“I’m not your wifey. And you’d been in here so long I figured you were dressed.”
Chris shrugged.
“What were you trying to accomplish, anyway? And why are you so hard?”
Chris moved the pants away from his cock, which was still full-mast and throbbing. I hated that the sight of it made my knees want to go weak. I hated that he could blunt force me over the head with how much I wanted him. I wished I didn’t crave him like I did, but I did my best to pretend it wasn’t affecting me.
“Well,” he said, covering himself again. He lowered his voice, leaning in close. “I had this fantasy where you came in, saw me naked, and then you lifted up that skirt and let me take you from behind. I’d just pull your panties to the side and give it to you quick. From there, the hard cock kind of came naturally.”
I took a slow, shuddering breath. “You can’t do things like this.”
“If you’re going to try to pretend you don’t want it, I’ll have no choice but to keep doing things like this.”
I swallowed. “I’m not pretending,” I said in a hushed voice. “I’m trying my hardest to be a responsible adult. We both have a job to do with this fake wedding. I have a business to save, and you have a career to salvage. Neither of us need to complicate things by screwing like bunnies every chance we get.”
“Yeah? There’s a tarantula named Leg-olas who wants to know why you risked his life and eight limbs for a little booty call last night, then.”
My cheeks went hot with embarrassment. “He’s quicker than he looks. He would’ve got away if you tried to hurt him, so he was safe.”
“Right,” Chris bent his neck, planting a kiss on my earlobe that I wasn’t strong enough to pull away from. I closed my eyes, letting it happen. “I’ll put my clothes on. I can tell you’re about to lose it if this goes on much longer. I just needed you to remember you can’t fight it forever. You can’t even fight it for one day, Belle. Remember that.”
I turned my back so he could get dressed, but my brain went ahead and vividly pictured what was going on behind me. Long, sculpted legs sliding into his briefs. The bulge of his cock pressing against the cotton, practically begging for the palm of my hand. I could see the rack of abs all down his stomach and the sharp lines of muscles that started at his sides and disappeared into his waistband. Worst, I could see the calculated, amused glint in his wolf-like eyes as he watched me pretend I wasn’t imagining and enjoying every second of this.
“Do you guys need a condom in there?” Milly asked through the door.
“What’s a condom?” Luna asked.
“Something to save the world from Chris making copies of himself and unleashing them on the rest of us.”
“Cool!” Luna said. “Like kryptonite? Is it Uncle Chris’ weakness?”
Chris was smiling. “Uncle Chris has no weaknesses!” he shouted through the door as he buttoned up his dress shirt.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself from inching closer to him. I reached up and helped him with his tie, then pressed my palms to his chest, straightening the wrinkles from his shirt.
He smirked down at me, lowering his voice. “Okay. Maybe I’ve got a weakness for one thing.”
“Dad jokes?” I asked.
Chris ran a taunting finger along my jaw, then brushed my lip with his thumb. “You, stupid.”
I gave him a playful shove. “Good thing you ruined that by calling me stupid, or I might’ve actually been tempted to start liking you a little more.”
“It was calculated. I can’t have you falling for me all at once. I like watching you squirm—thinking you’re going to be able to fight it. It’s cute.”
“Bastard.”
He laughed. “I won’t argue that one.”
22
Chris
Belle asked if Damon and I could meet at Rose Athletic a few days after the tux fitting. Unfortunately, she’d done a surprisingly good job of avoiding me in the meantime. I’d of course tried a barrage of suggestive texts and even showed up at her apartment one time. It had all proved fruitless.
The truth was, I knew I was only putting a thin veil of humor and a carefree attitude over what was really going on. I wanted Belle. I didn’t just want one more fling or one more flirtatious encounter. Against all my better judgment, I wanted more. I wanted to know I’d get to see her every day, to know she was exclusively mine, to know that Lance bastard and his dumb turtlenecks he wore in half his posts on social media wasn’t going to creep into her life.
I wanted Belle, plain and simple. And the closer the wedding got, the more I started to dread the expiration date on our little arrangement. Because I might be able to get her to smile and play along when I flirted and I might even be able to get her to let her walls down and fuck me, but I didn’t have her. There was still something she was holding back, and I wanted that, too.
I was surprised when I felt like my breath caught just to see her walk into Damon’s office. She had her hair pulled back in a braid that fell over her shoulder. She was dressed in an ivory colored, silky top that let me see the outline of her bra and the little pad of soft flesh bulging above her bra line. Yes, I was desperate enough to study her like Sherlock fucking Holmes for any hint of sexuality. She’d gotten into my brain like a large-breasted, fine-assed virus.
Belle had a way of looking at me, then looking away like she’d been caught doing something naughty. Maybe it was more innocent than I let myself believe, but it always made my dick hard. She got this ashamed look in her eyes like she couldn’t even see me without imagining the things we’d done together, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
“Thanks for coming,” Belle said. She sat as far away from Damon and I at the conference table as she could, then set down a thick stack of papers and folders. “I wanted to get your approval for some funding to take a trip to Europe and explore a few venues I had in mind for the wedding.”
“You’re still set on doing Europe?” Damon asked.
“It’s the trendy thing. Almost all the big celebrity weddings are abroad right now, and if you don’t want to raise the wrong kind of eyebrows, we should seriously consider having Chris’ wedding overseas, too.”
“Our wedding,” I corrected.
Belle shot me a look of warning, then started shuffling through her papers again. “I had a few places in mind, but if you don’t want to dig through the list, I also have a figure for the cost of travel and lodging. It’s everything combined and—”
Damon interrupted. “Cost isn’t an issue,” Damon said with a wave of his hand. “I just want to make sure this sells to the media. We’ve already got quite a bit of worry from Chris’ sponsors after the change from Mindy to you. I don’t know if you’ve seen, but they’ve made the connection to your mishap in Texas, and they’re having a blast trying to turn this into some sort of conspiracy. It’s not exactly painting Chris in the calm, settled down light we were going for.”
“What are you suggesting?” Belle asked.
“That you two need to do some work selling the fact that you’re madly in love to the public. Pretending you were trying to keep things private and intimate was fine before the talks of a scandal started. Now I think it’s going to take more.”