by Avery Flynn
Yes! His cock answered. No! His brain countered. “Things’ll get messy.”
“Life’s messy.” She shrugged her shoulders. “That’s part of the fun.”
“Is everything just one big adventure for you?”
“It beats the alternative.”
“And what’s that?”
She screwed up her mouth, looking like she’d just swallowed rotten milk. “Living my life trapped in one place and eating apple pie every Sunday even though I hate it because the man I married loves it.”
Once again, when it came to Clover, he was at a total fucking loss. “I have no idea what to do with that.”
“You’re not supposed to.” She got up off the couch, looming over where he lay. “Think about my proposition. Six weeks of friendly banging. No one gets hurt. Anyway, it’ll be a more authentic lie then, too. A successful fake engagement is all about the details.” She leaned down and brushed her lips across his in a quick kiss. “Be ready to go at eight tomorrow morning.”
His brain was pudding. “Where?”
“The flea market where we’re going to get whatever I pick because you lost the bet.” She patted him on the cheek and winked. “Good night.”
From the couch, Sawyer watched her saunter away to her bedroom, hypnotized by the sway of her hips under that oversize T-shirt. A month and a half of touching and tasting her, taking her up against the wall or anywhere else they wanted. It was nuts. It was bad news. It had him aching and hard enough that a stiff breeze would make him come in his pants. The fact that he was even considering it was a bad sign for his sanity.
Who are you kidding, chump? You were in total agreement the moment she said out loud what you’d been thinking in your fucked-up head.
Who was it who said be careful what you wish for? A fucking genius, that’s who. He’d be damned lucky if he made it the whole night through without knocking on her door. The idea of just giving in was almost too tempting to resist.
Chapter Ten
The next morning, Clover was still cursing herself for not shaving during the past three days. She was into not being a slave to the industrial beauty complex as much as the next woman, but getting it on for the first time with Sawyer while her legs resembled a Carolina pine forest was not going to happen. She was all for adventure. What she wasn’t down for was giving Sawyer leg burn. So that meant she spent the night imagining her fake fiancé buck naked instead of actually getting to see the real thing, because nothing but stubbly legs was strong enough to pull her off his lap last night.
She had a good imagination, but she was beyond tired of using it, especially after feeling him pressed against her on the couch last night. Her heart thundered in her chest. Clover wanted the real thing.
Thanks to the insane shower—four, yes four, shower heads positioned above, behind, beside, and in front of her—she was smooth from her toes to her waist and lotioned up to a state of supreme softness. Catching her reflection in the mirror with her hair, wavy from the water, hanging past her bare shoulders, she jolted to a stop. With her eyelashes darkened by mascara and lightly lined in smoke-gray, she looked more than just a little bit like a younger version of her mother. It was enough to make her reach for the makeup remover in the medicine cabinet, but she stopped her hand halfway to its destination. Not for the first time, she wondered what her mother had been like before she’d gotten married, had kids, and settled into a life of small-town hell. There had been hints—throwaway comments about college trips to London, a summer spent road tripping, and the fact that just the word “Miami” made her mom turn six shades of red—that there was more to Laura Lee than hate-eating apple pie and pretending to be interested in the goings-on at the Moose Lodge.
“What happened to you, Mom?” she asked her reflection. “Whatever it was, it’s not going to happen to me.”
She swiped on a shade of red lip gloss her mother would never wear and strode into the bedroom to throw on her favorite pair of worn-in jeans, pink “Stomp the Patriarchy” tank top, light gray cardigan, and slip-on tennis shoes. She whipped her hair up into a ponytail, grabbed her cross-body bag from where she’d hung it on a hook behind the door, took in a reaffirming deep breath, and strode out into the living room where absolutely no one was waiting.
“Sawyer, you have contractural obligations to meet,” she called out.
No response.
She walked to the edge of the hallway leading to his rooms, a flock of butterflies high on meth zooming around her belly. After a quick glance down the still hall, she pulled her phone out of her back pocket and checked the time. Ten after eight…so right on time for her but there was nothing about Sawyer that even hinted at him being late by even a minute. She connected the dots in a heartbeat.
He was trying to welch.
Oh, that was so not going to happen.
Before she’d even made up her mind as to what to do about it, she was down the hall and turning the knob on Sawyer’s door. It swung inward without a sound and she stepped inside.
His office was abandoned. Not a note or pen or crumpled piece of paper lay on his desk’s clean surface. The morning sunlight streaming through the window walls and making the metal and glass desk sparkle was the only sign of life in the room.
Hiding, huh? Fine. She could be the finder in this little game.
Doing her best impression of a stealthy cat burglar, she tiptoed past the opaque glass brick half wall and into Sawyer’s sitting room. A love seat and two oversize chairs—all black, of course—sat facing the window wall. There wasn’t a single personal item in view, unless you counted the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, or The Singapore Times arranged on the—glass, of course—coffee table as personal. The rest of the room was as empty as a bar two hours after last call.
She glanced up at the final barrier. A second glass brick wall. Unlike the other, this one went all the way up to the high ceiling and all the way across the width of the room, a blocky opening in place of an actual door. It didn’t take three guesses to figure out what was beyond it. Sawyer’s bedroom.
