novelxo Undeniably Married: Chapter 11
Kiss me like it’s the last time.
My eyes close, and I blow out a breath as I turn the corner and collapse against the wall. Je-sus, that was a kiss. A kiss I don’t want to be the last. I want more kisses that make my toes curl. More sex that blows my mind into the next realm. But that’s why it needs to be the last one, isn’t it?
Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” flickers through my head, and my hand covers my racing heart while I try to slow my breathing.
I’m not in a good headspace for this. I knew it going in, and I ran toward that instead of away from it as I should have. Now look at what I’ve done. I’m married to Mason. I have to move in with him. We have to stay married for three months. And I have to pretend like it’s real when pretending like it’s real is dangerous.
I blink open my eyes and raise my left hand. Fuck, that man bought me a pretty ring.
I have to trust that his PR people know what they’re doing. What other choice do I have if I want this to go away quickly? I mean, right now, it’s as bad as it gets. The fact that I ran off and married Mason after walking out on Brody is everywhere. Brody is Mason’s former teammate, so there’s that added element to the story.
It’s not good. Not good at all.
I hear Mason doing something in the living room, and I quickly scoot down the hall to my room. It smells like him in here, and the bed is sex rumpled. I shoot into the bathroom and slam the door. I can’t breathe. My hands meet my thighs, and I bow my head, trying to calm myself down as a burgeoning panic shoots up through me like a geyser.
I laugh. It’s a bit—or maybe a lot—hysterical.
Oh, god. My hands cover my face. What have I done?
Three months. That’s all it is. I can use that time to look for an apartment. Some place I want to live. Some place just for me. It’s Mason. He’s the problem. He’s exactly what Katy and Tinsley said. Despite his threat to break my rule, I know he cares about and respects me. He was just being his usual charming, flirty self. He’s a guy. He likes sex. That’s just Mason.
I blow out a breath, turn on OK Computer, which is my favorite Radiohead album to full blast through my phone, and just as “Paranoid Android” comes on, I climb in the shower I so desperately need. The food will be here any minute, at least I hope, and I need a few minutes alone to digest everything before I shove food in my stomach.
I start to break this down, focusing on what these months will entail. I’ll have to lie to people. Lie to work colleagues and nosy patients. The press will likely follow us for a bit, and my face and name will appear in places I don’t want it to, likely not portrayed in the best light. I’ve dealt with that before, just on a different scale.
My high school best friend took all our silly videos and recorded chats I didn’t know she was recording and posted them on the internet and social media for everyone to see, laugh at, and ridicule. All my private thoughts that I shared with her. All my secrets. All my weird moments of letting go and being completely me with someone.
I was sixteen and felt like my world had just ended.
We had them taken down, but by the time I learned of it and acted, it was too late. Everyone saw them.
I survived. I turned inward. Years later, I stupidly trusted outside of my circle again, first with Eloise and then with Brody.
Speaking of Brody, I will have to deal with him at some point. At the very least, to get the rest of my stuff. Plus, I think I’m ready to know why. Why get involved with me if he was sleeping with my friend? Why pursue me as hard as he did if it wasn’t genuine? He told me he loved me after a month of dating and wanted me to move in with him shortly after that. When the Rebels picked up his free agency, he asked me to move to Boston with him—which felt like a no-brainer since all of my family with the exception of Serena and my brothers are there—and he proposed the moment I said I would.
But why?
How could he claim to love me when he was sleeping with Eloise?
My back hits the tile wall of the shower, and I sink to the floor, drawing my knees up and bowing my head between my outstretched arms. I told Mason when I asked him to marry me that I didn’t want to look back on my life with regrets, but it’s difficult sitting here like this to have anything but those. Brody might be the biggest of them.
Why isn’t my heart broken?
I was going to marry him. I should be devastated.
If I’m honest with myself, truly searching my soul, I think part of me knew Brody wasn’t right for me. I don’t think he ever understood how I work, but more than that, he never tried to. He wanted a big, flashy wedding when I wanted a small and intimate one. He didn’t care about my work as a doctor and was never supportive when I’d leave to go visit Serena and my brothers, especially if it interfered with football season. Hell, he wouldn’t even let me play my music if he was home. That’s not even the half of it, but it speaks to our entire relationship. I chalked it up to opposites attract, but the reality is, it wasn’t that we were opposites, it’s that our fundamentals weren’t aligned.
When he proposed, I didn’t feel… excited. Or excited enough maybe is a better way to say it. I didn’t burst into tears or feel overwhelming love swim through me. I was happy. That was about it. I didn’t wake up Serena in Paris in the middle of the night to scream into the phone that I was engaged. I never referred to Brody as the love of my life, and I can’t remember a time I ever thought of him that way. I didn’t cry when I saw the texts between him and Eloise. My heart didn’t act like it was being stabbed to death.
It was just another person who I trusted to betray me. Maybe part of me was expecting it or was emotionally detached after what I went through in high school. With that, maybe I’ll never truly fall in love because I don’t know how to trust anyone enough to fully open myself up to them.
