Chapter 16
chapter sixteen
Mia
Boy, the lines are blurring, I think to myself.
Actually, that’s not exactly correct. The lines are blurred.
They are already fucking blurred.
Luke helped me masturbate into one of the best orgasms of my life.
That was not on my playlist for the summer.
Shit! I don’t even know how I got myself in this position, but all I can think about is the way that Luke makes me feel when he touches me.
We resisted for so many years from ever being physical with each other. We certainly didn’t even contemplate being friends with benefits, and yet here we were, three days into a fake relationship, and we were already intimate. In ways I’d never even dreamed about.
How did this happen?
I swallow hard as I rub my forehead and stare at my face in the mirror. You are going to get yourself in trouble, young lady. I point at my reflection. My hair sits at the top of my head, and my eyes look tired. I have to head down to work, but I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to tell Juniper.
All the other girls knew that we had kissed, of course.
We were going to do that in front of them for the show, but what we were doing late at night, when the lights were low and no one was around, had nothing to do with our pretenses.
It wasn’t like Rex had a secret camera in the hotel room, spying on us.
We were doing it because we wanted to do it, and I wasn’t sure just how far it was going to go before we realized we were making a huge mistake. I hear a knocking on the door, and I freeze.
“Hey, Mia, are you nearly ready?” Luke calls out.
“I’ll be out in just a moment,” I say.
“Actually, I need to send some emails, so I was going to head down to the conference room and just have a seat and do some work.”
“Okay. Are you not going to come with me to the beach to see the bookmobile and get some amazing books?” I call out.
“I’ll have to do that later if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” I say quickly. “Not at all.”
Thank God. I don’t really want to look into his eyes right now and think about the way he sucked on my breasts.
Like he’d enjoyed it. Like my nipples were tasty morsels. Fuck, we were in trouble.
“I’ll see you later, Mi-Mi.”
“Bye, Luke.” I take a deep breath and grip the marble countertop of the vanity.
I am actually grateful that he’s not coming with me directly to the bookstore.
I just need some space to think, to ponder, to ask myself what the fuck I’m doing.
While a part of me is slightly irritated that he’s choosing to work again instead of spending time with me, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
When I hear the door slam, I slowly open the bathroom door and head out into the hotel room. My eyes spy the rumpled sheets on the bed, and my body grows warm with heat and desire. Luke made me come on that bed not eight hours ago.
“I—oh my gosh, what did I do?” I cry out.
I know I should feel disgusted with myself, but it was just so hot. I’d never done anything like that before in my life. Not even with a boyfriend, which wasn’t saying much because all my boyfriends sucked. But still, it was Luke!
I pull on a floral dress, brush my hair quickly, grab my bag, and head out of the hotel. I need to speak to Juniper. I need to find out from my friends if I’m making a big mistake.
As I walk along Main Street toward the beach, I start to jog. I’m not really much of a runner, but I can’t wait. I’m so incredibly grateful when I see Wendy, Juniper, Summer, and Silvie all standing by the bookmobile.
“I’ve never been happier to see a group of girls in my life,” I say as I run toward them.
“Everything okay?” Juniper gives me an odd look. “You look like you’ve been running. Your face is flushed.”
“I was running. Last night was crazy. Crazy, I tell you,” I say dramatically, about to fall to pieces.
Silvie stares at me for a couple of seconds, looking concerned. “Does this have anything to do with you and Luke?”
“How did you guess?”
“I was just speaking to Cal earlier this morning, and he mentioned that you guys were there last night and had some interesting interactions.”
I wonder how early they were speaking and if it was in bed, but I don’t ask.
“What do you mean, interesting interactions?” I stare at her. “What was Cal saying?”
“He was just saying that he thought he saw you guys arguing at one point and that it seemed like a couple’s argument. So, he was asking me if I was sure that your relationship was fake like ours is because, shit …” Her voice trails off. “Well, he thought it looked kind of real.”
“It’s not real, okay? Is your marriage to Cal real?”
“No, of course not. We are getting married so I can get the inheritance from my family because my sister is a slut and she slept with my fiancé.” Her lower lip trembles.
“And I know I look like I’m sad right now, but I’m really not.
Did I think he loved me? Yes. But did I really want to marry him? No.”
“It still sucks that your sister did that to you.”
“It’s just reprehensible.” She sniffs.
“It was abominable,” Juniper adds. “So, what’s going on, Mia? Why were you running? Because you never run.”
“Okay, girls …” I look around the beach. “I need to tell you something, but this has to stay between us.”
