Chapter Twenty-Three
DYLAN
“S o what’s your favorite color, band, and sexual position?” I stared at Rhyland from across the round table between us. We were sipping champagne—real champagne, not prosecco—and sharing a mouthwatering flatbread with herbs and artichokes and honey drizzled on it.
I ordered steak for an entrée, and he ordered a chicken salad. This place was not a coffee shop at all. It was a restaurant, and a damn expensive one. There were candles between us, French ballads playing softly in the background, antique chandeliers.
I knew this date wasn’t going to end up in the sack, so it was all a moot point. I didn’t really need to find out things about Rhyland. I could wing it out of any situation by bullshitting my way through.
“Pink, Oasis, clear the table.” He folded his hands, accentuating his crazy-buff biceps.
“Pink?” My champagne went down the wrong pipe, causing me to cough into my fist. “That’s your favorite color?”
“What’s not to like about pink? It’s the color of nipples and pussy—both my favorite things.” He squinted at me from behind his champagne, taking a slow sip as his lips spread into a taunting smirk. “Do I sense prejudice here? What’s wrong with a man loving on pink?”
“Absolutely nothing. You just give purple vibes.”
“Why do I—” he started. Then he shook his head, looking amused. “You know what? No way is he going to ask us about our favorite colors or sexual positions. He probably thinks anal play is the equivalent of signing a lease on a new condo in hell with your dick.”
“Fair enough. Let’s try to narrow down what he might ask about.” I snorted. “Probably how we got together and when.”
“We need to come up with a story.” He snapped his fingers, pointing at me. “Help me out here. You’re the one with the big brain and great ideas.”
I loved that Rhyland made me feel smart and reminded me of it so frequently. No one else ever did. Not because I wasn’t smart but because people hardly noticed it. I didn’t fit into the stereotype of a smart person. I was just a single mom with a bar job.
“Well, we need to keep it real. He knows you used to entertain for money.” I bit into the flatbread, which was orgasmic, and chewed with gusto. “I think our safest option is to make our romance short but intense. Like, we hooked up last Christmas and decided we couldn’t live without each other.”
“Who hit on who?” Rhyland asked, noticing I was plucking the black olives from the flatbread and helping me out with the task.
“You hit on me, obviously.” I rolled my eyes. “We need to make it believable. Authenticity is key, Coltridge.”
“When are we getting married?” He passed me the olive-less piece of flatbread he was working on.
“Sometime next year.” I waved him off. “Best to put a buffer to allow sufficient time for the breakdown of our engagement.”
“Who’s going to break it off?”
I pointed to myself. “I already thought about it. We need something to make you look like the good guy so your professional relationship with him doesn’t suffer. I’m going to leave you for two werewolf shifters named Dolph and Claws.”
“I think we have two different ideas about what ‘authenticity’ means.” Rhy squinted, and I laughed.
The waitress stepped between us with our plates, slipping mine onto the table first before setting his salad in front of him with a beam. “Hi, Rhyland.”
“Hey, Wendy.”
Wendy licked her lips, looking between us awkwardly. She was objectively gorgeous, with an irresistible pout and long platinum hair that reached her lower back. “You, um, haven’t answered my texts?”
I pressed my lips together to keep myself from laughing. Rhyland’s salacious lifestyle was biting him in the ass, and I had a front-row seat for the occasion.
To his credit, Rhy didn’t seem too ruffled by her accusatory tone. “I wanted to tell you face-to-face.” He reached for my hand as I was grabbing another piece of flatbread, bringing my knuckles to his lips from across the table. The flatbread dropped between us. “I’m engaged now. It was all very sudden, but I met the one.” He made sure she got a good look at my rented engagement ring.
“Oh.” Her face closed off, her shoulders squaring. Her gaze scooted to me, and she forced out a smile. “Congratulations. That’s great.”
“Thanks.”
When she scurried away, disappearing into the kitchen, I shot Rhyland an inquisitive look. “Wow. That was cold.”
“She’s been bombarding me with text messages and emails for weeks,” Rhy explained. “I’ve been trying to let her down easy for a while now.”
