Second Chance Bride: A Fake Fiancee Romance

by Samantha West

  I almost had her once, a long time ago.

  Almost. And that makes it like I never had her, and like she was all mine and I’ll never get over her, all at the same damn time.

  “I’m glad I happened to get thirsty at the exact moment you happened to walk past my door,” she says, taking a sip of her drink, her long black eyelashes resting on her cheeks as her eyes peer down.

  “You look good,” I say, “you look really good, Cassie.”

  She crosses her leg toward me under the bar, her smooth, long, shapely legs contorting in the small space between us. She was in her bathrobe just a few minutes ago, and now she’s wearing a tight little black dress with a square neckline, showing off her damn perfect neck, teasing me with the slightest hint of cleavage.

  “Please,” she says, smirking up at me as she plays with the edge of her cocktail napkin, “you have to say that. It’s my job to look good. If you didn’t think I looked good, I wouldn’t be a very good beauty queen, now would I?”

  “So it’s all for the audience?” I ask, taking a sip of my beer. I feel giddy being near her, and I allow the alcohol to calm my nerves a bit. It’s not doing much in the way of making me calm down, but it helps a little. She rolls her eyes and takes another sip of her martini, tugging at the end of her dress, her fingers slipping under the hem, making me wish it was my fingers on her thighs instead. “No, I’m serious. Is it all for the audience, or is it for your own personal inner growth, or some shit?”

  “Well,” she replies, raising an eyebrow and her glass to match it, “you don’t have to have a camera on you to achieve inner growth, so you tell me.”

  “Is that going to fly when it comes to your interview?” I ask with a chuckle, referring of course to the mini Q&A the girls will undergo when they’re up on stage.

  “Um, no, definitely not.”

  I hold my fist in front of me like I’m gripping an imaginary microphone.

  “Tell the world, Cassandra Blake, what makes you deserving of the crown?”

  Cassie draws her lips up into a little smirk and sits up straight in her seat, shoulders back, chest up, and speaks into the imaginary microphone between us.

  “Well,” she says, the smirk dissolving into a brilliant smile, “that is a great question. There are so many wonderful girls here. Young women, strong, smart ladies with ambitions and good heads on their shoulders. Each one is deserving in her own way. I’m just happy to be here.”

  I shake my head and bring the fake mic back to my lips.

  “Very diplomatic, but you didn’t answer the question,” I say, “the question was why you deserve the crown. Not why any of these other women deserves it. You.”

  I don’t know what answer I’m looking for. I don’t really have one in mind for her. I personally couldn’t give two shits whether she wins the contest or not. The only thing I care about is her happiness. So if winning will make her happy, then I want it for her for that reason alone. What’s the intrinsic value of her being here? Damned if I know. Damned if I care.

  “Off the record?” she whispers between us, her eyes trailing up from my lips to my eyes, “I’m no more deserving than anyone else here. We’ve all paid our dues, made our appearances. We’ve all shown up. That’s all this is. Showing up.”

  “That can’t be true,” I say, “at the very least, you deserve it because you’re the most beautiful of any of them.”

  I swallow hard when I realize what I’ve said.

  I don’t know if she remembers, but I’m brought right back to the small kitchen table in her parents’ house the afternoon of her senior prom. I am brought right back to that hot, late spring day with little Cassie’s hair all done up in big curlers and that homemade gunk she was soaking her hands in. I’m brought right back to the slamming of the screen door behind me after I told her I knew she’d look beautiful in her dress. And I’m brought right back to the fucking ache in my chest when I allowed myself to walk out the door without looking back to see her face.

  “You’re just saying that,” she teases me in a sing-song voice.

  “No, Cassie, I’m not just saying that.”

  She appears flustered and takes a sip of her martini, averting her eyes from me. I know the effect I have on women, but it’s never been as goddamn infuriating as it is with her. As it’s always been with her. Because I know she looks at me the same damn way they all do, and she’s the only one I want.

