Not That Kind of Guy

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  Hannah leaned over the table and met Chris’s gaze. Somehow, he got even paler. “You’d better not.” And then she added, “Now, leave. I want to finish my beer in peace.”

  Chris looked for a moment as though he was about to say something about this being his family’s bar but thought better of it and walked out with a wave to the bartender. “Comp their drinks, please.”

  Hannah looked at Jack, smiling as though she hadn’t just made a grown man nearly piss his pants in fear. She raised her glass. “Cheers.”

  Jack smiled back at her. “You’re really something, you know that?”

  She shrugged at him and threw in a fake pout. “What? How am I supposed to stay sharp given that you only let me punish you every other Thursday?”

  “Fair point, Duchess.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  BRIDGET WAS IRRITATED. SHE’D never hauled Chris around to run errands, and she didn’t know why Matt insisted on coming along. Didn’t having a wife mean that he didn’t have to run his own errands anymore? He’d muttered something about fitting into her schedule, so it was probably a sex thing. She needed to get fitted for her bridesmaid’s dress, pick out a gift, and grab her groceries. He was just making everything take longer. “I don’t know why you need to be here for this.”

  His face was fake innocent, faux-nocent. “I’m in the wedding now, and I should help pick out the gift.”

  Bridget rolled her eyes and walked away through the crowds at the Michigan Avenue Bloomingdale’s. “They have a registry. It’s not that hard. I pick the thing that I can afford that makes me look the least cheap.” Given how many of her friends were getting married, and how big her student loans were, she had to think about that.

  “I didn’t take Hannah for a girl with a registry,” Matt said as he picked up a vase that probably cost more than a month’s rent.

  She loved but kind of hated how perceptive he was. She liked that he had an idea of what Hannah was like after spending not that much time with her. But it also meant that she had to keep her guard up lest she mess up and really opened up to Matt—she was just afraid that she would do something terribly stupid like falling in love with her husband. “The woman is pretty nontraditional in most things, but her lust for kitchen appliances can’t be denied.”

  “I bet she also liked running around with the little scanner guns they give you.”

  Bridget giggled, and it surprised her. She laughed fairly easily, but giggling really wasn’t her thing. She had to keep a lid on how easy it was to be around Matt. “She really did. It was a little bit frightening.”

  “I like your family,” he said apropos of nothing. “They’re really good people.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say about that. She’d made assumptions about his family when she’d first met him. And maybe those assumptions were accurate, but Matt turned out to be a decent guy despite his family. They weren’t married for real, and it wasn’t any of her business why his eyebrow furrow made him look like he was doing a point-by-point comparison of their families.

  “What’s your family like?”

  Curiosity killed the cat, and it would probably murder her pledge to keep Matt away from her pussy. But she couldn’t help wanting to know more about him. The more she knew, the more she liked, and the more she wanted.

  “They’re pretty normal, despite the abnormal circumstances,” he said. He picked up a wineglass as though he wished it was full. “I mean, I went to boarding school. I had nannies—my parents were really too busy to be too involved. But when they’re there, they’re there.

  “And there are expectations. My dad’s mom’s family has been here since before America was a country. His dad survived the war in Japan and moved here thinking he’d married a pretty Red Cross nurse only to realize that he’d married this Boston Brahmin princess.”

  “That sounds like a lot.” It sounded kind of like what she was going through with Matt. Only, she’d known who he was and hadn’t consciously decided to get married. “And your mom? She runs a hedge fund, right?”

  “She’s actually much more chill than I made her sound.” Matt gave her a grimace. “I’m just her only baby, so she’s really overinvolved in my life choices.”

  “I get that.” She didn’t, not given the fact that her mother had been conspicuously uninvolved in her life. But she wanted him to keep talking. Maybe it was the rush of shoppers around them, the fact that they weren’t alone, but the sexual tension was thus lessened—at least for her.

  “She used to be in a punk band. At Stanford.” He laughed, probably remembering a picture of his mom in ripped jeans and a shag haircut. You know, his mom having an age-appropriate moment of rebellion. As opposed to up and leaving after she’d had three kids.

  “That sounds cool.”

  “It was. Made my grandmother so worried.” Matt startled her by grabbing her hand and leaning over to whisper in her ear. “Always so concerned about what people would think.”

  “I mean, your grandfather was a senator.” She tried to focus on the original topic of their conversation and not the fact that he was touching her or the fact that he didn’t show any signs of stopping.

  “Yeah, but he was a war hero. Everyone loved him, even his staff.”

  “Is that how you know the Chapins?” Maybe it would be useful to remind him that he was staying publically married to her to get his ex off his back. His ex who was also related to American royalty. Even if they were tarnished, they were still in the same social sphere. What was between Bridget and Matt wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real.

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about Naomi or her corrupt fucking uncle.” He tugged on her arm and stopped them both in the flow of people.

  Time stood still in a crowded department store. She should tug her hand loose and get on with it. But she didn’t want to. It was ten on a Saturday morning, and she wanted to do Saturday night things to Matt Kido in the middle of the same Bloomingdale’s she’d bought her first training bra from. All she managed was a not-nearly-indignant-enough, “What are you doing? We’re getting in the way.”