I scrub my hands up my face and push back my heavy, wet bangs that are dripping warm water into my eyes, and once again snag on the sparkling diamond band on my left hand. A band that doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere anytime soon. So now that I’ve gotten myself into this mess and learned how I’ll get out of it, I have to figure out how I’ll manage the in-between of being married to Mason.
Married.
He called me his wife this morning while he touched and kissed me. He called me his girl. Hell, he called me Mrs. Fritz-Reyes.
A shudder rolls through me as the memory surfaces, but I quickly push it away. I meant what I said. No more sex and absolutely no sleeping in the same bed with him because, clearly, I am not to be trusted where he’s concerned. I lose my head and my better sense whenever I’m around him. He short-circuits my brain, and I become someone I’m not. Someone who gets themselves into a hell of a lot of trouble.
So that’s how I’ll survive the in-between. By avoiding him whenever possible. By not sleeping with him in any fashion. No more slip-ups. No more giving in to temptation. Sane, rational Sorel is leading this charge once again, and she will not be sidetracked. I am steadfast. I am resolute. From now on, I will only make smart choices for myself.
With that solid plan and mental declaration, I stand and finish showering. I put on the least sexy thing I brought with me—joggers and my old college T-shirt—brush my hair, forgo makeup, and go in search of the food Mason promised me. I find him sitting on the table he fucked me on earlier with a spread of food Henry the Eighth would drool over. As it is, my stomach growls loudly. He has the television on to some sports network without the sound but with the subtitles going.
I’ve never thought much about Mason’s hearing deficit, but I have seen him on occasion wear his hearing aids, and whenever I’ve been at his place and the TV is on, so are subtitles.
“Another picnic?” I question as I climb up onto the table to join him.
Using chopsticks, he slides some noodles from a container into his mouth, his lips coated with a small sheen of grease. He turns to me almost apologetically. “I felt like Henry the Eighth sitting in one of the chairs with all this food before me.”
I blink at him, a little taken aback that I thought nearly the same thing.
“Help yourself,” he continues without missing a beat. “I went a little overboard. That’s what happens when you let a football player order when he’s hungry.” He points to a few boxes on his left with the chopsticks, going over them one by one. “Tacos, pizza, Asian fusion, truffle fries that are some of the best I’ve ever had, some kind of zucchini and corn fritter with pulled chicken on it, a salad with steak that I already ate half of, a spicy lobster pasta thing that looks and smells amazing that I thought you’d like, and dessert.” He smirks. “I got a lot of desserts.”
I grab a rolled-up fabric napkin and unravel it so I can get to a fork. Mason has plates out, but I’m still stuck on the lobster pasta and pick up the container to set it on my lap on top of the napkin.
“How did you know I’d like this?” I remove the plastic lid and inhale the garlic, herbs and spices. Yum.
He shrugs, slurping more noodles into his mouth with his attention back on the television. “I remember you ordered something similar once when we went out.”
“You do?” The words slip past my lips before I can stop them.
His eyes shoot back to mine. “Yes.” He flashes down to the pasta on my lap and then back up at me. “Was I wrong? Bad choice?”
I shake my head, at a loss for words. Brody would never have known what to order for me and I lived with him for almost two years. “No. It’s perfect. Thank you for getting it for me. It’s exactly what I would have ordered for myself given a menu.”
Another shrug. “Cool. Good. Eat up. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I think I have a touch of a hangover stomach. I never eat like this.” He chuckles. “I’ll regret it in about an hour, but right now, it’s all so good I even plan to indulge in the peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake that’s in there.”
That catches my attention. “Peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake?”
He smirks, licking the grease from his lips. “Yup.”
“And what if I want that?”
“I’ll fight you for it. That’s how badly I want it.”
I haven’t even taken a bite of my pasta yet, but now the threat is there. I cover the pasta and set it aside. He sets the container with his noodles down, the chopsticks sticking out of the open lid. The glimmer in his eyes and the challenge on his face gets my heart racing. I look at the only bag on the table. The one he indicated when he mentioned dessert.
“No way you’re faster than me, princess.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Care to place a wager on it, baller?”
“Always.”
I reach for his chopsticks, scoop up a mountain of noodles, and shove them in my mouth. I’m starving, and they looked really good, but I’m also distracting him. “Oh, those are delicious.” Now I’m distracted. They’re spicy and garlicky and crunch with pieces of peanuts.
“Now you know why I was eating them.”
“Here.” I splice a slippery bunch of noodles and feed them to him. Just as he opens for me, I shove the noodles in his mouth, drop the chopsticks, spin around, and go for the bag.
“No fair!” he bellows around a mouthful of noodles that he’s trying to chew at the same time he’s trying to stop me. He grabs my foot, yanks me back, and I kick at him, missing but shirking his grip. “That cheesecake is mine.”