“Rhyland Lucas Coltridge, did you take me here deliberately to break a girl’s heart?” My jaw dropped to the floor.
“Not really, but it was a nice bonus.”
“Is there any female in this zip code you haven’t slept with?”
“Pfft, of course.” He popped cubed chicken into his mouth, parking his elbows on the table. “First of all, there’s you.” He gestured toward me. “And I barely made my way through Forty-Fourth Street and Fourth Ave.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this”—I dug into my juicy steak—“but I feel kinda bad about cockblocking you.”
“Don’t,” he croaked.
“Why?”
“Because variety doesn’t equal freedom.” He popped a piece of chicken into his mouth. “And if I had the freedom to choose, I’d still choose you.” His eyes scurried back to his dish, and he took a forkful of a bite. “As a fuck buddy, of course.”
“Then why are you holding back?” My pulse gathered above my eyelid, thump-thump-thumping like a hummingbird. “There’s literally nothing at stake. Row’s not going to know.”
“Maybe, but I will, and I’d never forgive myself.”
I had nothing to say to that. I didn’t want to push him around. Not that he couldn’t take it—Rhyland was a big boy.
But then he added, “But I’m beginning to see that I’m fine living with the guilt if it means I can have you.”
“What do you mean?” I blinked.
“After those two kisses, I’m starting to think we’re inevitable. I think we always were. Since you were eighteen.” A tiny pulse of silence. “Fucking is baked into our fake engagement if you want it to be. As long as you understand it’s not contingent on you getting paid.”
“I get it.”
From this point on, we both pretended to focus on getting to know each other. I found out he was part of a bridge club and a thriller book club and that he’d won a few mini golf tournaments. That the woman who bought his penthouse for him hadn’t hired him to be her fake date at all—she was actually an elderly widow who felt lonely, and he still saw her twice a week for a game of bridge and some bickering about thrillers they buddy-read together. Only now he was doing it for free.
I found out he went to see Row in London at least once a month and that he’d never done anything with his business degree, because at first he’d wanted to help Row set up his businesses and travel Europe, but by the time he moved to New York, the fake-dating business was booming and demanded only a fraction of the time he’d have had to invest in working in finance. It was the easy way, and he’d taken it.
I, for my part, told him about my perfect 1600 SAT score, the colleges that had come knocking on my door, and that Mom was the reason I decided to stay in Staindrop. I told him things I had no business sharing. Things that had nothing to do with our fake engagement.
Like the night Gravity was conceived. I was on the pill but also taking antibiotics for a sinus infection. I confessed to Rhyland about the crushing disappointment I felt when I took the pregnancy test and held it in my hand, perched on the closed toilet seat, and my reaction when the second line turned blue. How I’d collapsed on the floor and fallen apart, because the day before I bought that test, I’d received an acceptance letter from a college.
Dad was dead. Mama was recovering. I was finally ready to spread my wings and fly. And then this happened.
When a waitress—not Wendy, who’d disappeared into the ether—came over with the dessert menu, Rhyland didn’t even take a look at it. “Get us one of each for the table.”
Soon, I found myself wolfing down orange-sauced crepes, tarte Tatin, and crème fraiche meringues.
“My favorite one is the tart,” I moaned around my spoon.
Rhyland pressed his lips hard together to avoid a dirty joke, and I grinned back at him.
“Go on—you know you want to.”
“Nah. The only way I can see myself coming inside my best friend’s baby sister without hating myself is if I treat her like a lady.” He sat back, watching me.
“I guess it’s good that you had a vasectomy, but I want you to know I’m also on the pill. And this time, I know better than to disregard antibiotics.” I rolled my tongue along my upper teeth. “We do need to give each other clear health sheets though.”
“I’ll get mine tomorrow.” His upper teeth scraped at his lower lip, and I knew exactly what he wanted to ask me.
“You’re wondering why I didn’t terminate my pregnancy with Gravity.” I set my spoon down.
A lot of people wondered. I’d been accepted to a good college on a full ride. I was about to leave Tucker. I was on the brink of a turning point.
