by Noelle Adams
She was excited about his pretending to be her fiancé.
She was excited about helping him with sex.
She was excited.
And she didn’t want some other woman horning in on her territory.
She laughed silently at herself as Brent piled some books into the backpack he carried to campus every day. It was kind of crazy that she was starting to think this way, but maybe it would be okay.
Brent seemed to like her all right.
He’d said she was gorgeous and appeared to mean it.
Maybe he’d be excited about sex with her too.
It wouldn’t hurt to explore it a little bit.
When Brent had his stuff together, he hooked one of the straps of his backpack over his shoulder. “Ready?”
She was pleased he’d gotten a full word out so soon in the conversation. “Yep. It was nice to meet you, Ruth.”
“You too. Have fun, and make sure he has fun too.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Chloe was smiling as they started down the hall, but she sobered when she caught Brent giving her a strange look. “Are you mad that I let her think we were really dating?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just trying to figure you out.”
“In what way?”
“You look like you’re having fun.”
Chloe’s cheeks warmed for no good reason. “I guess I am. I don’t know why really. Just that it’s such a crazy situation, it’s hard not to run with it. Who would have believed I’d be shopping for an engagement ring this evening when I never even got a proposal?”
He was giving her that almost smile, so she knew he was fairly relaxed. “I promise you don’t want to suffer through a proposal from me.”
“I’m sure you’ll do just fine when the time comes.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You will! You’ll be in love with the woman. You’ll know her better than anyone and be comfortable with her. You won’t clam up.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I have more faith in you than you have in yourself. When you decide you want to marry a woman one day, you’ll be able to ask her just fine. You just can’t imagine it right now because you’re not in love.”
“Uh-huh.”
They were outside now. The sidewalks on campus were crowded with people leaving work and classes and heading to their cars or dorms. She reached over to take his arm companionably. “Just look at how far you’ve come in one day. Instead of saying nothing, you’re saying ‘uh-huh’ to me.”
He laughed. For real. It was a low, husky sound that transformed his brown eyes, his big, square face.
She momentarily lost her breath and tightened her hand on his arm. Why was this happening to her? Even when she was interested in a guy, she didn’t get all breathless and flustered this way.
As they made their way to the parking lot Brent used, Chloe didn’t fail to notice the way women’s eyes followed him. He wasn’t slick or movie-star handsome, but he was big and sexy and masculine and compelling.
Chloe wasn’t the only one to see it.
She had to fight the ridiculous urge to drag Brent closer so everyone they passed would know that he was already taken.
She wasn’t normally like that. She’d always been relaxed about relationships, never getting uptight about them. Guys liked her well enough to go out with, have fun with, go to bed with. But no one had ever seemed particularly interested in getting serious with her. Whatever else she was, she wasn’t good wife or girlfriend material.
No one had ever been in love with her.
It was fine. She only felt bad about it when her mother bemoaned the fact that she wasn’t yet married.
“What’s the matter?” Brent asked abruptly just as they were reaching his Jeep.
“Nothing. Why?”
“You were happy and then you weren’t.” He was peering at her again—that close look that she’d never minded before but was now a little unnerving.
Like he could see her.
All the way into her.
Even the vulnerable parts of her she didn’t want anyone to know existed.
“I just thought about my mom,” she admitted, telling him as much of the truth as she could. “You know.”
“Yeah. I know.”
They got into his Jeep, and he looked over at her as he put his hands on the steering wheel. “Where do you want to go?”
“I’m not sure. We need a ring that will be believable as an engagement ring but that also doesn’t cost very much. My mom said she’d pay me back for whatever I spend, but I don’t want to waste hundreds of dollars of her money even if she deserves it.”
“Is your Mima good with jewelry? Would she spot a fake diamond?”
“I really don’t know. Maybe we can find something pretty and tell her that we didn’t want to go with a traditional diamond.”
“Maybe a secondhand store? We could get something older and tell her we like the character and history. A real antique would be too expensive, but we could get something antique-ish.”
“Yes. That’s perfect.” Chloe was feeling excited again. She loved shopping at secondhand stores, and this would be a real challenge. “There’s a really big thrift shop out near the mall, if you don’t mind going that far. I seem to recall they have a jewelry case.”
“It’s not that far.” Brent backed the Jeep out of his parking place. “Let’s check it out.”
“Okay. When we get there, let’s practice being engaged.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean let’s act like a real couple. I can do most of the talking. You just act like you’re really engaged to me. It will be good practice for meeting Mima.”
“Okay. I’ll do my best. But don’t blame me if I’m terrible at it.” He slanted her a dry look. “I did warn you.”
THE THRIFT STORE WASN’T crowded. They got a close parking place, and Chloe reached out for Brent’s hand as they walked toward the door.
He didn’t resist the move, but she could see that his cheeks flushed, so he must be embarrassed about it.