  He just smirked at her. “I found it.”

  “Found what?” All of her weaknesses, the way to get her all horned up while running errands, or something useful?

  “The present.” He pointed over at the KitchenAid mixer that Hannah coveted more than anything.

  “I can’t afford that,” Bridget said. Not without eating ramen for a month. “You know how much I make.”

  “Relax, I got it.”

  But that didn’t feel right. She was a bridesmaid, and it was her gift. They were only pretending to be married, and neither of them could afford to forget that. “I can’t let you do this.”

  He said nothing, just continued to block traffic in the busy store.

  “Seriously, it’s way too much,” she protested.

  That’s when it must have dawned on him why she was refusing. “We’re still married. Technically, it’s your money for another couple of weeks.”

  “But I don’t want you to think I’m with you because of that—”

  “No, of course not. You’re in it for the sex. The scheduled sex.”

  She shushed him and then let him buy the mixer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  MATT’S SATURDAY HANGOUT WITH Bridget was going beautifully. He had her all to himself, and he was going to get to see the finished bridesmaid’s dress. It was really the perfect date, and he didn’t know why more people didn’t run errands together as a way of getting to know each other.

  First of all, there was none of the awkward eye contact required during a dinner date. Second, there wasn’t the constant, distracting possibility of sex that went along with a more relaxed at-home dinner. While shopping, they could chitchat about everything and nothing. And Bridget’s guard was down.

  Once he’d convinced her to let hi
m pay for all but a hundred dollars’ worth of the mixer—since the gift would be from both of them—they’d moved on to tuxes. He had one, but he decided he needed a new one for the wedding because he liked the idea of Bridget picking out his clothes for him. It seemed like the kind of domestic thing she would do if she was really his wife.

  He didn’t even mind her watching as the tailor in his favorite bespoke suit shop was touching him in his bathing suit areas. He wanted that from Bridget, too. But that was far from all he wanted from her.

  That should have been his first clue that he wasn’t just in like or lust with her, that he was in real danger of falling in the kind of love with her that hurt when it ended. He wanted to spend as much non-naked time with her as he wanted to spend naked time.

  He wanted more with her. And they’d definitely rushed into marriage, but that didn’t feel as bad as it would have with Naomi. He was absolutely certain that Bridget would only be with him because she loved him. If they could step things back to dating, maybe he could convince her that this fling shouldn’t be a fling. Maybe it should be a full-fledged relationship.

  Even though he’d admired her tenacity while working under her, he wished she would give it a rest while he was working to get under her—and over her and to the side.

  He was gratified by the fact that he’d caught her staring at him while his shirt was off. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t want her to stop staring.

  Still, she blushed when their gazes met. “What?”

  He raised a brow at her and buttoned the cotton and silk shirt that went with the tux he was supposed to wear for the wedding. He interpreted the fact that she went back to looking at her phone to mean that she was disappointed at no longer being able to ogle his chest. He lived ever in hope with Bridget.

  “How much longer is this going to take?” And just as she gave hope, she took it away.

  “It’s a Saturday.” He shrugged as the tailor put a few more pins at the hem of his pants and he perused cuff links. “We have all day. Relax.”

  Bridget stood up and walked toward him as he realized his mistake. “Really? You think it’s a good idea to tell me to relax?”

  “I’m sorry.” He tried his best to look contrite, though he liked seeing Bridget get a little agitated and irritated. It was like playing with matches as a kid—dangerous but thrilling. “I know I can’t have those kinds of benefits—since it’s not on the schedule—but I figured I’d milk our marriage for the kind of benefits that get me more time with you.”

  Just like that, all the anger disappeared from her expression. Her shoulders dropped. She seemed soft and young and he’d never wanted to kiss her more. “You want to spend time with me outside of the schedule?”

  The extremely discreet tailor moved away without a word.

  “Of course,” he said as he leaned down to brush his lips across her cheek. “We’re friends.”

  “Good friends,” she said, sounding dazed. He hoped her cheeks were burning because of the little bit of contact that she’d allowed. He wanted them blazing and flushed from a lot more contact than that. But he’d settle for this.

  “The best.” Before she could respond to that, he said, “Let’s go get your dress fitted.”

  * * *

  • • •

  MATT WAS DEFINITELY GOING to send Hannah a fruit basket or a subscription to a wine-of-the-month club in addition to the commercial-grade mixer. Any woman who picked out a bridesmaid’s dress that made Bridget look like an actual Celtic goddess rising from a lake to lead men to their dooms deserved much more than a simple kitchen appliance.

  Not to mention the fact that, if he squinted, he could see Bridget’s nipples.

  “Thoughts?” She swished the skirt around her legs playfully, and he grew inexorably, painfully hard. If there wasn’t an entire bridal party oohing and aahing over their newly engaged friend on the other side of the salon, Matt would be seriously thinking of begging Bridget to let him have her over the back of the couch he currently occupied.

