Fake Shot (Boston Rebels Book 2)

I’m more keyed up than I should be by the end of the night.

The number of times that Colt’s hands have been on me has left me flustered and sexually frustrated. He knows just how to turn me on—a gentle touch that turns firm, his body pressed against mine, his tone bossy and seductive.

I don’t know if I’m so transparent and my lust is so obvious that he figured this out easily, or we’re just more sexually compatible than either of us probably would have guessed. What I do know is that I’ve been on dozens of first dates over the past couple of years, and not a single guy has gotten me revved up the way Colt can with a single touch.

“Here,” he says, as he slides his suit coat off and drapes it over my shoulders while we walk across the lobby of the hotel where the gala was held. “It’s cold out.”

“Thanks,” I mutter. While being wrapped up in his warm clothing that smells faintly of him, with his arm around me holding me to his side, is actually exactly what I want, the need to push him away and keep myself safe is greater now than it ever has been.

But I’m also aware that we’re walking out with several of his teammates, and it would be beyond suspicious if I refused his jacket, especially while the lobby door is being held open and the chilly night air is sweeping into the space, so I go along with it.

He gives his ticket to the valet, and we say goodbye to his teammates, most of whom are half-wasted and piling into cabs to go home. I shiver as the breeze picks up again, tangling my long dress around my legs. Colt backs me into the corner of the stone walls, behind the valet stand.

“What are you doing?” My words are quiet because there are other couples huddled in this recessed area outside the doors waiting for their own cars.

He leans one hand on the wall behind me, his body close to mine. “Keeping you warm.”

“Colt,” I say, putting a hand on his chest to keep a little distance between us. “You can’t keep saying you don’t want me, then acting like you do.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want you, Jules. I said I couldn’t have you. The difference between those two things is enormous.”

“That’s not fair to me.” I’m determined not to be strung along like this. “You’re saying one thing but doing another. It’s confusing, and it’s frustrating.”

“You don’t seem frustrated.” His knuckles graze my jawline as he traces a path from my chin toward my ear, and at first, I lean into his touch. Then, remembering that this can only lead to even more frustration, I tilt my face away so his hand falls, but instead of lowering it completely, he rests his fingertips over my collarbone and his palm against my cleavage. I’m sure he can feel the way my heart is pounding, because his lips curve up at one corner into a smirk.

“My body is frustrated, Colt. You’re toying with me like this is some sort of cat-and-mouse game. It’s one thing to put on a show when we need to convince people.” I glance around this waiting area and there’s no one we even know left here. We could easily be standing side by side and no one would question whether we were together. “But what’s this? Right now?”

“This is me, wanting to be close to you.”

“That’s not how fake works,” I remind him quietly. I’m too frustrated to stop myself from saying something, even if it means I might reveal too much.

Leaning his face a fraction of an inch closer, his lips ghost over my forehead as he speaks. “How does it work, then?”

“You touch me only when absolutely necessary.”

“Define absolutely necessary. Because this feels pretty damn necessary to me.”

“No, absolutely necessary is only when other people are around. Only when we need to sell this engagement as real.”

He shrugs. “Sorry, I am who I am.”

“Yeah, well, I am who I am, too. And I don’t let guys touch me and get me all . . .” I search for the right word, but Colt beats me to it.

“Turned on?”

“Sure. I don’t let guys get me all turned on if they don’t plan to do anything about it.” I say this as though I’ve ever moved beyond kissing someone.

“Do you want me to do something about it?” His voice is a seductive sound that curls around me. He sounds both hopeful and dubious at the same time.

I remind myself not to reveal too much. “Colt, I don’t even know if you’re asking that question seriously. All I know is, you’re too good at faking it.”

“I told you last night that I wasn’t faking the way I want you.”

“You also said you couldn’t do anything about it,” I say, my voice firm as I remind him that he was the one who said this was a bad idea. “But you never even asked me what I wanted, Colt. You’re acting like this is all about you and your feelings. What about mine?”

