Page 57 of Fake Out Hearts

“So, uh, whatdidhappen last night?” I ask.

“I had a nightmare. A bad one,” she mumbles.

“Yeah, I noticed. What was it about? I mean, if you want to talk about it.”

Becca sighs but doesn’t reply for a few seconds. Finally, she tilts her face back up to mine. “It’s a recurring nightmare I’ve had since I was a little girl. There’s this big, blackthingchasing me, and I run as hard and fast as I can from it, but I never put any distance between us. And it never catches me, either, so I just keep running, totally terrified.”

I stroke her arm. “God, that sounds terrible. I’m sorry.”

“It is terrible. I feel like I’m having a heart attack every time I wake up from that, but it’s been years since I’ve had that dream.”

“Do you think something brought it on then?”

Becca hesitates, then pushes a bunch of her hair out of her face. “Yeah, I guess. But I don’t know what.”

“What do you think it means? I’m no Carl Jung, but it sure sounds like it’s trying to tell you something.”

She laughs. “I don’t know. But I always had that dream around the times my mom was about to uproot us again for some man she thought she was in love with, so that probably has something to do with it.”

Her words are a knife’s point pressed right into my heart. I wince because I hate hearing her say that, hate hearing the pain and sadness in her voice. I don’t ever want her to feel that way with me, whether our marriage is real or fake. Making sure to keep my touch soothing and gentle, I tuck a lock of hair behind one of her ears.

“You don’t deserve to feel that way, Becca. Ever,” I say, and tears form in the corners of her eyes. She leans into my touch, and I’m suddenly intensely aware of how close together we’re lying. Of all the places where her soft body is pressed against mine. Our eyes stay locked together, and I can’t seem to stop stroking her arm as she tugs her lower lip between her teeth. Ican’t hear her thoughts, but they’re practically screaming on her face. She’s wrestling with this as much as I am.

Letting her sleep with me was a bad idea, and I knew it as soon as I offered last night. Because the temptation was always going to be there. Like I told her, I’m not always a gentleman, and with her in particular, it’s getting harder and harder to control myself. I don’t know what it is about her.

She’s so close to me that I feel her heart slamming against her ribcage. One of her hands is resting on my chest, just on top of the tiger tattoo she told me she loves so much. The edges of my vision start to darken until she’s all I can see, and my body is howling at me to make a move while my brain screams just as loudly to end this before it gets even more problematic than it already is.

But an invisible thread pulls us together, and before either of us knows what’s happening, our lips crash. She tastes so incredible that a groan escapes me while my arms tighten around her, pulling her as close as I can possibly get. It’s like I want to mold her body to mine, to fuse us together or something.

Her hands are roaming all over my body now, gripping at any inch of skin she can grasp. And when my tongue pushes her lips apart to find hers, my cock pulses with arousal. She doesn’t fight me at all, almost like she wants this to happen as badly as I do.

But as quickly as the moment came on, we break. Reality snaps back into place, and we’re staring at each other, breathing hard and in disbelief. We both know we shouldn’t be doing this, that it’s a clear violation of the rules we established at the start. Tension still crackles between us, charging the air and pulling me back in, but somehow, I resist. Somehow.

“I—I should go back to my room,” she mutters.

I nod, despite my cock practically screaming at me. “Right.”

Becca slips out of my bed quickly, as if she’s afraid she’ll change her mind if she doesn’t move fast enough.

I watch her leave with her lithe, toned body and sleep-mussed hair. She disappears around the corner, and when I hear her footsteps plodding down the stairs, I fall back into bed and press my fists into my eyes.

“Fuck,” I groan.

I can’t believe I let this happenagain, especially after the talk I just had with Noah about all of this. Pissed at myself, I shove one hand under the blankets to grip my cock and give it a squeeze, hoping that cutting off the blood flow will speed up the deflation. But it just makes me harder, and I know from experience that there’s only one way to take care of a problem like this.

I fling the blankets off and peel away what’s left of my clothes on my way to the shower. I don’t bother closing the ensuite bathroom door, too focused on the mess of thoughts, emotions, and arousal churning inside me. Despite the winter cold, the water gets hot almost immediately, so I step inside and groan at the feel of the cascading jets hitting my tense body.

But even that isn’t enough to distract me from thoughts of Becca, from the way she felt and tasted just now to the things we did together that first night. The images flash through my head like a disconnected film reel, jumping from one scene to another and back again, but all I can see is her and her beautiful body.

And all I can think about are the things I still want to do to her.

My hand finds my aching, swollen cock again and gives it a stroke. I’m so turned on that even one little jerk is electric. I rest my free hand against the tile to steady myself and jerk myself harder and faster, really working myself into it. It doesn’t take long for my eyes to squeeze shut and for a familiar tingle to take root in my core.

“Becca,” I groan, and a sharp intake of breath makes me jump. I whirl in the shower, nearly slipping on the soaking tile,and find her standing in the doorway to the bathroom. She’s rooted in place, her mouth hanging open.

Holy shit. Was she watching me this whole time?

“Sorry, I… I can’t find my phone and I thought maybe I left it in here,” Becca stammers.

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