“If the bartending thing doesn’t work out, you have a future as a short-order chef,” I said.
He laughed. “If I didn’t cook, we’d starve. You can’t live on take-out alone.”
“I’ve given it a good try,” I said as I took a bite of bacon. Still, I couldn’t deny how much better home-cooked food was.
As we ate, every now and then, I’d catch Ryder looking at me like he was waiting for something. I remembered his statement about not wanting to hear if I regretted what we’d done at that moment. Was he waiting for me to say it now?
While I couldn’t regret it, I was sure it was a good idea. Ryder and I were about as opposite as two people could get. I was controlling, serious, and focused, whereas he was laid back, going with the flow, with no plans for his future. As good as we were together in bed, I couldn’t see us working out in the long run.
Then again, there didn’t need to be a long run. We could have a short run, couldn’t we? It wasn’t generally in my nature to have a fling, but during this month-long fake marriage, my life was in an alternate universe already. Why not include a little no-strings-attached affair with my fake husband?
“You were right about one thing,” I said, wiping my mouth with my paper towel napkin.
“What’s that?”
“Your version of this fake marriage is more fun.”
He smiled. “When it comes to fun, I know what I’m talking about. I’m an expert.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“Stick with me, Katrina, and I’ll show you a good time.”
My nipples hardened at the promise in his voice.
“In fact.” He stood, and reached out a hand to me. “I feel another good time coming on now.”
I hesitated because I knew it was unsafe to give in to my physical desires. It could lead me astray. What if I started to like Ryder? What if I wanted fake to become real?
But I was in this bet for the next few weeks, and if I was going to take a vacation from my sane ordered life, why not include some sexual gratification?
I took his hand. “What do you have in mind?”
“This time, my bed. It’s bigger.”
I let him lead me to his room and do whatever he wanted to me. As he touched and kissed me, as he joined his body with mine, I let myself enjoy it with one caveat; don’t fall for Ryder.
11
Ryder
Whatever happened with Trina and me last night would go down in history as the greatest night of sex ever. Her skin was silkier than I’d imagined. Her pussy was sweeter and tighter than I’d ever experienced. And Trina, for all her bluster and confidence, had a vulnerability about her in bed that made my heart ache. I’d seen a part of her I’d never seen before. I wondered how many people had really ever seen it. Other men? I pushed that thought away. The idea of another man touching her made me want to rip their heads off.
What was most strange about last night was that I was pretty sure she felt the same about our encounter. The minute I’d come the first time, and I’d collapsed on her, I was sure she was going to push me off and tell me I was a horndog or how it was a mistake. Not ready to hear it while my dick was still pulsing with joy inside her, I asked her to hold off on saying it.
But she didn’t say it. Not then. Not after she gave me the ride of my life. Not at dinner, and not after one of the other several times I fucked her through the night.
I wanted to think my plan was working, and at the same time, I knew I needed to tread lightly. A leopard didn’t change its spots and Trina wouldn’t allow herself to be a slave to her physical desires. I needed to be ready for her to change course back to a platonic relationship at any time. Hopefully, she’d at least put it off during our fake marriage. It would give me time to convince her to continue our highly arousing and sexually satisfying romps beyond the bet.
Not that I only wanted sex from her. My attraction to her didn’t always make sense considering she always treated me with a certain disdain, but last night, that snark was gone. She was still smart-mouthed and opinionated, but it wasn’t directed at me. We laughed and teased in a friendlier manner. I felt like I’d not only been able to see her body, but also to catch a glimpse of the woman she was when she wasn’t working so hard to keep her walls up.
The next morning, I thought I’d really scored when she woke me with a blow job to end all blow jobs. The sight of my cum dripping from her mouth wasn’t something I’d ever forget. If this thing between us didn’t work out, that would be the go-to image in my brain when I jacked off.
I sent Trina off to work and then dealt with a few band things before I went to my job at the Salvation Station for my shift. I’d started working there after high school as a waiter to make money while I tried to get my band going. Once I hit twenty-one, I moved into bartending, which I loved. It was true that bartenders were like shrinks. Actually, I think people told bartenders more than they told their shrinks. If I was the sort of man to extort people, I’d be rich from all the secrets and woes people told me.
Last year, the owner promoted me to manager, effectively confirming that my career was in the restaurant business and not in music. But I was okay with that. Mr. Coffey, who owned the restaurant, was happy with my work and even started discussing my becoming a partner in the place, and perhaps my buying it when he got ready to retire. He was in his late sixties and his kids had all left town, so I was the only one he felt he could leave it to. See, despite what Trina thought, I didn’t need my entire life planned out to have it go well.
I was working the lunch and dinner crowd. Lunch was busy with blue and white collar lunch folks, many of whom liked a beer or a mixed drink during lunch. As the crowd thinned, a well-dressed, attractive woman took a seat at the bar. She looked to be around my age, and had thick dark hair and smart-looking green eyes. Before Trina, I might have hit on her. But now, as pretty as she was, my mind and body were completely owned by Trina.
“What can I get you?” I asked her.