  But this fucking game she plays - “you’re just saying that” - I don’t know if I can stand for it any longer.

  I can’t.

  “I wasn’t just saying that,” I say with more force this time.

  Her eyes travel slowly up my body until she finally meets my gaze, and she looks at me with this stone-cold-bitch expression, one I know she’s good at, one I’ve witnessed her using on guys at parties when we were younger.

  Is it possible that I was reading her wrong all these fucking years? Was I reading her wrong when I saw that hint of desire when I told her she’d look beautiful for some other guy on her prom night?

  When I almost made her mine, and then some shit got in the way?

  “You weren’t?” she asks. She softens a little under my gaze, her lips parting slightly. I suddenly feel intoxicated by her.

  “No,” I say, “and I’m tired of you asking. You want me to prove it?”

  “Off the record?” she asks. My cock is steel-hard from the look in her eye, the look that is screaming for me to kiss her, the look that is screaming for me to claim her. I can feel it.

  I slip my hand behind her head slowly, getting closer to her, breathing her in.

  And as I’m about to crush my lips to hers, finally taste her and take her with a long-overdue kiss, I hear someone clear their throat behind me. I feel my chest tense up as Cassie breaks her eyes away from me and looks over my shoulder, sitting up straight again and smiling at the person behind me.

  “Hey!” Cassie says, slipping out of her chair and walking around me quickly. She gives a big, if somewhat distant, hug to the woman standing behind me.

  Little black suit, sharp and crisp with clean lines. Big, oversized purse. She looks like she’s got a stick up her ass. She doesn’t even look at me.

  “I knew you were in town,” she says, putting her hand on Cassie’s shoulder. “I was hoping I could get a few quotes from you about the pageant.”

  This fucking woman is a reporter and she’s interrupting something way more fucking important than any stupid juicy tidbits Cassie could give her about the contest.

  “Oh,” Cassie says to her, deflating a little, “can we set something up for tomorrow? Maybe we could meet in the lobby around eleven thirty?”

  “Sure,” the woman says, pursing her lips and nodding. She looks over at me furtively. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Cassie says, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I am so rude. Cynthia, this is Jason. He’s an old family friend of mine.”

  I turn around in my seat and stick my hand out to shake Cynthia’s. She looks me up and down and gives me what I take as a silent nod of approval.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say.

  “He’s here working the pageant,” Cassie adds, “he’s a security guard.”

  “Nice to meet you too,” Cynthia says, narrowing her eyes at me slightly. She looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place her. She has that stuck-up reporter vibe, and I suck my teeth inadvertently, wishing she would hurry the fuck up and get the hell out of here.

  “So I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” Cassie says, taking her hand off my back. She gives Cynthia a quick hug again before the reporter nods and smiles, disappearing around the corner of the bar as she walks away.

  “I am so sorry about that,” Cassie says, slipping back into her seat next to me. I grab her hips and guide them, helping her get comfortable.

  I know the moment between us has passed, but it’s not gone.

  “Would you like to have another dr
ink with me in my room?” I ask, putting my hand on her knee.

  She gasps lightly, and her eyes grow wide, a pink flush washing over her face and neck. She chews her bottom lip lightly.

  “Another drink?”

  “Yeah,” I reply, my heart pounding in my chest, “another drink.”

  4

  Cassie

  I’m having a drink with Jason Anderson!

  I’m having a second drink with Jason Anderson!

  I’m going to Jason Anderson’s room!

  “You haven’t had a real boyfriend yet, have you?” Jason asks as he settles up our bill. “The last I spoke to Mark, he said you were bouncing around from guy to guy and never settled down.”

  “He would say something like that,” I say, finishing my drink. This thing is strong. “I wouldn’t say that I bounce around from guy to guy, but he’s right, I definitely haven’t had a serious boyfriend yet.”