She’d never met a man who was embarrassed about holding hands before. It was kind of adorable.
They went right for the jewelry case, but it wasn’t easy to pick something out. The jewelry was all piled in together. It did look like they were organized by kind, so Chloe pulled Brent away from the necklaces to the other side of the case where there was a huge number of rings.
“We’re going to have to get someone to unlock it,” she said. “There’s no way we can pick something out like this.”
“You’d have to try it on anyway.”
“True. You stand here, and I’ll go find someone.”
She went to look and came back a couple of minutes later with a friendly staff member in tow. “This is Brent,” she said with a gushing smile. “He’s my fiancé. We’re looking for a ring, but we can’t afford anything too expensive.”
The woman appeared to have no doubts that Chloe and Brent belonged together. She returned Chloe’s smile. “Well, we have some good options here.” She unlocked the case. “I’ll have to wait here so I can lock it up again, but you can take your time and try on anything you’d like.”
Brent was hanging back, so Chloe pulled him to her side and positioned his arm around her waist.
He wasn’t lying about being bad at pretending to be a man in love.
He was as stiff as a mannequin.
Chloe tried on a few different options. There were obviously no diamonds or other precious stones, but several of them were very pretty and looked old.
Mima wasn’t a jewelry expert.
She wouldn’t know that the ring was so cheap.
Chloe had decided on three that would do and was trying to decide between them when Brent reached over her into the case. He pulled out a ring that had been hiding in a bunch of bracelets.
It was an engraved silver band with a pearl in
an intricate setting. The scrollwork was lovely, and the ring looked full of history.
Chloe loved it immediately.
She gasped and grabbed it from Brent so she could try it on.
It fit just right.
“That’s the one,” the woman said. “It’s perfect on you.”
“I love it!” She wasn’t hamming it up for the woman’s benefit. She loved this ring as much as anything she’d ever put on. “Can we get it?” She batted her eyes up at Brent, remembering he was supposed to be buying it for her.
“Definitely.” His eyes were moving from the ring to her face, and she wasn’t sure how to read his expression. “We’re getting that one.”
“It’s two hundred dollars,” the woman said. “It’s one of the most expensive we have.”
“That’s fine.” Brent was already pulling out his wallet.
Chloe suddenly realized they were trapped by their pretense of being engaged.
If they were really engaged, then Brent would be the one to pay for the ring.
She’d been planning to pay, but she decided to just let Brent do it since he had his credit card out. She could get the reimbursement from her mother and pay him back.
As the woman rang up their purchase, she asked, “When’s the big day?”
Chloe said the first thing that came to her mind. “We’re getting married in March. We’re so excited.”
“I can tell. You can always tell a couple in love.”
A quick glance at Brent proved he was blushing again, but it wasn’t an inappropriate response to what the woman had said, so it wasn’t a problem. Chloe went on, making up the story as she talked. “He asked me on Saturday night. It was so romantic. He made me dinner and lit candles and went down on one knee.” She clung to Brent’s arm. “You wouldn’t believe it to look at him, but he’s really a romantic.”
“Oh, I’d believe it.” The woman gave them an indulgent smile as she handed Brent the receipt.
Chloe still had the ring on her finger. She’d never taken it off.
“Good luck to you both. I hope you’ll be very happy.”
“Thank you.” Chloe beamed at the woman and then beamed up at Brent. “I’m sure we will.”
As they were leaving the store, she told him, “Sorry you had to pay for it. I didn’t think through the whole thing.”
“No problem. It wasn’t that much.”
“Well, my mom is going to reimburse you. I’m not going to let you spend two hundred dollars on a ring for our fake engagement.”
“It’s no problem. Do you really like it?”
“Yes. I love it. If I ever got engaged for real, I wouldn’t mind a ring like this. I never cared all that much about diamonds.”
“It looks like you,” Brent said, getting into the car.
Chloe stared down at the ring and then over at his face. He wasn’t looking at her, so she couldn’t read his expression. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“It is one.”
He didn’t say anything else, but she felt a wave of pleasure.
His saying she looked like this lovely ring was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her.
STEVE AND MICHELLE were out when they got back home. Chloe couldn’t remember them having anything on their schedule for tonight, so they’d probably just decided to go out to eat or to a movie or something.
“Do you have work to do this evening?” she asked Brent.
He’d dropped his backpack on the floor near the couch and was lowering his big body to sit down. “Not really. Just the dissertation. I can always work on that.”
“How much longer do you have on it?”
“At least another year. I’m still doing the research.”
“What are you planning to do when you’re done? Go back to work on your family’s farm?”
Brent had been raised on a farm in central Virginia. His parents and brothers still worked on it, and he’d been back several times to visit them since she’d first met him.
It might be completely irrational, but she didn’t like the idea of his moving back.
She’d much prefer him to stay in Blacksburg, even after he had completed his degree.
