Page 55 of Faking All the Way
“What about you?” I ask in an effort to shift the focus away from my own messy history. “You know a lot about my past relationship status, but I don’t really know anything about yours. Have you ever been in love?”
He goes quiet for so long I think he’s not going to answer. I’m about to tell him he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to when he finally speaks.
“I thought I was. Once.”
“What happened?”
There’s another pause, and then he says, “Her name was Alexis. We dated for about a year, and I thought… I thought she might be the one. She was beautiful, charming, said all the right things. I was young and naïve enough that I was even thinking about proposing.”
My stomach clenches at that, but I stay quiet, letting him tell the story at his own pace.
“Then I found out she’d been selling stories about me to tabloids. Every intimate conversation, every vulnerable moment, every private detail about my life—she turned it all into cash.” His laugh is hollow, devoid of any real humor. “She said she loved me while she was literally profiting off my pain.”
“Oh, god.” My eyes widen in horror. “Holy fuck, that’s awful.”
He runs a hand over his face. “The worst part wasn’t the betrayal itself. It was realizing how stupid I’d been. All those moments I thought were real? They were just research for her next payday. Every time I trusted her with something, she was already figuring out how to monetize it. She taught me something important though.”
“What?” I ask softly.
“That people always have an agenda. Love is just another word for manipulation. It’s how people get you to lower your guard so they can take what they want from you.”
The cynicism in his words makes me flinch. “You don’t really believe that.”
“Yeah, I do.” His voice is matter-of-fact, resigned, like he’s accepted this as an unchangeable truth. “Think about it, Kat. Your ex used love to make you feel small, to control you and mold you into what he wanted. My ex used it to exploit me for money. My parents claimed to love each other, but they tore our family apart. Love is just the pretty packaging people put around their selfish needs.”
“But that’s notreallove,” I protest, pushing myself up on one elbow so I can look at him properly. “That’s just people using it to excuse terrible behavior. Real love isn’t like that.”
“It’s what people call love, though. So what’s the difference?” He turns his head to look at me, and there’s something almost challenging in his gaze. “Everyone wants something. Everyone has an agenda. Love is just the excuse we use to take what we want from each other while pretending it’s noble.”
“So you don’t…” I lick my lips, not sure I want to know the answer. “You don’t want to fall in love again?”
“I don’t want another long-term relationship, period.” There’s an edge of finality to his voice. “I’ve learned my lesson. Keep things simple, keep them temporary, and nobody gets hurt.”
The words puncture something inside me that I didn’t even know was there. Some fragile bubble of possibility that had been growing without my permission over the past few days. My stomach twists, but I force myself to smile into the darkness. “I guess it’s a good thing this arrangement between us is just fake then.”
There’s a long pause, and in the dim light filtering through the window, I watch his expression shift. Something passes across his features, his brows drawing together for a second before his features smooth out into something I can’t read.
“Yeah,” he murmurs quietly. “I guess it is.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Asher
I wake up early, the unfamiliar room throwing me off for a second. The ceiling is too high, the furniture too nice, shadows falling in the wrong places. My brain scrambles to orient itself, trying to figure out where the hell I am. Then it all comes rushing back in vivid detail. Beverly’s party. The snowstorm that trapped us here. Daniel sleeping in the room right next door.
And what Kat and I did last night.
I turn my head carefully on the pillow, not wanting to wake her. She’s lying on her side facing me, one hand tucked under her cheek, her breathing slow and even. Without makeup, her face peaceful in sleep, she looks younger. More vulnerable. Her dark hair is spread across the white pillowcase, and I have to curl my fingers into fists to resist the urge to brush it back from her face. To see if it feels as soft as it looks.
I think back to last night, and my body immediately responds. I didn’t really think it through before suggesting we pretend to have sex to mess with her ex. It seemed like a good idea in the moment, a way to get under Daniel’s skin andmake him realize what he lost. Show him that Kat had moved on completely. But I sure as hell didn’t know Kat would be so fucking good at it.
I wasn’t prepared for the way she stared up at me in the darkness, her lashes fluttering every time I said something, her lips parted as she made sounds that will probably haunt my dreams forever. Her breathy little gasps and moans sounded so real that I had to keep reminding myself it was an act. I keep picturing the flush that spread across her cheeks and down her neck, disappearing beneath that white nightgown. How her breathing got faster and more ragged as we went on, as if she was actually feeling everything we were pretending to do.
When we got to the end of it, when I told her to let go, I could almost swear she actually came. The way her whole body shook, trembling beneath the sheets, her back arching slightly off the mattress, her toes curling. The shudder that went through her looked exactly like an orgasm. Can she really act that well? Or was she as affected by the whole thing as I was?
Either way, it hit me so hard that I had to sit up right afterward so that she wouldn’t see how turned on I was. My cock was throbbing, rock hard and jutting out from my body like I was some horny teenager who couldn’t control himself. I went into the bathroom hoping a few minutes away from her and some cold water splashed on my face would help. That maybe the space would let me calm down and get my shit under control.
Instead, I ended up jerking off in her grandmother’s bathroom like a desperate idiot. I was so worked up, so turned on from the sounds she made and the way she looked at me, that it was the only way to get my cock to soften—doing the exact opposite of what we’d been doing in the bedroom, where we were deliberately loud to sell the performance. In the bathroom, I was as quiet as possible, one hand braced on the sink while I stroked myself with the other. Practically holding my breath,biting my lip so hard it hurt to keep from making any sound. I came harder than I have in months, maybe years, spilling all over my fist while thinking about those needy little sounds she made.
