Chapter 36 Name of the Game
NAME OF THE GAME
LILAH
Briggs isn’t beside me when I wake. It’s the first time since I started sleeping in his bed that I haven’t woken to him leaving me in the morning. I wonder if he slid his lips over my shoulder in that way he always does every morning.
I’m disappointed I missed it. It’s become my favorite part of the day, apart from the time when I slide into bed with him, and he gives me a couple orgasms. We really should stop doing that. But why?
Why not take pleasure from the year we have together?
I know the answer to that question. It’s dangerous, because every time I connect with the man I give him another chunk of my heart. Another chunk I can’t get back.
By the end of us, I’m not sure there will be anything left of me that he doesn’t own.
So, I know why I should stop. I absolutely know why I should stop. I also know that I won’t.
Obviously, I’m a glutton for punishment.
I roll onto my belly to check my phone and see a pair of yellow eyes watching me from the floor below.
Then a blur of black leaps onto the bed with me, a little rattle-purr in full swing for pets.
I laugh lightly, noting the door is ajar.
Clearly, Spookers wanted in when Briggs left this morning, so he made sure the little guy would be able to escape when wanted.
“Morning, cutie,” I greet Spookers with a scratch behind his ears and a solid five minutes of pets before I climb out of bed. He follows me into the bathroom as I do my business, shower and get myself semi ready for the day in a light, soft yellow sundress printed with little white flowers.
It’s already impossibly hot out today, the sun shining hot and high in the sky even though it’s only just nine in the morning.
I’m obviously emotionally overloaded to have been so exhausted. But with the wedding nearing, ground breaking on the resort, and the feelings I’m doing my best to stuff down deep for my fake fiancé, exhaustion is just the name of the game.
I pad into the kitchen with Spookers on my heel. Senior ditched me during my shower, but I find Shana in the kitchen with her pad of paper and pen and a half-drank cup of coffee.
“Good morning.” I find the cup Briggs has taken to leaving out for me every morning. I fix myself a cup of coffee and scoot closer to Shana.
“Sleep well?” She peers over the rim of her glasses at me.
“I did. You?”
“You slept in a lot later than usual. Are you feeling all right?”
I nod around a sip of the good stuff. “I’m good. Life is just starting to catch up with me, I think.” I nod to the list she’s made in her book. “Thank you for helping me with the wedding planning, Shana. I really don’t think I could have done it all without you.”
“You could,” she assures. “But I’m happy to help.”
“You’re a godsend.”
She pulls her glasses off. “I’ve been thinking about something, and I want to ask you before I speak with Briggs.”
Oh no. What could she want to ask me before Briggs?
I swallow my nerves as I slide onto an island stool. “I’m listening.”
“How would you feel if I moved here? To Sunset Falls?”
I nearly choke on my surprise. “You want to move here?”
“With Briggs gone, I have no reason to stay in Alberta. I have every reason to be here. I’ve never seen my son the way he is with you, Lilah.
He’s in love. Completely in love with you.
” There’s a burn in my throat I’m struggling to swallow, because he’s not in love with me.
He’s just really good at faking. I force a smile that feels brittle.
“He wants babies with you. He wants to build a life with you, and I would really love a chance to be a part of that life. So, I’m asking you how you would feel if I asked Briggs for a little slice of land so that I could build a little cottage close enough to be a part of that life you’re building.
I’m asking how you’d feel about making me a part of your family, Lilah. ”
I want to cry. I want to sob ugly sobs into a vat of caffeine because this game just took a terrible turn, and I got a wrench stuck somewhere in my soul.
Because I want all that she’s saying. It’s the dream life come true. But it’s not my life. It’s a facade.
So, I give her the only truth I can as I say, “I’d love if you were a part of my life, Shana.”
She beams like she won the sun and the moon combined. “Brilliant!” Her chin quivers with her own emotion. “Just brilliant.” She gazes down at her notes. “I’ve ordered roses for the wedding, just like you asked. Brilliant red ones.”
I find Briggs in his office, where Shana said he went after returning home from his morning ride to find me still in bed.
He’s on the phone, talking about something I can’t begin to understand.
It doesn’t seem like he’s going to be finished any time soon, though, so I point to the door and mouth, “Horses.”
When he gives me a chin dip, I slip back out the door.
I call the building a barn, because it’s been styled to look like one.
Though it’s nothing like any barn I’ve ever actually been in.