  She was gorgeous. The lilac-colored fabric kissed her figure and made her pale skin actually glow. Instead of saying that, or anything that would make her realize that he was more than halfway in love with her, he said, “Nice dress.”

  She squinted at him as she approached. “Nice dress?” He hoped she wouldn’t look down at his lap and realize what a filthy, perverted liar he was. He was spared when she grabbed his glass of champagne.

  “You look strange.” She squinted at him, and he shifted on the couch. “Do you really like it?” she asked before tipping up his glass and emptying it. And then the little minx winked at him as she handed it back. “They’re definitely going to have to do something about the nipple situation.”

  Matt coughed to cover up his reaction when she pointed out the “nipple situation.”

  Perhaps she’d been doing this on purpose the whole time, teasing him and enchanting him like a witch, because she smiled then. “You need to stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?” He’d really tried to look at her like a friend would look at his knockout of a friend and former colleague whom he happened to be married to.

  “You need to stop looking at me like you are enjoying looking at me too much.”

  Impossible. “I’m trying.”

  She walked back toward the dressing room and said, “Try harder.”

  His trying wasn’t the only thing that was going to get harder before the end of their sham marriage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THIS IS NOT PART of the deal,” Bridget said as Matt walked into her apartment that night. “I don’t need your help babysitting a dog.”

  Her irritation at having him tag along for her shopping trip had faded. He seemed so intent on foiling her plans of being the perfect wife. His determination to spend all this low-key time with her—flirting and teasing—felt easier than trying to impress him and keep him at a safe distance. He was so charming and easy to be with. It felt utterly unlike her relationship with Chris. So much trying happened there.

  She almost felt like she could do marriage with Matt, and she should be really afraid of it. He was going to leave her bereft in a way that Chris hadn’t, because Matt actually made her feel less lonely rather than more. He made her feel more wanted than tolerated.

  And the little shit he did to show her that he cared broke down her resistance to just being in the moment and enjoying hanging out with him. She should really hate it, but she didn’t.

  After he’d chipped in for the mixer, allowed her to ogle him without comment, and given her ego quite a boost at the bridal store, she’d been a little sad at thinking about him leaving her alone that evening.

  But then Jack had texted and asked her if she would watch their dog, Gus, for the night. Apparently, wedding planning for her own wedding was more stressful for Hannah than planning other people’s weddings—especially given that her own mother was very much against the entire institution. Jack had decided that they needed to have a pre-wedding honeymoon in addition to their post-wedding honeymoon. Hannah just called it was what it was—a dirty hotel-fuck weekend.

  Although Bridget didn’t need to know the details about her brother’s dirty weekends, she was happy that he was having them.

  Really, she was happy that he was happy. The pangs she’d experienced when Hannah and Jack had first gotten engaged had pretty much disappeared. And she wasn’t going to think about how that might be connected to the man currently getting sloppy kisses of greeting from her brother’s French bulldog.

  “Be careful, he—” Bridget winced as Gus started humping Matt’s arm. That probably wasn’t the sort of humping that he’d been hoping for when he came back here with her. But Gus was really covering a lot of ground with this interlude.

  When Matt figured out what was happening, she realized that she probably let it go on for l
onger than it should. “Um, is he humping me?”

  She was having trouble suppressing her laughter. Should definitely not be laughing at this. If the dog was a person, she would have enough to indict him. “I prefer to think of it as an enthusiastic hug.”

  For a moment, she thought Matt was going to get mad. Had he done that, she might as well have kicked him out of her apartment like she had Chris. But he didn’t.

  He struggled up to standing—which was harder than it would seem given Gus’s size—and started laughing. “I probably shouldn’t give him a treat for that.” He pointed at the dog, who sat on the floor, smiling up at his new boyfriend. “And he should definitely buy me dinner now.”

  At the mention of dinner, her stomach growled. Shopping was hungry work, especially when one spent a significant amount of energy pretending not to want to rip one’s husband’s clothes off. “You can stay for dinner.”

  For a few split seconds, she thought about cooking for Matt, how nice it would be to have a cozy meal at home with a man in her space again. She thought about how easy it would be to pretend that this was all real and they were going to give it a go as a married couple.

  If their accidental marriage was intentional, the thought wouldn’t have taken her breath away. And it wasn’t even the image of her bustling around the small kitchen while Matt sat at her island with a glass of wine and watched her ass as she bent to get pans out of cabinets. It was the idea of how easy it would be, and how much she wanted it.

  She’d always thought she wanted it with Chris, but she’d been lying to herself. With him, she’d been performing the role of the perfect girlfriend. With Matt, she wanted to actually be perfect. She wanted to be about a hundred times less stubborn.

  Everything about him called her to soften into him. And it wasn’t because he was any less of a guy-guy than Chris. The way he went back in to roughhouse with Gus, having found one of his rope toys, was all guy. The way he opened doors and held bags and rushed in to rescue her with the one-percenter-style trip to Vegas was chivalrous in the extreme. And she didn’t want to like it.