“No,” he said. “If I wanted to work on a farm, I wouldn’t be getting the PhD. You get the PhD if you want to go into research and academics.”
“So that’s what you want to do? Be a professor?”
“Yep. Probably. I wouldn’t mind a research position somewhere else, but I’ll probably end up at a university.”
“What does your family think? Are they disappointed with you for not working on the farm?”
“Not really. They’ve known I was kind of nerdy since I was a kid, so I don’t think they ever expected I’d do what my brothers did. They’ve been supportive. I think they’re proud of me.”
“That’s good then. They should be. Getting a PhD isn’t for sissies.”
He grunted and gave her a little smile.
She liked how he looked right now. He was still slightly flushed, but his face appeared relaxed and his eyes warm. His beard and hair were slightly ruffled, and he was slouched on the couch, his long legs extended.
She had the ridiculous urge to climb up his body like a ladder.
Then she remembered she had an excuse.
A perfectly legitimate excuse to touch him the way she wanted.
She didn’t even hesitate. “You want to practice kissing?”
He blinked. Stared at her. Didn’t move a muscle. “Practice...”
“Kissing. Or whatever. I told you I’d help you.”
“Right now?”
“Why not?” Suddenly worried about putting pressure on him, she said in a rush, “But only if you want to. If you don’t, or if you’re not comfortable with the idea at all, then we won’t. But if you want me to help you, I’m perfectly happy to do so.”
“Right now?” This time his voice was slightly hoarse. He still wasn’t moving.
“Yes. Right now. If you want.”
He didn’t say anything. Still didn’t move.
And after a minute Chloe couldn’t stand it any longer. She reached out and touched his chest over the flannel of his shirt.
She heard him suck in a breath. His eyes had changed. Gotten tenser. Hotter.
It was making her hot too.
She licked her lips. “Brent, I know you’re not much of a talker, but you need to tell me it’s okay. At least nod your head or something.”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Then he nodded his head and kept nodding.
She giggled as she leaned toward him. “That seems like an enthusiastic nod.”
“It is,” he rasped. His eyes never left her face as she drew it closer to him.
Her body and mind buzzed with excitement as she put a second hand on his chest and rubbed slowly over his shirt. Then she slid them up so she could comb her fingers through his beard. It was coarse and thick and felt delicious against her skin.
Then she finally moved her hands so she was holding his jaw between her palms. His head was resting against the cushion of the couch, and she was halfway on top of him to get her mouth in the right place.
She felt brave and as sexy as she’d ever felt as he gazed up at her expectantly. “You want me to kiss you?” she murmured, surprised by the thickness of her voice.
“Yes. Please.” His hands were clenched into fists on either side of his hips. He wasn’t touching her, but he definitely wanted her to touch him.
So she leaned forward the rest of the way until her lips brushed lightly against his.
She heard his breath hitch, and it excited her even more. She settled her lips around his lower one and kissed him slowly, softly.
Her eyes blurred. Her body pulsed.
She wanted to stick her tongue into his mouth, but that felt like too much too soon. So she moved her mouth gently against his, focused on his lower lip, where she could feel the tickle of his beard against her chin.
He grunted.
With a laugh, she teased, “Try again.”
“G-good. Really good.”
“You liked it?”
“Fuck, yes.”
The language surprised her but excited her even more. “Then let’s try it some more.”
She kissed him again.
This time, after playing with his lips for a minute, she let her tongue slide over the line of his mouth, making sure not to deepen it too much.
As soon as her tongue got into the action, something changed about Brent’s body. It had been tense from the beginning, but it hardened even more. And one of his hands moved from the couch cushion to the back of her head. It curved around her skull and held her in place as his mouth began to move against hers.
He was kissing her back.
He was kissing her back.
She made a weird little sound in her throat as pleasure washed over her. She tangled the fingers of one hand in his thick hair and played with his beard with the other. Before she knew what was happening, her tongue was in his mouth, and his tongue was sliding against hers eagerly, triggering nerve endings she’d never known she had.
He was readjusting his position beneath her, sitting up straighter and moving his other hand to her back. He slid it down until it was pressed against the small of her back, and it felt so good there. Intimate. Possessive.
She whimpered when he pulled his mouth away from hers, but it wasn’t for long. He tilted his head the other way, bumping her nose briefly before he found her mouth again. This time he did to her lower lip what she’d been doing to his. Caressing it. Tugging it. She gasped into his mouth and grabbed the back of his neck to hang on.
In their change in positions, she was suddenly aware of something else.
He was getting hard in his jeans. She could feel it against her hip.
Heat slammed into her as an ache grew between her legs.
She tried to suck his tongue into her mouth, and he let her. He teased her tongue, the roof of her mouth, the inside of her lips. She was now positioned on top of him in a shameless sprawl, but there was no way she could help it.
She couldn’t remember a kiss ever being this good in her life.