Playing Pretend by Cassie-Ann L. Miller

Forty

Liam

“Are you lost?”Eliza clings to my neck and tightens her legs around my hips as I bumble out of yet another room lining the dark corridor.

“Shit, sorry,” I mutter. “That’s the utility room.”

She laughs into my neck, raking her soapy fingers through my hair. We’re tracking dishwater all across this house.

When she slides the velvety pad of her tongue up the side of my throat, I jostle into a doorframe and stub my toe. Ouch!

I’m trying to keep my shit together but I’m distracted by the devilish angel in my arms.

With my shoulder, I push open a door further down the hallway. “Oops! Staircase up to the attic.” With her ass cupped in my wet palms, I stumble along and try the door across the hallway. “Okay, great. Here we are.”

I grin impishly as I step into the master bedroom and carry her over to the bed.

Laid out on my sheets, Eliza grabs at the hem of my shirt and giggles. “When you keep getting lost inside your own house, that’s how you know you might need to downgrade.”

I lower myself over her to kiss her swollen lips. “Or maybe that’s how I know I need somebody to share this big house with.”

Damn—I actually said that out loud?

Fuck it. I’m not taking my words back. I’ve seen the shitty hole in the ground where she lives. I’d rather have her here with me.

The playfulness drops off of her face and she hits me with a vulnerable stare. “For how long?”

“What…?” Cupping her breasts through her dress, I trail my lips across her delicious clavicle.

“The Varner deal will be finalized in a few weeks…and then you won’t need me anymore.”

“What are you talking about, woman?” I’m too drunk on lust to be having this conversation. Dropping to my knees, I raise the hem of her dress and drag my mouth up the inside of her thigh.

She sighs with pleasure but somehow remains focused on the conversation. “Okay, maybe you’ll need me as your assistant—at least I hope so. But you won’t need this.” She motions around the bed with her hand.

From my kneeling position, I cup her wet pussy through her soaking panties and smirk at her. “Eliza, I will always need this.”

She cranes her neck to make eye contact. “Be serious, Liam. You won’t need me as your wife.”

“You’re wrong,” I say simply. Too afraid of my surging feelings to say more. I dive in and cover her still-clothed pussy with my mouth.

She moans and writhes against the sheets at the unexpected contact.

Then, yanking the hem of her dress back into place, she scoots up the bed to get away from me. “I can’t think straight with your lips on me,” she protests. With a grave expression, she looks me in the eyes. “Liam, I don’t want you to say things to me just to spare my feelings. I’m a big girl. I’d rather just hear the truth.”

“The truth?” I hawk from where I’m crouched on the floor. “The truth is you’ve had me under a spell since the very first time I saw you. The truth is I think about you all hours of the day. The truth is you are the biggest fucking distraction I’ve ever encountered in my life…And yet, you’re fucking worth it.”

“Oh, Liam…” She takes my face in her hands.

“Why does it have to end for us?” I ask, almost pleading. I grab her wrist and gently kiss the inside of her palm. “Why can’t we just fucking stay together? After the contract expires and the Varner bullshit is over, why can’t we just stay together?”

Eyes brimming, she leans down and kisses my face all over. “I want that so damn much but…”

“I don’t want to hear the ‘buts’. I just want you.” It feels safe to be honest with her, to tell her a truth that I didn’t understand until very recently. “For years, I’ve been resentful toward my father. When I was growing up, he seemed like a superhero to me. He had all these plans. He’d tell me all his dreams for Sin Valley.” Eliza listens to me unblinkingly as I speak. “Then his business partner screwed him over and he didn’t fight back. But here’s the part I never wanted to admit to myself…”

“What’s that?” the beautiful woman asks quietly.

“Mom was pregnant with my brothers at the time. It was a rough pregnancy. She was struggling every day.” My entire system flinches as I prepare to utter this out loud. “Dad didn’t fight back against his business partner because he was busy taking care of his wife, his family. My father chose family and in my little messed up brain, I decided that his relationship is what kept him mediocre, what distracted him from becoming a great man. And I decided that, if I ever had to choose, I’d choose career, success.”

“Oh, Liam…” She cups my cheek tenderly.

I press my mouth to hers. “But with you, Eliza, I see that I was wrong. I don’t have to choose at all. I can have both. We can have both.”

She whimpers. “I wish so much that we could have that…But it’s not so simple.”

I don’t care about her excuses. She’s going to be mine. I slide my body over hers so that I’m looming above her. We kiss and touch each other until lost again in a spinning world of emotions. When Eliza unbuttons my shirt and pants, I shrug out of my clothes.

I move my hands up and down her body, hating her dress for coming between us. I fall onto my back and pull her on top of me so I can reach her zipper. We kiss some more while I get her out of all her clothes.

“Reach into the drawer for a condom,” I whisper against her lips.

She does as I ask. Then, she rips open the packet and rolls the latex on.

The sound she makes as her pussy glides down my cock makes goosebumps crop up all over my skin. Eliza rolls her luscious hips making waves with her sensual body.

I lie there contentedly trapped beneath her, cradling her bouncing tits and thumbing her swollen clit.

Before long, she’s picking up the tempo, going faster and harder, taking my cock deeper into her body. She grabs onto the mahogany railings of the headboard. She’s riding me so hard, it feels like she’s about to flip the bed over.

I goad her on, smacking her ass. “Yes, baby, like that. Ride it. Ride this dick.”

She starts shuddering from somewhere deep inside her. Those slick inner walls squeeze and pulse relentlessly.

My eyes stay on her face. “Look at you. You’re fucking gorgeous. I can’t believe I get to make you come.” I slam my pelvis upward, fucking her good as she falls apart all over my cock.

My orgasm sweeps in out of nowhere. In an instant, I’m groaning with pleasure as my release shoots out in electric bursts.

Eliza is a sweaty, panting mess when she falls into my arms. I hold her tightly to my chest, kind of terrified at the idea of losing her once we see this Varner deal through to the end.

“I’m sure a guy like you has a rule against cuddle sessions with your sweaty, naked, fake wife…” she mutters with a sleepy chuckle against my chest. “Maybe I should call a cab.” Her arms wrap tighter around my torso, a perfect contradiction between her words and her actions.

No fucking way.

“Or maybe we could say fuck the rules and you could stay the night just because being together feels good,” I whisper against her sweaty hairline.

Making a habit of our sleepovers probably won’t end well. But the lines are blurring, and it’s becoming harder to recall why we put an end date on that damn contract to begin with. My life runs on deadlines, agendas and schedules. But I never planned on falling for Eliza Jenkins.

Hell, Eliza Kline.

It isn’t long before I hear her snoring peacefully against my chest.

I press my lips to her forehead. “I broke all my rules for you, Eliza. And I don’t regret a thing.”