Page 62 of Fake It For Him

“Fair enough.” I smiled against his skin and ran my fingers lightly along his side. “Do you want to talk about what happened earlier that set you off?”

“No, not really. Finn was just being an asshole. I meant it when I said I shouldn’t have let him get to me so easily. At this point, I don’t even really know why I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Tonight wasn’t about you or about him. That’s why you weren’t expecting it. You must’ve thought he’d be civil for Freya’s sake.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s it.” He stroked his fingers through my hair. “You know, cuddling isn’t too bad, but is the pillow talk mandatory? I really don’t want to think about my brother right now.”

I tried putting myself in his shoes, imagining what it must feel like to constantly be on your guard with your own family. I didn’t have any siblings and my parents weren’t close to their own, so I didn’t even have any cousins I could equate it to.

Ultimately, though, I was proud of how he’d switched over from the liquor and that he hadn’t gone off like a shot, so I told him that instead of asking more about whatever Finn had done this time. “I’m proud of you.”

He frowned. “You are? Why?”

“You made a conscious choice back there not to allow him to bring out the hothead in you. You chose not to cause a scene or create any drama.”

“Yeah, that’s not like me,” he joked, but it fell flat. “If you hadn’t been there, I would’ve fucked up. That’s why I said I needed you.”

“You don’t need me. You just need to remember who you are and what you’re trying to achieve, but keep talking like that and I might just let you reward my generosity your way.”

A devilish grin tugged at his lips as he thought it over. Then he suddenly rolled, putting me on my back and covering my torso with his own. Pinning me to the mattress, one of his hands slid into mine and lifted it up to press it into the pillow against the headboard. That grin stayed on his lips as he lowered his head, pressing kisses to my neck.

He spoke against my skin. “Keep talking like what? Keep telling you why I need you to do this with me?”

I nodded. My eyes closed and I focused on the weight of him on top of me and the feel of his strong hand in mine. Calan was so very real like this, when he was everywhere, consuming all my senses and stealing the breath right out of my lungs.

As much as I knew it was bad for me, I loved being with him this way. Not only because he always rocked my world, but mostly because this was when it felt the most real. When he wasn’t acting, hiding, or putting up that bad-boy front. When it was just us, being honest and having fun together.

This was why I had agreed to see it through. The truth was that I hated lying to his family. I really did. Carrying that gift back here, it’d felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I’d kept hearing Freya’s voice in my ears telling me what it was for and it’d hurt.

It’d really torn me up knowing that she’d bought me something that expensive for no reason other than to show her affection to her brother’s so-called girlfriend. It’d also really driven it home to me just how serious our lie was.

We were pretending to have a relationship and she was welcoming me into their already broken family. Since my own family was broken too, the last thing I wanted was to bring more destruction to theirs.

But when it was just him and me, that was when it felt good. Right. When it was just us, we could stop acting. We were honest. More honest than either of us were with other people, it seemed.

“I need you because when you’re with me, your voice is in my ear reminding me of what it’s really about,” he murmured as he kept kissing my throat. “When you’re there, you don’t let my ego get the better of me.”

I pushed my fingers into his hair, arching my back into him as his lips kept trailing down. “You’re my partner in crime, Ella. I didn’t realize how much I needed that until now. Is that what you want to hear?”

I hummed a noise at the back of my throat, and when he looked up at me, I shook my head. “The only thing I want to hear now is more about those plans you had to reward me.”

That naughty grin appeared on his lips again. The fingers of his free hand dipped underneath the hem of my pajama shirt. “Well, it starts with getting you out of these hideous pajamas.”

“They’re not hideous,” I protested even as I lifted my back when he started pulling the shirt off. “They’ve got kittens on them. Who doesn’t like kittens?”

“Me, but that’s a conversation for a different day.” He pulled the shirt free and tossed it away, smiling as he lifted his head to look at my boobs. I’d taken my bra off when we’d gotten in bed—obviously—and Calan sucked one of my nipples into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it until it was nice and hard before he released it. “That’s much better.”

My breathing had sped up already, but when he brought his mouth to the other nipple, I moaned. “What’s wrong with kittens?”

He smiled, tugging my nipple between his teeth in a perfect mix of pleasure and pain before he arched an eyebrow at me. “They’re like tiny demons with knives as claws, packaged to look cute so people will willingly bring them into their houses. Is this really what you want to talk about?”

I shrugged, my cheeks heating. I watched him lick a slow circle around the nipple he’d just let out of his mouth. “Well, yeah. I like learning new things about you.”

“And I like making you come,” he murmured against my skin. “Think you can let me do that now without distracting me with talk of those tiny demons?”

My pulse spiked when he hooked his fingers around the waistband of my pants and started pushing them down. “Wait a second.”

He stopped immediately, eyes darting up to mine. “What’s wrong?”