“Yeah.” He tapped his clean spoon on the table. “I kinda do.”
“My mother is a devout Catholic, and I knew it would destroy her if I terminated my pregnancy. But that’s not even why I decided to keep her. I kept her because the truth is I fell in love with her way before I knew her. After the shock and hurt subsided, I felt…enthralled. By the idea that I would have someone of my own. Someone to mold, to take care of, to protect.”
He stared at me with rapt fascination but not an ounce of sympathy, and I appreciated that he didn’t feel sorry for me. So many people did.
“You’re not eating.” I cleared my throat, changing the subject.
“The only thing I’m hungry for is currently hoovering her dessert.”
Butterflies flapped behind my rib cage. “Does this mean we’re heading up to your apartment after this?” Because let’s be real, this wasn’t a romance book, and I was uncomfortably full. To the point where sex would only be possible if he was okay with missionary while I fought my reflux each time he pressed home.
His cock seemed impressive too, from our brief encounter when he’d pressed against me during that fake kiss. No. The kiss wasn’t fake. The feelings attached to it were. And I knew Rhyland joked about ten and a half inches, but honestly? It seemed legit.
“No,” Rhyland said gravely, his voice gruff and a little strained. “As much as I want to take you home and fuck you to oblivion and back, I’ve decided I’m going to do it the right way. We’ll let it unfold organically.”
I pouted. “You and your stupid rules. Just remember not to fall in love with me, because I don’t do relationships.”
“I’m going to try my best here, Cosmos. I mean, who doesn’t like a woman who busts their balls on an hourly basis?”
The date ended too soon, with Rhyland picking up the check and leaving an impressive tip. I never judged a book by its cover, but I always judged people by the gratuity they left. You can learn a lot about a person from the way they treat service providers.
As soon as Rhyland and I entered the elevator, he gave me a playful shove, crowding me against the wall. He boxed me in with his hands on the railing behind me, one hand coming up from the banister. He used his finger to tilt my chin up to meet his gaze.
“Hello, smart mouth.”
“Hello, assh—”
He drowned the rest of my words with a hard, luscious kiss. There was brutal greed in the strokes of his tongue, in the way his whole mouth covered mine. His palms slid from the railings to my butt cheeks, fingers curling around my flesh as he hoisted me up to sit on the railings. My legs spread open of their own accord, the slit of my dress exposing my entire lower body, save for my modesty, which was protected by black satin panties. Yes, I’d bought new panties as soon as I arrived in New York. I’d manifested this entire thing, getting lost in this forbidden, tantalizing man.
Even through my panties, I could smell my lust for him, the sweet earthiness of my desire. I was soaked beneath the flimsy fabric. His mouth slid down my chin, the tip of his tongue teasingly descending along my skin until he reached my breasts. He gave my upper boob a soft bite, and I shuddered, fingers twisting in his hair, ruining his man bun.
“I’d love to fuck you like this. In my favorite position.” He thrust himself between my legs, his cock pressing against my drenched underwear through his pants, and even though his head was blocking my view, I swear, it was ten and a half inches. God help me, I was going to need an epidural before our first time.
I reached between us, giving him a firm stroke. His dick twitched, leaning into my palm like an excitable pet. A tremor tore through me, and our lips collided again, our kiss deep and urgent as I pressed my tits to his defined pecs.
“Fuck me,” I begged into his mouth. “Please, Rhy.” I wrapped my legs around him, rolling my hips to bring the point home.
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. I was sure he was going to let the doors close and take me up to his penthouse. Instead, he grabbed me by the waist and put me down, shoving me out. I whipped my head around to look at him in shock and found him standing there with an unaffected smirk and a messy bun. The only telltale sign that this hot make-out session hadn’t been entirely in my head was the bulge latching onto his upper thigh. He was so long and thick it splayed all the way across to the other side of his hip. My mouth was parched.
“Later, Cosmos.”
“Later, dickwad.”
His laughter rang out across the entire building as the doors closed and I trudged my way to my apartment.