The Pretend Boyfriend novel Chapter 80

The reality slams into his gut like a sucker punch.

He is alone in the double bed, but there is an impression of a body in the mattress beside him. Someone has slept here. He is covered with a blanket, but underneath, he is naked. His cock is limp. When his hand suspiciously strays down to touch it - to find out where it's been - his palm comes away sticky.

His penis has been someplace all right.

Here he is, Brian Morton - stud extraordinaire, a man who has woken up in more strange places than he cares to count - in a strange bedroom. And he's fucking scared.

This has to be a first.

Worse still, he can't remember what happened last night. She has slipped something into his drink again, he's certain. And he had let her. Not because he's gullible, but because it was pointless. She was going to do it anyway. And she has already done all the damage to him that she can. He might as well let her do whatever she wants to him so that he can extricate Sam out of this mess.

Sam.

His heart shrivels when he thinks of her. She doesn't know he's here. Doesn't know he's doing this because she trusts him implicitly. So he has to be extra careful not to let her know. But he doesn't yet know what Delilah's terms are. Delilah Faulkner. He can only think of this woman as Delilah Faulkner, not the sweet, bruised Adie he once knew and betrayed.

He can't fault Delilah/Adie for wanting to get back at him. Rage like this burned deep and hard, like the stoked furnaces in the bowels of the Earth. How many women out there has he hurt so badly that she has no choice but to nourish a long-lasting hatred for him like a dagger in her womb? How many of them are now plotting a vendetta against him and all those he held dear?

He deserved what he was getting. But Sam! Just leave her out of this! But he knows it doesn't quite work out that way. In a fall-out, a lot of innocent bystanders get hurt.

It's your mess. Now clean it up.

That is what he's doing, he tells himself grimly. He swings his long legs over the side of the bed. Something needles the confines of his skull, and the sharp pain makes him wince and pause slightly before getting up.

He studies his body in the mirror. He knows he looks good, and that's a major part of the problem. They all want his body. Him. In college. At work. In clubs, bars, the street. They all want what he can't give them, and when he won't give it to them, they go on a slow boil. Most of them forget and move on. Some never did.

He finds his clothes in a neat pile on the sofa. She has folded them up for him, confirming his mental image of her as a compulsive. He takes them self-consciously and starts to dress himself. Black sleeveless tee. Tattered, well-worn jeans. He starts to shrug on his leather jacket, when he hears her voice:

"Going somewhere?"

She is standing at the doorway of the kitchenette. She wears a simple dressing gown. Silk, with a sash in the middle. Her cleavage is pronounced and her hair all tumbling and vivid and red. She resembles a temptress from hell. A succubus sent to draw men to their shipwrecks.

He stops himself from running a nervous tongue over his lower lip. He's usually not afraid of women, but this one scares him. It's as though she is no longer fully human, and that the laws of rational thought no longer apply to her.

"I have work," he offers lamely.

"So do I, but I took the day off. Called in sick. Want some breakfast?"