  “Why do you think that is?” Jason says, putting his lips on the edge of his glass. His lips are so damn sexy, and I shouldn’t be wet just from a few small touches, but I am. I can feel myself already soaking through my panties. It’s like my body is so fucking eager for something to happen.

  God, I don’t know what the hell I’m getting into. I’ve always thought of Jason as dangerous, and now that he’s looked at me the way I’ve craved for so long - the way I’ve thought about and fantasized about for so long! - I know the meaning of dangerously sexy.

  Jason Anderson makes my panties wet without even kissing me. That’s dangerously sexy.

  Jason Anderson takes my breath away with just one look. That’s dangerously sexy.

  “Why do I think what, exactly?” I reply, tracing my finger along the edge of my martini glass. “Why do I think Mark told you I bounce around from guy to guy, or why do I think I bounce around from guy to guy?”

  “How about you answer both?”

  “Let’s see. I don’t know why he told you that. That was kind of rude of him,” I say with a smirk.

  “That’s your brother being overprotective. He doesn’t want me to think I have a chance with you. You’ve got too many guys fighting over you. I can’t compete with that.”

  “Now why would he want that?” I ask.

  “Please Cassie, you know he doesn’t want me near you. It’s simple. You’ve got to know that.”

  “Huh?” I ask, feeling my eyebrows knit together slightly.

  “He doesn’t want me to corrupt you, or some shit.”

  “But if I’m bouncing around from guy to guy, aren’t I already corrupted?”

  “Nah,” he replies, “I know you’re not screwing all of those guys. That’s not you. You have to really know someone to have sex with them.”

  I feel my belly flip over and fill with giddy, furiously-flapping butterflies.

  “How do you know that?” I say. Oh god, I want to know what the hell he’s thinking. I need to know what he’s thinking.

  “The more interesting question is why you haven’t settled down yet,” Jason says.

  “It’s because…” I start, but I don’t know how to answer.

  I guess I’ve never thought about it much before. I am only twenty-three, after all, and I was in school for a while. I have definitely dated a lot of guys, Jason is correct about that, but he’s also right in saying I haven’t slept with many of them at all. Only two, actually, which I think is relatively few.

  It’s not like I was saving myself for Jason. How would that even work? Saving myself for what, exactly? For me to get married to, and have a million babies with, the older boy I hopelessly crushed on in high school?

  Jason looks at me expectantly, his eyes wide but a little sleepy looking, like he just wants to jump into bed, his teeth digging down gently into his lower lip, mouth parted, delectably kissable.

  “It’s because love is stupid,” I say, meeting his eyes. It comes out before I know what I’m saying. I don’t really mean it. It just feels like the right thing to say in the moment.

  “You really think that?” he says, coming closer to me. “Prove it. Prove you think love is stupid.”

  “How?” I breathe, inhaling his intoxicating scent. He is getting to my head. He is getting inside me.

  “Any way you want.”

  Jason Anderson does what I’ve thought about for five years, and he puts all of my fantasies to damn shame. He puts his hands on my hips, pulling me closer to him, scooting my butt to the edge of my seat, takes my body in with a scan of his eyes from my lips to my knees, and I feel his chest move with a low rumble when he spreads his knees apart on either side of mine.

  His hands move from my hips up my back and he leans in, but I have to stop him.

  I can’t believe this is happening, but I have to push him away.

  “Not here,” I sigh, “not yet.”

  I must be dreaming. This can’t be real.

  5

  Jason

  I don’t even flip the light on as we tumble into my hotel room.

  Before the door closes behind us, her back is up against the wall, legs wrapped up around my waist, and I’m pinning her arms up over her head, kissing her like I’m trying to prove a fucking point.

  I let go of her hands, and her arms slide down the wall next to her until her hands are on my neck again. I’m desperately trying to get out of my t-shirt without letting her slip down the wall.

