Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 108730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
“It was late. Elena suggested that we stay over and leave the next day.” I pop a Raisinet into my mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Once we got in the bedroom, Carter made a joke about them expecting us to have sex and that we could fake it. I thought he was nuts, but then he crawled onto the bed with me and started banging the bed against the wall. I kinda had to go along.”
Another Raisinet, and I chase this one down with a swallow of wine. Samantha waits impatiently, now nibbling popcorn faster than a chipmunk stuffing its cheeks for winter.
“It was ridiculous. But it was kinda . . . fun?” I tilt my head, thinking back. “I said some stuff that was . . .” Shyly, I smile and meet Samantha’s eyes. “Kinda kinky. Stuff you told me about, and Carter seemed to like it. He said some stuff too.”
“Did you like what he said?” Samantha asks carefully. She’s not quite in professional mode, but almost.
Chewing slowly, I confess, “I did. But we didn’t . . . do anything. Or not anything sexy. We didn’t even touch during the fake sex. But we talked after, and he was different than I thought. He puts a lot of pressure on himself . . . and he called me pretty.” I shouldn’t have told her that part, but it blurted out before I could squash it down.
“Shit. I told you not to fall for his act, Luna, and you went and fell anyway with the slightest compliment from a man who gives them out like a shady masseuse gives out hand jobs.” Samantha shakes her head, frowning in disappointment.
“It wasn’t like that,” I argue.
“It wasn’t?” she questions. “Are you sure?”
I drop my eyes to the rapidly disappearing candies in my hand and then toss the last few back in one go. “I didn’t fall for him. I just maybe-sorta-kinda don’t hate him as much as I did. And there was no hand job involved—for either of us.”
“Luna, he’s no less of an asshole than he was before. He’s pulling a fake marriage charade for a business deal and he fake fucked you to really sell it. Who cares if he’s slightly human deep beneath all that?”
Maybe I do.
The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t say them aloud. Mostly because I’m not sure whether I believe them or not.
Carter was different than I thought, but he also assumed I’d continue the farce until Elena agreed to the deal, which was not what we discussed. And there’s a definite sense of ‘poor, pitiful prince’ to his worries about impressing his family.
But there was something surprisingly sexy in the way he looked at me sometimes . . . in his hand squeezing my thigh . . . and in waking up in the cage of his arms with him pressed to my back. Or maybe I’m horny and the mere proximity of a man is sending me into a stupor?
Beep-beep-beep.
“Saved by the bell,” I sigh gratefully as I realize the alarm means it’s time to work again. “Forty-five minutes and we’ll reconvene.”
“Of course,” Samantha huffs. “This isn’t finished.”
Despite claiming that, she does return to her spot on the couch and drops her eyes to her notes as she grabs a pink highlighter. “Note to self, get Luna a new toy so she doesn’t hop on Carter’s dick and get her heart broken in the process.”
“Samantha!”
She shrugs, not embarrassed in the slightest to be talking about letting your fingers do the walking. I eat two more Raisinets before I sit down to work on Alphena some more.
I’m on page twenty-three now after several sleepless nights of work. Not sleepless because I couldn’t actually go to sleep but because every time I did, Carter was waiting in my dreams. Only the sex wasn’t fake. It was very, very real, and I’d wake up hot and liquid, so burying myself in work was preferable to burying my fingers in myself.
As I focus on Alphena, I can’t help but ask myself WWAD? What would Alphena do with this whole situation? Would she take the fake marriage in stride and continue helping someone in need or protect herself and walk away before it all blows up in her face? Maybe she’d fuck him for fun, her heart clad behind some Alpha-bitch armor?
Or maybe take the biggest risk of all and see if there could be anything real with Carter?
I honestly don’t know.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
CARTER
There was a time that being invited to my father’s office felt like a privilege. I was eager to learn or to show off. But somewhere along the way, it morphed into a summons to my doom. Dramatic, but it’s one of the few things that makes me grit my teeth instantly because there’s no winning in Dad’s office.