Page 34 of Fake Shot

When we’re toe-to-toe, he straightens up to his full height, and I’m forced to tilt my head all the way back just to see him. “I want to hear you say it.”

He wants to hear me say that he’s got the kind of energy that has women dropping their panties before he even has to ask. Meanwhile, I’ve never even let a guy into mine? I look away. No way in hell is he hearing that admission from me.

“No.”

His palm slides across my throat and he uses his splayedthumb and fingers to cup my jaw, turning my head back toward him. I like the feel of his hand around my throat way more than I should.

“What’s wrong, Jules? Can’t back up your claim?”

“More like, I don’t need to because we both know it’s true.”

“What’s true?” he asks again.

I note the way his hand is gripping my neck possessively, how his gaze bores into my face with an intensity I can’t muster, how his whole body practically vibrates with dominance. “That I don’t match your energy.”

“Maybe that’s because you exceed it?”

A laugh bursts out of me. What in the actual hell is this man talking about? “Yeah, Colt. Sure.”

“How do you not see what everyone else does?”

Yeah, I know what I look like. But my energy must screamStay away!because that’s exactly what guys do the minute they get to know me.

I step back and he lets me go, but he plants his hands on his hips like he’s creating a barrier between the exit from the kitchen and me.

“Can we go back to talking about why you think it’s a good idea to pretend we’re engaged, and how in the world you think anyone would believe that for even a second?”

“Sure,” he says as he shrugs his shoulders. “I think it’s a good idea because it gives us both something we want. And I think the only people who aren’t going to believe it are your family, and we can tell them the truth. Everyone else will believe it.”

I don’t even know where to start with that, so I circleback to the first thing he said. “How does this give each of us what we want?”

“It gives me an excuse for why I haven’t been with a woman in at least six months?—”

“What?” The question burst out of me with an incredulous laugh. There’s no way that’s possible. Being a manwhore is kind of his brand.

“Why is that so unbelievable?”

“It ...” I don’t want to admit that I’ve spent any time at all thinking about him or his sex life, so instead, I say, “... just isn’t what I expected. So, you’d get fake engaged to explain away a dry spell?”

“No. No one even knows about that. I’m just saying that it’s not like there would be women saying ‘You can’t be engaged, you were in my bed last weekend.’ I wouldn’t put you in that position, just so you know.” He runs a hand through his short hair. “But mostly, what I get out of this is that you could come with me to my parents’ anniversary party. My parents would be thrilled, and you could be a buffer between me and my brother.”

“How do you think your parents would feel when they found out this was all fake? Or when we ‘break up,’” I say, using air quotes. “Wouldn’t that just hurt them in the long run?”

“They’d be okay. It’s not like you guys are going to bond in a weekend. And we can make it an amicable split in the end, don’t you think?”

The look on his face is as doubtful as my thoughts.

“And what do I get out of this, exactly?”

“I’ll help you findhealthyways to overcome your fear of losing control. And you have a plausible reason for why youwere making out with me in an alley. I don’t think anyone would have any trouble believing I’d have you up against a brick wall at the first chance I got.”

“Yeah.” I bark out a laugh. “That’sexactlythe part I think no one is going to believe.”

“You just gotta trust me on this one. No one’s going to question it. And no one is going to think less of you because someone caught you on camera kissing your fiancé.”

“There’s a zero percent chance that anyone who knows me is going to believe this.” Why am I even entertaining this idea?

“Besides Jameson, Audrey, and Lauren, who else isn’t going to believe it?”

---