Chapter 30
Marcus stared after Frankie, who had strolled off as if dismantling his sabotage traps had been penciled onto her morning schedule.
The cat? Total failure. She’d cuddled the damn gremlin.
The ghost warning? She’d laughed. Actually laughed. His attempt to terrify her had landed as comedy instead.
Two sabotage attempts. Two epic fails.
Only one tactic left on the table. The nuclear option. Catastrophically, unforgivably, bad sex. The kind of performance that would make Yelp reviews weep.
Marcus dragged a hand down his face as he trudged up the stairs. He didn’t want to do it. It violated personal ethics. It dishonored the proud legacy of exes who’d sung his praises over bottomless mimosas.
He took a long shower. Trimmed his nails. Stared at himself in the mirror. Briefly considered relocating to another continent. For a man plotting bad sex, he was disturbingly committed to hygiene.
Thirty minutes later, nowhere near emotionally prepared, he stepped into his bedroom like a man marching toward the gallows of his own reputation.
“Bad kitty!”
He froze, then chuckled.
“Not the shoes! Never the shoes!” Maybe the cat wasn’t a complete failure. One well-timed heel homicide, paired with a disastrous night in bed, and Frankie would pack her Birkin and wigs and bolt in the night.
Another thirty minutes crawled by.
Marcus lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, willing it to cough up another answer to the problem.
None materialized. Bad sex it was. Game plan needed.
Move one: skip the foreplay. No touching, no teasing, no rhythm. Just…efficiency. He winced. The words alone felt like erectile kryptonite.
Move two: Eye contact at the wrong times. Mid-adjustment, mid-condom, mid-everything. Hold it too long. Unblinking. The kind of eye contact that said, “I’m memorizing your dental records.”
Yes, that would definitely kill the mood.
Move three: unnecessary compliments. Not the good kind. The awkward, oddly specific kind. “Nice…elbow.” Or, “Your breathing is so symmetrical.” Maybe even, “That’s a really trustworthy kneecap.”
None of them sounded remotely doable. His body wasn’t wired for mediocrity. Every cell screamed mutiny. The mere thought of Frankie unimpressed made his blood thrum with the urge to deliver a highlight reel, not a blooper reel.
If anything, the thought of Frankie lying beneath him, unimpressed, triggered the exact opposite instinct. His blood already hummed, ready to prove her vibrator was third-string material at best.
His phone dinged with a message.
Frankie: Marcus, how long are you going to hide out in your bedroom?
Not responding, he headed for her room and pushed the door open without knocking. Nothing he was doing tonight would resemble good manners or competent execution. “I’m here. Try to contain your excitement.”
Frankie was stretched out on the covers, one arm tossed dramatically over her head, the other stroking the fur of the cat now perched like a cursed gargoyle at her side.
“It’s a good thing I’m not agreeing to have sex with you because I like your personality, because your personality ranks somewhere between expired yogurt and a speeding ticket. ”
He grunted.
She wore nothing but black lace panties and her own straight blonde hair, the wig abandoned on a nearby lamp.
The cat narrowed its one good eye at him, pure Bond villain…minus the martini and volcano lair.
“Surprised you haven’t tossed him off the balcony yet,” Marcus said.
“Hush. You’ll hurt his feelings.”
“He’s a cat. He’ll cope. You ready?”
This was it. Time to execute his nuclear option. He could do this. His goal tonight was simple. Assassinate his own bedroom reputation. Just plain suck. The thought nearly gave him hives.
“Ready when you are,” she said, her voice silk-smooth but laced with amusement.
He leaned in. No kissing. Too intimate. Instead, he brushed his lips against her collarbone in the most perfunctory graze imaginable, stamping the moment with all the enthusiasm of a man clocking in for work.
Then, reluctantly, gracelessly, he stood, shoved down his boxers, and kicked them aside with a hostility that had nothing to do with the fabric. He removed her underwear in a purely perfunctory manner. “It speeds things up if we start naked.”
She blinked up at him. “Wow. Not even a preheat cycle? Bold choice.”
“I’m tired. Long day. No energy for…sparkles, fireworks, or whatever it is you expect.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Just as I suspected. You’re afraid you can’t do it twice, so now you’re acting all macho to avoid failure. Newsflash, ego doesn’t count as stamina.”
“Fine. Let’s do foreplay. Open sesame.” He sighed heavily and dropped to his knees between hers, every moment weighted with obligation rather than desire.
He pressed his mouth to her inner thigh. Half-hearted. Awkward. A sabotage masterclass.
He mentally ticked the checklist: critique shoe choice (done), show up late (already nailed it), call her by the wrong name. “You like that…Wendy?” The second it left his mouth, he wanted to crawl into the floorboards and live there forever.
He waited for an explosion, but none came. Damn it. Did she not hear him?
He paused and contemplated his next move.
She waited. Tapped her fingers on the blanket. Then finally, “What in the hell are you doing down there, Bob? Having a seizure? Should I call 911, or just fetch you a juice box?”
He sat back on his heels, defeated, shoulders slumped.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I just…can’t concentrate.”
And because humiliation demanded a finale, he leaned back farther, just enough for her to see the undeniable tragedy in his lower half.
No movement. No bulge. Just spectacular, calamitous flaccidity. The sexual equivalent of a car refusing to start in front of an entire wedding party.
Of course he wasn’t hard. No one got turned on while auditioning for Worst Lay in America.
She gave him a long, assessing stare. Then, without a word, she opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a vibrator.
Not the discreet lipstick one. No. This was the jackhammer edition. Obnoxiously pink. Unapologetically powerful. The kind of thing that came with a warning label and possibly a warranty.
Marcus blinked. “You keep that next to the bed?”
She tilted her head. “Where else would I keep it? On the coffee table as a centerpiece?”
Then, like it was no big deal, she sat up, patted his chest twice, and said, “Maybe tomorrow night. If you earn it.”
He blinked. “Wait, you’re benching me?”
“I’m not benching you. I’m setting you free.” She flopped back onto the pillows, turned on the vibrator, and cycled through the settings. Click. Buzz. Whir. Turbo. Earthquake mode. The thing practically rattled the earth.
She finally settled on a setting with a content hum and gave a satisfied nod. “Some men can’t perform with an audience. And Sir Hissalot was definitely giving ‘nun with a ruler’ vibes ready to whack your knuckles for inadequate form.”
The cat yawned. Loudly.
Marcus stood, dazed and humiliated. He yanked his boxers up with a snap.
Sir Hissalot hissed.
For half a second, Marcus teetered. Screw the plan. Screw the sabotage. She was stretched across the bed, bare skin glowing in the lamplight, and he could still kiss her until she forgot her own name. Hell, until she forgot vibrators existed. He wanted to. God, he wanted to.
But then she flicked her fingers at him, all casual dismissal. “Shoo. Sleep it off. Maybe tomorrow night you’ll remember how to act like a man who’s actually passed Sex Ed.”
Before he could do something monumentally satisfying and stupid simultaneously…like abort the mission, he turned, spine stiff, walked out, and shut the door. The click sealed his sentence.
The hallway stretched in front of him, quiet and merciless. He’d just failed at failing sex. Not bad enough to chase her off. Not good enough to salvage his ego. Which meant tomorrow night, he’d have to come back and try again…to suck, and suck better.
Had to convince her once and for all that the first night had been a fucking fluke.
“Fuck me.”