“Of course,” Wendy says. “Everything we tell each other stays between us.”
“Good. Last night got kind of intense.”
“When you were dancing on top of the bar?” Juniper giggles. “We always dance on top of the bar.”
“No, not then. I mean, when we got back to the hotel room.”
“What happened?” Wendy asks with wide eyes.
“Luke and I … well …” I lick my lips slowly. “We might have kind of—”
“Did you guys have sex?” Juniper’s jaw drops. “You guys were definitely looking overly friendly, and when you kissed, I could have sworn I saw tongue. But sex, Mia? Really?”
“No,” I say loudly. “No, of course we didn’t.”
“Phew, because, girl, I was about to say, remember, this is just meant to be an act, not for real, real.”
“We didn’t have sex, but we kind of touched—or he kind of touched me.”
“Ooh, tell us more.” Summer grins. “I want all the juicy details.”
“Me too,” Silvie says, nodding.
“Look, he might or might not have pulled off my top, and I might or might not have had a bra on, and he might or might not have kissed my breasts and touched me somewhere else.”
“No way,” Juniper says. “Did he go down on you?”
“No, but he—we kind of just fooled around. Very hot and very heavy, and, yes, I orgasmed, and, I am out of my mind, girls, I don’t know what to do.
He’s Luke. He’s my best friend, and we are totally doing things we should not do.
It’s totally going against rule number two, which is no physical intimacy, no touch that crosses any lines, and, oh, we’ve crossed so many lines. ”
“I can tell you from my experience that entering into a fake relationship or marriage is not for the faint of heart,” Silvie says softly. “I know Cal and I—well …” She blushes slightly. “It’s kind of complicated for us as well.”
“Oh?” I turn to her with narrow eyes. “In what ways is it complicated?”
“I don’t want to talk about it now,” she says quickly. “I’m just saying, I think something complicated is just happening to all of us this summer.”
Wendy nods. “Carter and I—well …” She goes a deep red. “Let’s just say, he’s not just a guest at the bed-and-breakfast.”
“Wait, did you and Carter fuck?” I ask her.
She gives me a look. “No, but …” She grins. “Let’s just say, that man knows how to work his tongue.”
“Whoa.” We all look at Summer next and I can tell she’s nervous about what question we’re going to ask her.
“What about you, Summer?” I ask.
“Me?” She blushes a light shade of pink. “I have zero men. Dayton might or might not have seen some naughty pics of me, and, well, it’s a little intense there, but nothing is going on.”
Oh shit, something is definitely going on.
“What about you, Juniper?” she says, changing the subject quickly.
“Well, I definitely have zero men, and you all know that.” Juniper lets out a deep sigh. “That’s why I run a bookstore selling mainly romance books because I don’t get romance in my real life, so I need it from my books.”
“I’m there with you, Juni. We own the bookstore together, and I love a romance book.”
“Yeah, but you have Luke.”
“I don’t have Luke though. He’s my friend—emphasis on F-R-I-E-N-D.”
“If you say so,” she says.
“Anyway, I don’t know. What should I do? Should I tell Luke we can’t continue down this path?”
“Do you want to continue down this path?” Wendy stares at me. “Did you enjoy whatever went down last night?”
I nod slowly. The truth of the matter is, I more than enjoyed the previous evening. In fact, even though it is still morning, I am looking forward to this evening because I want to see what is going to go down next.
“I just feel like we’ve been friends for such a long time, and this is kind of a slippery slope, and I know many friends don’t recover when they’re intimate like this.”
“It’ll be fine,” Juniper says. “He’s Luke. He’s always going to be there for you. Plus, he lives in New York. Who cares? Even if it doesn’t go well, you’ll stop speaking for a couple of weeks, and then you’ll FaceTime him, and it’ll be all good again.”
“I suppose,” I say, nodding slowly.
My phone beeps, and I look down at the screen. I laugh when I see Luke’s name—speak of the devil. I quickly open his message.
“Luke says he’s going to come join us after lunch and that he’ll bring my swimsuit if I want him to so we can go on an afternoon dip.”
“Ooh, ooh,” Silvie says. “I think the man wants to see you in a bikini.”
“I think he doesn’t really care about seeing me in a bikini when he saw me with nothing on last night.
” I laugh, and all the girls join in cackling alongside me.
“I’m feeling so tired,” I say, wiping sweat from my forehead as Juniper and I sort through a new stack of books that was just delivered. “It’s so hot already.”