“Not if I get to it first.” I scramble down the table on my hands and knees, nudging to-go containers out of my way. My hand wraps around the handle of the bag at the same time he gets a handful of brown paper. Bastard got off the table and ran, which gave him an unexpected advantage. “Let go!”
“Not gonna happen, princess. That cheesecake is mine. You can have the crème brûlée and cookies.”
“Crème brûlée and cookies are for pussies who lose.”
“Agreed, which is why you’ll be the one eating them and not me.”
Both of us tug back and forth on the bag, the paper crinkling as it rustles on the table with our struggle. Frustrated, he plants a large hand on my chest and pushes me back with his freakishly strong muscles.
“Ah! Hands off! That’s cheating.” I jerk the bag hard in my direction while trying to extricate his hand, and the bag tears in the process. Containers filled with various desserts spill out onto the table, scattering around us. I dive for the one that looks like cheesecake and snatch it away, nearly toppling off the table in the process.
I right myself—but just barely—and gleam in victory at him.
He rolls his eyes dismissively and folds his arms. “Fine. You want it that badly, you can have it.”
“Oh, I want it. If you’re a good boy, maybe I’ll share a bite with you. Maybe.” I pop the top, dip my finger in a dollop of whipped cream, and lick it clean. “Mmm. This is so good. Maybe I won’t share it with you after all.” I smirk and bat my eyelashes tauntingly at him. “Enjoy the cookies and crème brûlée.”
“Now you’re the one not fighting fair.” His eyes darken, but a mischievous smirk is starting to curl on his lips. One I don’t like. “You’ve got one problem, princess.”
I narrow my eyes. “What’s that?”
“Your fork is all the way down there.” He points to his left, and I glance down at the end of the absurdly long table. Crap. He’s right.
“What the hell?” I snap when the container is ripped from my hand. “Bastard! That’s cheating.”
He jumps back when I swipe at him, making my hand catch nothing but air. With his eyes on mine, he sticks his tongue out and licks some whipped cream. Holy wow, that was unexpectedly sexy. Especially since I know just how good that tongue is in action.
“I licked it, so now it’s mine. You don’t like it,” he plays, his voice low and seductive. “Come and take it from me.”
I squint. “Not everything you lick is yours.”
He smirks, and his gaze shifts to the band I’m still wearing on my left hand. “I beg to differ.”
I slide off the table and stand before him. “Now I don’t want it anymore. In fact, I have a better idea.” I take two fingers, smear them into the cheesecake, and smash it across his lips and chin. “There. That’s for being a dirty cheat.”
I suck my messy fingers into my mouth and watch as he licks his lips and uses his thumb to wipe the rest off before he licks it clean. “I’m all for playing dirty with you, princess. That move you just did there is going to cost you.”
I shake my head and start to run when he stops me mid-stride by banding an arm around my waist. He spins me around, and somehow I end up with my back on the table and him leaning over me. We’re both breathing hard, and his eyes are molten fire as he holds me down with his weight. The thick, hard ridge of his cock digs into my thigh, making my breath hitch.
I try not to squirm or bite my lip or show any sort of reaction to being in this position with him and feeling him so turned on. It’s nearly impossible. As it is, my traitorous nipples are sharper than pins, and my empty core clenches almost painfully. I hate how sexy he is, and I wish I could go back to a time when I wasn’t so aware of it.
Wordlessly, he swivels a finger in the cheesecake, and when he lifts it, it’s covered in peanut butter cake and chocolate. He paints my lips with it, tit-for-tat, and I lick them as he goes, catching his finger in the process. He hisses out a wounded breath, and I suck his finger between my lips and massage it against my tongue. Reflexively, I lick it, sucking him deeper, grinning around him, because I know I’ve got him now.
“You keep doing that, and I’m going to fuck your pretty mouth and your sweet pussy. No more games. That’s not a threat. It’s a promise.” He grinds his cock into me, rubbing it up and down along my hip, letting me feel him. “Tell me no. I dare you.”
I need to stop. I told him no more sex, and I meant it. I did. I have a plan I need to stick with. But I didn’t know that last time was the last time. And we’re still here in Vegas. Our flight home isn’t until tomorrow morning. What’s the harm in one last night? Tomorrow it’ll be a new situation for us. One I will stick to.
“No. But I dare you to do something about that.”
His gaze grows dark. Sinister.
He rips my shirt up and over my head, clearly already aware I wasn’t wearing a bra, and with his hooded eyes locked on mine, he dips his finger back in the container, gathers chocolate sauce and whipped cream, and circles it all over my nipples. I gasp at the cold wetness, already so keyed up I can no longer help but squirm against him, needing friction, needing… something.
“Looks like you need to get cleaned up again, princess.” He takes both of my wrists in one of his hands and locks them above my head. With his weight on me and my arms pinned, I’m completely at his mercy. And from the look of him, he has every intention of keeping me that way. Right now, I don’t have the strength or desire to stop him.
“One last time. One last night.”
His mouth captures my nipple, then licks the chocolate and whipped cream up before he sucks it deep into his mouth and releases it with a wet pop. “Is that another dare?”