There went the fizzy crackle pop in her belly again.
“You’re not getting out of this, Mr. Stuffikins, so get your butt out of bed.”
She held her breath, waiting for the rustling of sheets, which were probably black, or the telltale sound of bare feet hitting the floor. Neither ever came.
Okay, this was just ridiculous.
She marched through the double-door sized opening and stopped dead in her tracks. A massive bed, big enough for an orgy, dominated the space. The sheets—red, smooth and tangled—were rumpled but tossed to the side revealing…an empty bed. No matter how long she stared—and imagined—Sawyer wasn’t there.
The big chicken must have run out while she was in the shower.
Maybe it was the word shower that drew her attention. Maybe it was a sound she’d only heard subconsciously. Whatever it was, she turned to the left and started walking toward the one real door in the entire room. It wasn’t closed. It stood half open. So it wasn’t like she was exactly spying when she peeked through the opening.
“Mierda,” she said, the exclamation a soft sigh of longing.
She really should have shaved her legs yesterday morning.
Sawyer stood in a replica of the shower she’d used earlier. Water from the four nozzles rained over his muscular form and splashed onto the glass shower wall as he stood under the spray with his back to her. Clover’s imagination hadn’t done the man justice. Not even close. He was all tightly bundled muscles, from his thick forearms to the hard curve of his thighs to his high, round ass that could get him a ton of work in gay porn calendars. Seriously.
“Saya boleh mati gembira,” she groaned under her breath. Of course, if the fates were kind—or women—she wouldn’t be dying happy until she got to touch her fill.
It wasn’t just the past six months of her battery-operated boyfriend that had her this tuned up for actual physical touch, it was Sawyer. Temptation didn’
t even begin to cover it.
He started to turn. Clover had just enough brain power left to dash back so her body was hidden behind the doorframe.
“Fuck, Clover,” Sawyer groaned. “That’s it. Just like that.”
Heat burned her cheeks.
“Yeah, take it all the way.”
Oh God. He wasn’t.
Sawyer let out a lusty groan.
Oh. My. God. He was.
She needed to walk away. Right the fuck now. Her feet didn’t move, but her waist did—it had to be some kind of body possession event—and she twisted until she could get a look inside the bathroom. She drank in the profile view of him. He had one palm planted against the wall and the other hand stroking his hard cock. She knew personally that his hands were big, but they managed to look a little on the small side as he glided it up and down his shaft.
It was wrong to watch, but Clover couldn’t tear her gaze away. The way his body tightened with each flick of his wrist excited her, turned her on, and teased every one of her senses. He was close. The fingers on his hand pressed to the shower wall curled as if he could claw his way through the tile. His other hand was a blur of motion. His spine snapped straight.
“Fuck, Clover,” he ground out the words as he came hard against the shower wall.
She couldn’t breathe. That was—without a doubt—the hottest thing she’d ever seen.
“You know, Clover,” Sawyer said as he stepped under the overhead shower spray and let the water run down his chest. “A real fiancée would have joined me instead of just lurking in the doorway and watching.”
Embarrassed and surprised, she spun around and jerked back hard enough that she hit the back of her head against the wall. Yay. Maybe that would knock some sense into her.
“Pervert,” she muttered to herself, accepting the pronouncement as being completely true about herself at the moment…and really anytime she was around him.
Even from the relative safety of the other side of the bathroom wall where she couldn’t see his wet, naked body, the man turned her self-control to lime Jell-O and her body into a hot, horny bundle of nerves and needs. She was pathetic.
What else was she not? Engaged.
“I’m not a real fiancée,” she said with all the dignity she could muster at the moment.
“What about your declaration last night to just have a little fun?”
“I’m not sure that’s such a great idea.” No, she was sure it was not a good idea.
Sawyer made her lose her bearings. If she wasn’t careful, she’d wake up and find herself eating apple pie just because it was his favorite and then their time would be up and she’d be brokenheartedly eating apple pie alone in Australia.
“Really? I remember someone telling me not that long ago that letting things get messy was half the fun,” he said, throwing her own words back at her as he turned the shower off. “I’ll be ready in ten.”
An image of his hand stroking himself flashed in her mind. Her core clenched and she forced herself to look at his mess of a bed instead of turning and looking back inside the bathroom. “That fast?”
There were a few beats of silence before Sawyer said with a knowing laugh in his voice, “Unless you’ve changed your mind about going to the flea market.”
Her blood must have been rushing too loudly in her ears because she hadn’t heard the shower door open. It was as if Sawyer had just suddenly appeared in the bathroom doorway, water droplets clinging to his shoulders and a black towel slung low across his hips.
Now that she knew exactly what was under that towel, she’d have thought it wouldn’t be a big deal to see him like that. But it was. Oh God, it was.
She locked her focus back on his bed. Bad idea! She dropped her gaze to the floor. “You’re just trying to get out of going.”
“I just need to get dressed, and then I’ll be all ready.” He hooked a finger under her chin and tilted her face up so she couldn’t help but take in his handsome face and cocky grin. “Unless you want me to stay like this.”