It’s crisply clean with a whole apartment suite for the live-in stable man Daniel Alder hired and Briggs kept on.
I think if Briggs had the time, he’d prefer to do everything with the horses personally.
When he talks about his stepfather and the life he’d lived on the farm when he was a boy, I get the sense that there’s a big part of him that longs for the quiet life of long days bumping along in a tractor over a field of crops.
Of riding horses down a line of fence. Of late dinners at a farmhouse table and hot coffee with the sunrise.
But here he is, a man far too wealthy with a mind far too busy for a life so quiet.
He might have the soul of a farmer, but he was made for the rush of creation. And so, he creates.
But he gets that farm boy dose of peace every morning when he rides these beautiful beasts I’ve always thought of as crowbait. Thanks, Dad.
I grab an apple from a bucket outside one of the stalls and cluck my tongue to call over the pretty burnished red horse. She comes easily. I think she’s a she. She feels like a she, all regal and such.
I coo, “Hey, pretty girl.”
She blows a breath from her nose, nostrils twitching when I lift the apple.
“You like apples?”
“She loves apples,” Briggs says. He moves in close, grabbing my hand. “Stretch your fingers out. Don’t want her catching them with her teeth.”
I blink wide at him. “What?”
“She’s a gentle girl, but she’s got a bite as strong as any other. Your finger doesn’t feel any different to her than the core of that apple.” He adjusts my hand, and she takes her fruity treat happily. “Just like that.”
My skin tingles under his low praise. I shove it down deep into the growing mountain of other ignored feelings.
I turn to face him. “Your mom wants to move here.”
He doesn’t look even remotely surprised. “Good.”
“She wants a cottage on the property. This property,” I clarify.
“She wants to be close because she wants to be a part of our babies’ lives.
” I sink my fingers into my hair, rubbing the side of my head.
I’m stressed and it shows. “She thinks we’re going to have babies, Briggs.
” I groan. “This is a mess.” I glare at him.
“And you need to start wearing a condom if we’re going to keep messing around. ”
He gets a look I’m beginning to recognize in his eyes. A look of heat that tells me I’m close to trouble. Then he drawls, “If?”
“Yes, if!”
He steps into me. I step back. He steps in again and again I step back. I don’t realize he’s walked me into the tackle room until the door is closed and I’m trapped inside with him.
His pitch is dangerously low. “I love the little dresses you wear.”
My body responds physically to his words. My core clenches. I hate being empty when he’s so close.
Briggs dips his head to nip at the tender skin below my ear. His breath is so hot.
“Briggs…” I sigh his name.
He spins me around, pinning my back to the door with a palm in my belly before that palm drifts up to the strap of my dress. He slips a finger under and tugs slowly down my arm, his eyes on mine the entire time.
My belly is a mess of flips and flutters as he dips his head to suck my nipple into his mouth. I let out a sharp squeak at the feel of teeth. Briggs pulls away to warn, “Careful. Someone might hear.”
“Oh God.” I clap a hand over my mouth.
Briggs laughs like the devil he is before he lifts me up on the door, pinning me there with his body.
He takes me into his mouth again as I wrap my legs around his waist. I can’t help myself as I roll my hips into the hard length of his arousal.
The material of his jeans is rough against the thin, soft fabric of my panties—and I love it.
He kisses a blazing trail from my breast to my jaw. Then he takes my mouth in a kiss that steals all the air from my lungs.
“Briggs,” I moan when we break for air. I feel dizzy. Needy.
My hands move between us to fumble with his buckle as he comes in to kiss me again. I release it, then I pop the button on his jeans before shoving at the zipper. I pull his hot, hard length into my hand, stroking him as he groans into my mouth.
His fists twist into my dress, yanking the material up around my waist before he tugs my panties to the side. Then he lines up, sinking his tip into me before he stops suddenly.
My eyes fly open. “What—?”
“No condom.” He’s breathing hard, but that devilish light in his eyes taunts me. “Guess we can’t.”
My fingers curl into his shirt as my core aches with an emptiness only he can fill.
“You’re a devil,” I accuse.
“I’ve been called worse.”
“You’re playing with fire.”
He pulls out before feeding me the tip again. I drop my head back against the door. Like a devil, he rumbles, “I like the burn.”
I know I shouldn’t, but I whisper, “Just one more time.”
Briggs grins as he sinks in deep.