“Orange juice.” She hopped up on the barstool.
I grabbed a juice glass and pulled the bottle of OJ from the fridge. I poured her a glass and set it in front of her.
“Anything extra? Vodka?”
She shook her head. “No Thank you.” She took a sip and then asked, “Are you familiar with Simon Stark?”
I scoffed. “Everyone in Salvation knows Stark.”
She laughed. “Funny how many people have that same reaction.” She extended her hand over the bar. “I’m Erica Edmonds. I’m a writer doing a piece on Stark. Would you be able to answer a few questions?”
I shook her hand. “Ryder Simms. I don’t know him personally. I haven’t had any dealings with him.” That wasn’t completely true. He did crash my sister’s second wedding to Wyatt and tried to discredit her.
She took out a journalist’s notebook. “Is it true the town was able to thwart his effort to build a prison?” She sipped her juice as her green eyes watched me.
I shrugged. “I can tell you what I’ve heard. Like I said, I don’t have direct dealings with him except booing him when he called my sister a fraud at her wedding.”
“Oh? That must have been interesting.”
I smiled. “Just another day in Salvation. We take things pretty easy around here.” Well most of us. Trina didn’t. I thought maybe Ms. Edmonds should talk to her. Trina would give her an earful on Stark although hopefully not the part about how Sinclair and Wyatt’s first marriage was a business arrangement to get rid of Stark.
“He has a reputation of getting what he wants. Rumor is that the mayor was all for this prison,” she said.
“The thing is, we’re a farming community, and we’re close-knit. Stark and the mayor underestimated the people here and their commitment to each other.”
She wrote a note on her pad. “Can I quote you?”
“Sure, why not?” I grabbed a towel and wiped the bar.
“It’s my understanding that your sister, the deputy mayor, played a
role in keeping his prison out.” She said it in a way that suggested she knew more than she was letting on. Chances were we she knew about Sinclair and Wyatt, and that I was related to them.
I nodded. “That’s right. You should talk to her though.”
“I will. I’m trying to gather the towns’ people’s impressions. The mayor was hoping the prison would bring jobs, and now with the prison plan thwarted, those jobs aren’t coming. Are there other people who resent the farmers for that?”
“If they do, I haven’t heard about it.” I noticed another customer at the end of the bar and excused myself to serve him.
When I returned, she asked, “Stark isn’t one to lose. Is there any concern he’ll retaliate?”
I shrugged. “By doing what? The people were clear they didn’t want him around. If he’s a businessman, it would seem like a better idea to find another place to build his prison.”
“You do know he has a large home on the outskirts of Salvation?”
“More like a compound,” I quipped at the ostentatious walled-in complex that didn’t fit with the conservative rural town. “It’s my understanding that he doesn’t live there, though. I’d think Salvation was too small for a man like Stark.”
She arched a brow. “Why do you say that?”
“We’re not flashy people, Ms. Edmonds—“
“Call me Erica.”
“Life is slow here. Someone like Stark would get bored.”
“Hmm.” She took more notes on her pad. “So why do you think he’s stuck around?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
“Hey Ryder, how about a beer,” one of my regulars called out as he took a seat at the bar. I poured him his regular draft and served him.
When I returned to the reporter, she smiled in a way that felt more than professional or friendly. She pulled out her card from her tailored coat pocket and extended it to me.
As I took it, her hand brushed mine, and I knew for sure she was interested. There was a time I might have responded to that.
“If you can think of anything else that I should know for this story, please give me a call,” she said.
I gave her a non-committal shrug. “I doubt I’ll have anything.”
“Keep it anyway. Just in case.” She slipped from the barstool and sauntered to the door.
“You should call her, Ry,” one of my regulars said as he too watched her leave. “I think she has more she wants to investigate.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
I thought he was probably right. I laughed good-naturedly, but I wasn’t going to be calling her for a story or something more personal.
I shoved her card into my pocket, intending to give it to Sinclair. She’d be a better person to talk about Stark and his shading dealings.
Me? I was too infatuated with my fake wife to consider spending time with another woman.
12
Trina
It was amazing how a perky, pretty recent coed could ruin the beautiful mood I’d had after a night, and morning, naked with Ryder. This morning, after he made me breakfast, and then fucked me on the dining table, I arrived at work feeling good. Really good. And then Brooke and the Mayor showed up, all smiles for each other that made me suspicious. But then she handed me a folder with work done that was under my purview.
“Who asked you to do this?” I demanded.
“Mayor Valentine.” Her blue eyes shone with innocence but I didn’t buy it. Not wanting to get in trouble for yelling at his favorite pet now that Sinclair was off the market, I waved her off. I went through the work she’d done expecting to have to redo it, but dammit, it was nearly perfect.
Normally, my annoyance at work came from incompetent coworkers, but Brooke was irking me to no end by her efficiency. Not only that, but she seemed determined to become the mayor’s right-hand woman, which was my job. There’s no way I was going to let that happen!
Sinclair was out in my area of the office going through some files as I grumbled about Brooke’s attempt to ingratiate herself to the mayor and steal my job. Sinclair was listening with only half an ear, but basically told me I was nuts. Just because Brooke was a contentious worker didn’t mean she was after my job, Sinclair told me.