Yes! Her body cried. Clover managed to block out that bad advice. “Bailing you out of jail for indecent exposure at the flea market is not my idea of a fun Saturday.”
“Then I can’t wait to see what is.” His hand dropped to the towel, his thumb toying with where he’d tucked one end in to hold it secure. “Now you’d better run along unless you want another show…”
His question hung in the air between them as Clover’s whole body went up in flames. Metaphorically, of course—which was a shame. She could do with a little fire and brimstone to get her head back in the game.
“I’ll wait for you in the living room.” The words came out in a rush as she hurried toward the opening in the glass brick wall before her baser instincts drowned out her better sense.
Who was chickening out now, Clover asked herself as Sawyer’s testosterone-infused chuckle chased her out of his bedroom. She mentally clucked her answer as she hustled out to the living room to practice her deep breathing technique until Sawyer came out, hopefully dressed in a full-body snowsuit complete with ski mask.
…
The flea market in an up-and-coming Harbor City neighborhood was just as bad as he expected. Loads of crap—some of it dinged up on purpose—and bad artwork being hawked by people wearing ironic T-shirts and bored expressions.
“You aren’t even giving it a chance.” Clover slipped her hand into his and tugged him down yet another narrow aisle crowded with stalls of bric-a-brac. “You have to really look at a piece and imagine what it could be.”
Imagination wasn’t something he had trouble with. He was still imagining her naked and pressed up against the tile wall of his shower with her legs spread and her body soft and wet. It’s exactly what he’d been thinking about this morning when he spotted her out of the corner of his eye as he was washing his hair. She’d been so distracted? enthralled? horny? that she hadn’t even realized he’d known she was there. He’d just meant to give her a shock, he hadn’t meant for it to go all the way, but when it came to Clover he seemed to lose all control—and sense.
Just as his dick was starting to get really into it again, Sawyer’s fake fiancée jerked to a stop. “Like this.” She gestured toward a rusty metal cart that looked like the last good day it had seen was at least five decades ago. “This is perfect. It could be a bar cart or an entry table or a breakfast trolley.”
He ran his thumb across one of the handles and white paint crumbled into dust. “Or in the landfill.”
Sawyer started forward, but Clover pulled her hand from his and didn’t move an inch. She stood beside the cart, her hands planted on her round hips and a challenging fire burning in her brown eyes.
“Oh really?” Clover got a look on her face that anyone with half a brain would know meant trouble. Her full mouth, a cherry red today, curled into a predatory smile that seemed both out of place and a perfect fit for her pixie face. “You don’t think this can be brought back and remade into something fabulous?”
He barely glanced back at the cart. Some things were better forgotten about—especially when the woman in front of him was so much better to look at. Anyway, he didn’t need to look again in order to give his answer.
“No.”
“I pick it,” she practically sang out.
“What are you talking about?”
“You lost last night. Remember?”
The only thing he recalled from last night was how damn good she’d felt underneath him. “No.”
“The show,” she said, pacing her words as if he was drunk. “I picked the winner. Now you have to get the cart. We’re going to refinish it together, just like a good little fake couple should.”
Crossing back to the rickety cart, he lifted the paper price tag tied with a ribbon around the push handle. “A hundred bucks?”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little negotiation. Just because I’ve kicked your ass in that arena several times already doesn’t mean you can’t be…
competent.”
Competent? She was goading him, he knew that, but not rising to the bait wasn’t possible. He was a man, a Carlyle. Being competent wasn’t an option.
Almost quicker than the impulse hit, he encircled her wrist and whirled her close so that her tight body pressed against his. Desire went from spark to flame as his entire body went hard in anticipation. Oh it wouldn’t happen here, maybe not even today or tomorrow, but this was happening, and judging by the way Clover’s eyes went all hazy and her lips parted, she knew it, too.
“Gotta say, no woman has ever called me competent before.”
“Needs improvement, huh?” she asked, but her low and breathy voice outed just how turned on she was.
“Oh Clover, you know better than that.” Loosening his hold, he slid his fingers down so they intertwined with hers and began walking into the stall to find the joker who thought he could get a hundred dollars for that pile of junk. “Let’s go see just how competent I really am.”
Twenty minutes and sixty-five dollars later he was the proud owner of a broken down medical utility cart from the 50s. He couldn’t be less thrilled. Clover, on the other hand, was practically skipping as they made their way back to Linus and the Town Car in the parking lot.
“I’m thinking red. A bright crimson like your…” Her cheeks turned pink and she let the sentence trail off.
She tried to pull her hand away from his, but he wasn’t having it. There was something about touching her—even just holding hands—that settled him, pulled him down to the here and now.
“Like my sheets?” he asked as he carried the cart. “My bed made an impression, huh? Or was it what you’d like to do to me in that bed that has you all hot and bothered?”
The pulse point at the base of her long neck did double time. “I’m not hot and bothered.”
He lowered his voice to a growly whisper. “Wet and soft?” Her breath caught, but he kept going. “Slick and ready?” He pulled her to a stop, put the rusty cart down, and pivoted so he stood directly in front of her. “Desperate not to be a voyeur next time?”