  “I’ve wanted this too fucking long to wait anymore,” I groan, feeling her moan loudly into my mouth as I put her down to slide her dress over her head quickly. “I can’t wait to feel your pussy around my cock.”

  I watch her as her eyes fly open. I don’t know if she’s ever been talked to like this, but I don’t care at all. All I care about is making her really fucking wet and really ready for me.

  I grab her again, putting my hands on her hips and spinning her around to push her down on the bed. Her fingers go to my pants and she starts fumbling in the dark at my belt, and I can feel her breathing hard. I can hear her panting.

  “No,” I say, slapping her hands away gently. I climb on top of her and spread her knees apart, slipping my hand down inside her panties. I groan hard when I touch her pussy. She is softer and wetter than I ever imagined.

  I pull my hand away from her wet pussy and suck my fingers into my mouth, tasting her on them. She is really ready to go, and I can’t believe I am about to do this. I can’t believe I’m about to fuck the girl I’ve wanted for so long. But yeah, on the other hand, I can believe it. I’ve waited long enough to make her mine.

  Cassie leans up on her elbows and takes me in.

  “Jason, are you sure we should be doing this?” she asks sweetly. “I mean, don’t you think it’s a little weird?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t think it’s weird. Because we’re friends? Fuck that.”

  “Well, it’s also because...well, like you said before, does Mark want this?”

  “Fuck what Mark wants,” I say, taking my belt off quickly, the leather snapping in the air as I throw it on the floor. “What do you want?”

  Her eyes scan down my big, muscular chest, sculpted from years of working on the road, and when she gets to the front of my boxers, she smiles and bites her bottom lip.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I say. “Your fucking soaked pussy says you want this.”

  We lunge toward each other and start tearing off what’s remaining of each other’s clothing - my jeans come off first, then her bra as I take big fistfuls of her tits in my hands, running my fingers over the hard pebbled flesh of her nipples, sucking them into my mouth and flicking them hard with my tongue, making her moan and scream. When she can’t take anymore of that, she pulls away from me and yanks my shorts down, making my big cock, glistening with precum, bounce up at her.

  “Oh my god,” she moans, taking it in her hand, fisting her fingers around it and running her hand up and down the big, full length.

  “Lick it, baby,” I say, putting my hands on the back of her head, m
aneuvering so I’m standing on the floor with her perched on the edge of the bed. “Put that big thing in your mouth.”

  I almost can’t believe this is happening, but it feels inevitable at the same time. All the lovey-dovey shit I wanted to tell her back when we were at the bar minutes ago flies out the fucking window along with any sense that what we’re about to do is wrong the minute I look down into her eyes and see the glimmer in them when she looks down at my cock.

  We’re doing this. This is going down.

  I’ve wanted this for so long. It’s fucked up, because I’ve always been pretty fucking good at getting what I want. I have the career I want, the home I want, which pretty much means being on the road most of the time and seeing the inside of hotel rooms for most of the year, and I like it like that because I get bored staying in one place for too long - but her? Cassie Blake’s eluded me. She’s eluded me for too damn long.

  I didn’t plan for it to happen like this, but my god, now that it’s happening, I wouldn’t be able to stop if I wanted to.

  Cassie nearly fucking whimpers as she opens up wide to take my cock between her lips, moving her pretty pink mouth down it as she slides it in, making me really wet, running her tongue along the underside of it. Her eyes grow wide like she can’t believe this is happening either, and when they flash up at mine she gives me a dirty little smile with my cock stuffed between her lips.

  She moves her hand up and down me while taking my balls gently in her other hand, moving her wet mouth furiously while her hand follows along. I’m harder than I’ve ever been in my life.

  “God Cassie, you are so fucking good at this. Keep going like that.”

  I want to just cum in her mouth, make her lick up every inch of my cock after I explode, but I suddenly surprise myself by pulling away and grabbing her hips, pushing her back onto the bed.

  “Jason, what’s the matter?” she whimpers desperately, “wasn’t I doing a good job?”