His hand slides up from my chest to snake around my neck, pulling me closer as he dips his chin so that his lips meet my ear, and in that low, deep voice of his, he asks, “What is it you want, Jules?”

There’s a moment when I consider being honest, telling him how much my body craves his. My pulse increases as I imagine us going home and not going our separate ways once we were there. We would be absolute fire in the bedroom, I’m certain of it with every fiber of my being. I want to know what it would be like to be with him in that way.

But that’s all it would ever be with him . . . just physical. I’d be just another woman he’d fucked. Then at the end of the season, he’d cast me aside, like he has with every other woman who’s shared his bed. It’s what we’d agreed to earlier, and I’m not sure I could go back to being friends after sleeping with him.

Keeping my voice hushed, I tell him, “I want you to respect the agreement we had, and the promise you made to Jameson. This is only for appearances, and you’ll only touch me when absolutely necessary.”

My hand still rests on his chest, and I use it to create a little more space between us. When he’s pressed up against me, his hand over my heart or curled around my neck, I can’t focus on anything but him. I need distance so I can think clearly. Based on his expression, he’s not only surprised but also . . . disappointed?

“You’re probably right,” he says.

“Excuse me, sir,” the valet says as he taps Colt on the shoulder, “your car.”

Colt hands the guy a folded-up bill as he takes the key, then he guides me to the passenger side, where he opens the door for me, hands me my seatbelt once I’m seated, leans in, and says, “There’s a photographer about half a block down, so try to look like you like me, yeah?”

I keep my head tilted up toward him as my eyes flick to the left, looking down the block. And sure enough, a guy stands there with a camera and a telephoto lens pointed right at us. What the hell? In general, hockey players are not famous enough that the paparazzi follow them around. But maybe there’s more interest in our engagement than I thought?

My eyes flick back toward Colt just in time to notice that his face is only inches from mine and descending quite quickly. But he doesn’t move in for the kiss I’m expecting. Instead, he cups my jaw in one hand while kissing my forehead gently, and then he’s stepping back and shutting my door.

I spend the short ride back to my house debating the merits of having a frank conversation with Colt about why this is hard for me. He has to know I used to have a crush on him, but maybe he doesn’t know the extent of it, and I’m sure he thinks I’m long over it.

The only way I can think to make him understand is to give him all the details about Vegas—to tell him why I went back downstairs after he brought me to my room, and to tell him what happened after I woke up in the morning. But I’d have to share things I’ve never told anyone but Audrey.

How would I tell him everything without him feeling absurdly guilty and without me looking like a complete moron? There is no way. Plus, I’m not sure I’m ready to be that vulnerable with Colt.

So we drive in silence while I rehash the past, all while still feeling the way he touched me over and over again tonight, and I arrive home even more confused and sexually frustrated than I was when I left that hotel ballroom with him twenty minutes ago.

“I’m going to bed,” I say, the minute we walk through the door.

“Already?” he asks, glancing at the fancy watch on his wrist.

“It’s after eleven.”

“On a Saturday night,” he says.

“Yeah, but I was up late last night because of the game, and I need to be up early tomorrow morning.”

“What for?” he asks. Everyone knows I’m not a morning person, but it doesn’t seem to matter. After years in construction, my body is wired to wake up before the sun, even on the weekends.

I press my lips together, realizing that I’m going to have to take my weekly video call in my closet, where he won’t be able to overhear it, instead of at the dining room table where I normally chat with Jeannine. “I have my weekly therapy session on Sunday mornings.”

The look he gives me is . . . I don’t even know. Approving? Proud?

“Alright,” he says, a small smile gracing his lips. “Goodnight, then.”

As he turns and walks up the stairs, I watch him go, noting the way his dress shirt stretches across his back and his suit pants fit his ass. He lifts his arm, running his fingers under his collar across the back of his neck when he gets to the top of the stairs, then I hear his footsteps as he walks along the second-floor landing on the way to the stairs up to his apartment.