I started to list all the reasons she was trying to get my job, starting with all the work the mayor was handing her way that was in my job description, when Holly St. James walked into the office.
“Oh hey Holly,” Sinclair said. I noted a tone of relief in her voice. Was Sinclair annoyed at me?
“Hi, Sinclair. Trina.” Holly had been the teacher of Sinclair and Wyatt’s daughter, Alyssa, and had enlisted their help in the 4-H program at school. “I hope I’m not dropping in at a bad time, but I wanted to talk to you about a fundraiser for the library. I’d like to raise money for new books.”
“Now is a great time to meet,” Sinclair said. “I just have one more thing to finish, but you can wait in my office and we can see about getting new books for the school library.”
As Holly made her way to the office, Sinclair stepped up to me. “You’re unusually grumpy—”
“More than usual. What’s going on?”
“I told you. I don’t like feeling like some little coed is batting her eyes at the mayor trying to take my job.”
Sinclair studied me with a light shake of her head. It irked me to no end that she didn’t see what was going on.
“Listen, I know you have a hard time with change—”
“It’s not the change, Sinclair. It’s that he’s handing over my job to her.” I jabbed my fists into my hips. I knew I was a difficult person at times, but this wasn’t one of those times.
“Which is freeing you up to focus on the stuff you do best,”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “So you’re in on this?”
She huffed out a breath. “There’s no ‘in’ to be in on. You know we used to have more support staff. We had the money to refill a position so we did. Trina what’s really going on. Is this fake marriage with Ryder?”
“No.” Of all the things in my life, that was the one area that I’d have expected to be off the rails that actually was going all right. “I don’t like my job being handed over to someone else without my being told about it.”
She nodded. “Okay. I get that. We need to tell you when we’ve given her something.”
“I’d rather you let me do my own job and not give it away.”
“You sure there isn’t something else? You’re so tense and angry lately. Have you thought about talking to someone?”
My jaw dropped. “You mean like a shrink?”
She nodded.
“I’m not crazy.” But the world I lived in had surely gone mad.
“No. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that maybe talking to someone can help you—”
“I know my quirks. I know I can get frustrated and angry easily. I don’t need a shrink to tell me that.”
“But knowing and doing something to help you deal with it are two different things. I mean, wouldn’t you rather find a way to relax and enjoy life more instead of always being keyed up.”
“Keyed up?” My world truly had gone topsy turvy when my best friend was now against me and the man I’d loathed for so long was now the one good thing in my life.
She let out a breath. “Never mind. Forget about the counseling. But you do need to blow off steam. Why don’t you take a break to clear your head?” she said. It wasn’t the first time Sinclair treated me like I was a petulant child needing a time out. I was a pain in the ass, but I usually knew it when I was. I had some insight even if I didn’t necessarily work to change. But this time, I felt she was ignoring me. I wasn’t seeing things with the Mayor and Brooke, nor was I imagining that she was slowly taking on more and more of my work.
Because I was more keyed up now and I was at work, I knew when it was time to put a cork in my complaining. See, I didn’t need counseling. I could control myself.
“Fine,” I said. I hea
ded out of the office to the break room thinking I’d get coffee and maybe a snack. I stepped into the room to see Brooke patting the Mayor’s chest like she was wiping crumbs from his tie. I wasn’t fooled though. She was either sucking up to him or seducing him. The blush on his cheeks suggested he was enjoying it. Christ, he was nearly twice her age.
To keep from blurting out something that could get me fired, I left the breakroom and exited the administrative building to Main Street. I stood for a moment wondering what I should do to deal with my sour mood. Most women I knew shopped when they needed a pick-me-up, but spending frivolously was never an answer. I lost count of all the times my father bought some sort of doo-dad on a whim and ended up overdrawing his bank account. It was the reason I went to work as soon as I could get hired. I was tired of not having enough money for food or buying time with our landlord until I could get the overdue rent paid. So shopping was out because there wasn’t anything I needed.
Deciding a walk was the answer, I headed up the street. I made it to the corner when I noticed Salvation Station. Maybe I’d go there. I could have a drink, and Ryder was always good for a laugh. I shook my head slightly at that thought. Just a few days ago, I’d have rejected seeing him because he was usually a source of annoyance. What a difference a day and great sex made.
I entered the restaurant and went to the bar.
When he saw me, his face lit up, and my mood shifted from one-hundred percent irked down to fifty-percent annoyed.
“Hey.” He frowned. “Everything all right?”
I rolled my shoulders. “Your sister sent me away for being grumpy.”
He smiled and motioned to a barstool. “You’re in luck. I have a cure for that.”
I took a seat and he poured a shot of whiskey. I looked around, noting the place was practically empty. “Where is everyone?”
“Back at work.” He leaned his forearms on the bar. “So, what can I do to help improve your mood?” I expected him to waggle his eyebrows or some other innuendo, but he didn’t. He was sincere in wanting to know about why I was annoyed.
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