.”
“Hmm. You’re lucky I love you.”
“It’s not luck at all. You love my charm. It’s so endearing.”
“I’m surprised you can get anywhere with that ego of yours.”
“Well, you carry most of it for me with your sweet words, so…”
Mason smiled playfully, reaching across the table to brush his thumb over my jaw. “I’ll make sure to keep those contained in the future.”
“Aw. But I like those.”
“No. You’re taking them to heart too much.”
“I also took Pru shopping last week and I’m still scarred from zipping her up. You literally owe me.”
“I didn’t make you do that. Blame my mother.”
“I love your mom.”
“I know. You have a little girlmance going on. Whatever. Can we discuss something else now?”
“Like your birthday?”
He reached over and put his finger on my lips. “No. We aren’t discussing my birthday.”
“Aw.” I pouted. “But Henry wants to start planning.”
Mason shook his head. “Henry is on my shit list. Because he shit in my shoes.”
“He shit in your shoes because you didn’t bring him tuna. You know the rules. You started bringing tuna, so now you have to continue.”
“Yeah, but how do you explain Cara drooling all over my keys?”
“She’s, like, ten months old. You leave your keys where she can get them, and she’s going to eat them. That’s really all on you.”
He sighed and leaned back. “I knew this would be hard work. My shoes are shit in, my keys are covered in baby drool, and my vacation is to South Carolina instead of Hawaii. I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
I changed seats so I was sitting next to him instead of opposite him and scooted in next to him. “You’re not.”
He eyed me. “You’re right. I’m not.”
I grinned, nudging him with my elbow. “Love you.”
Mason tried to fight his smile, but he didn’t really stand a chance at all. He never did.
It was one of my favorite things about him.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re a pain in my ass.”
“I know. It’s why you love me.”
He pressed his lips against the side of my head. “Sure is.”
KISS ME NOT
COMING AUGUST 27th!
What do you do when you’re the reigning kissing booth champion but the only person you want to kiss is your best friend’s brother?
Let me make this clear right here, right now: I, Halley Dawson, do not care that Preston Wright is kissing other women.
Not a lick. Not at all. Nuh-uh-freakin’-uh.
I do care that he’s doing it six feet away from me behind a gaudy velvet curtain—making him my competition in this year’s kissing contest.
Why do I care, you ask? Because I’ve had an unfortunate crush on the insufferable idiot since I was sixteen years old, but I also know it’s never going to happen.
He’s the Creek Falls bachelor to die for, and I’m the Creek Falls racoon lady who puts peanut butter sandwiches out for them every night.
I’m not going to let him break my four-year-long reign—no matter how many times he breaks the rules and slides the curtain across to do the one thing he’s not allowed to:
Kiss me.
Visit www.emmahart.net/kiss-me-not to preorder!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emma Hart is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of over thirty novels and has been translated into several different languages.
She is a mother, wife, lover of wine, Pink Goddess, and valiant rescuer of wild baby hedgehogs.
Emma prides herself on her realistic, snarky smut, with comebacks that would make a PMS-ing teenage girl proud.
Yes, really. She's that sarcastic.
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BOOKS BY EMMA HART
Standalones:
Blind Date
Being Brooke
Catching Carly
Casanova
Mixed Up
Miss Fix-It
Miss Mechanic
The Upside to Being Single
The Hook-Up Experiment
The Dating Experiment
Four Day Fling
Best Served Cold
Tequila, Tequila
Catastrophe Queen
The Roommate Agreement
The Accidental Girlfriend
The Veg
as Nights series:
Sin
Lust
Stripped series:
Stripped Bare
Stripped Down
The Burke Brothers:
Dirty Secret
Dirty Past
Dirty Lies
Dirty Tricks
Dirty Little Rendezvous
The Holly Woods Files Mysteries:
Twisted Bond
Tangled Bond
Tethered Bond
Tied Bond
Twirled Bond
Burning Bond
Twined Bond
The Holly Woods Files Mysteries Boxset, 1-4
Tricky Bond (A Short Story)
By His Game series:
Blindsided
Sidelined
Intercepted
Call series:
Late Call
Final Call
His Call
Wild series:
Wild Attraction
Wild Temptation
Wild Addiction
Wild: The Complete Series
The Game series:
The Love Game
Playing for Keeps
The Right Moves
Worth the Risk
Memories series:
Never Forget
Always Remember
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
THE ACCIDENTAL GIRLFRIEND
CHAPTER ONE – LAUREN
CHAPTER TWO – LAUREN
CHAPTER THREE – MASON
CHAPTER FOUR – LAUREN
CHAPTER FIVE – MASON
CHAPTER SIX – LAUREN
CHAPTER SEVEN – MASON
CHAPTER EIGHT – LAUREN
CHAPTER NINE – LAUREN
CHAPTER TEN – MASON