It’s then that I realize I’m still wearing his jacket. I’m about to call out for him to wait so I can run the jacket up to him before he gets up to the third floor, but I stop myself. It’s better if I don’t, because meeting him in the hallway right outside my bedroom door has “bad decisions” written all over it. I’m going to have enough of those to unpack when I talk to Jeanine tomorrow morning. I don’t need to add losing my virginity to a man who told me he doesn’t want to want me and said he isn’t any good for me to the list.

Instead, I hang his suit coat over the back of one of the kitchen chairs so he’ll see it there tomorrow, turn out the lights on the first floor, and head up to my bedroom. And once I’m in my closet, I do what I do each night before bed: I take a moment to assess myself in the mirror.

You’re strong.

You’re sober.

You’re safe.

It’s the reassurance that I gave myself after I returned home from Vegas, and have given myself every night since. Tonight, I add another: You’re making good choices. 

Keeping my distance from Colt, except when necessary for keeping up appearances, is the right choice.

I reach behind me and tug at the small hidden zipper that starts at my lower back and unzips several inches down to my tailbone, then loop my thumbs under the thin shiny straps of the gold dress, letting them slide off my shoulders. The material brushes my hardened nipples as I let the dress drop to my hips, then I carefully step out of it, grab the hanger, and return the dress to my closet.

Then, in nothing but the thin lace thong I wore under the dress, I pad across the carpet to the top drawer of the island in the middle of my closet. And there, stored neatly in their boxes, is my entire collection of sex toys. I know exactly what I need tonight—I need a mind-blowing orgasm that will knock these thoughts of Colt right out of my head.

Taking my vibrator out of its box, I start to head back to my bed when I realize that the bedroom door is definitely not soundproof. Colt’s upstairs, I assure myself, it’s fine. This is one of the reasons I was so adamant that he stays in his space . . . I don’t want him overhearing me getting myself off.

I pull my covers back and slip into bed, bringing a pillow down and adding it under my hips to tilt them back for what I know will be the best angle. Tonight, I need it deep. Rough even. I have another vibrator that’s thicker and more powerful, which I’d normally use when I’m looking for that type of experience. But my clit is aching and needs stimulation, and my nipples are pebbled and waiting for my touch, so this vibrator’s combination of the thrusting, plus the clitoral stimulation, will allow me to use my free hand on my breasts.

I give it a few minutes, but even with how revved up I am, how badly I need this orgasm, my body won’t relax enough to let me have it. My brain is too busy pushing the thoughts of Colt out of my head, because coming to images of us together defeats the whole purpose of getting myself off instead of asking him to do it for me.

Moving up onto my knees, I sink down so the vibrator is as deep as it can go, and my thoughts return to Colt, imagining what he’d look like if I was riding him like this. I’m so desperate to come that I stop fighting the pictures in my mind. Glancing into the mirror that runs across the dresser opposite my bed, I note how my full breasts bounce with the movement and imagine his mouth on them. I really want to be riding him instead of this damn vibrator.

I know how big he is because his damn erection has been pushed up against me numerous times this week. He’d fill me in ways this vibrator can’t, and it’s the images of us together, the imaginary feel of him inside me, of his tongue on me, our bodies slapping together, that finally tips me over the edge. The orgasm comes on so hard and so fast that I’m unprepared for it, and I’m crying out as I fall forward on one of my forearms and bury my face in the covers, groaning out my release while riding wave after wave of this orgasm.

When I finish, I turn off the vibrator, setting it aside as I roll onto my back and let out a deep sigh. And that’s when I hear the creaking of the stairs outside my bedroom door.

No.

I try to assure myself that Colt was just coming down the stairs, and that he didn’t hear anything. But as I lie there and listen, I hear him moving around upstairs. Which means he was coming up from the first floor and passing my room right as I orgasmed.

Fuck. Why the hell wasn’t he upstairs in his apartment where he was supposed to be?