The Pretend Boyfriend novel Chapter 82

He's suddenly aware of Delilah watching him watch himself. A voyeur observing a voyeur.

She says softly, "You're beautiful, you know that?"

He swallows. "Thank you."

"I've loved you since the moment I saw you back in that library all those years ago. I knew who you were all right. Everybody in college did. You had this rare quality about you. Like James Dean. Like Marlon Brando in 'Streetcar'. A quality that radiates sex no matter what you wore and what you did. Everyone wanted you."

He doesn't say anything. Yes, it's a fact he is aware of and one he has milked to great advantage.

She says, "Take off your clothes, Brian."

"What?"

"Take off your clothes. I want you to do me right here. On the floor."

There's something so twisted about this that he doesn't respond - at first. He meets her steely grey eyes, and his heart wrenches.

Yes, I know the deal.

Hesitantly, he peels off his tee, the one he has only just put back on this morning. She scrutinizes his body as though she hasn't seen it only the night before. He unzips his pants.

His dick is limp. No surprises there. He doesn't get aroused easily when he's scared out of his fucking wits.

But she doesn't seem to mind. She undoes the sash of her bathrobe. She wears nothing underneath, and he takes in her nipples and mounds and pubic triangle, as dark as he remembered it from college. He feels a stir in his cock despite himself.

"Lick me," she commands.

He makes himself walk towards her. She stands, resolute, and he understands what she wants him to do. It's a role reversal, and he is her slave. He gets down on his knees, a position he is not used to. She parts her legs slightly, and he sticks out his tongue to lick her pussy. He inhales the earthy aroma of her nether regions as he strokes the tip of her clit with his tongue.

He does not look up, but he can hear her sharp intake of breath as he continues to lave her - circumnavigating his tongue in between her pussy grooves, which are already filled with a layer of cud.

He's gratified to hear her moan above him. It means that he still retains a modicum of power over her. Only their situation is so fucked up. She wants him to do it to her in this strange room - her manifold shrine to his larger-than-life image.

All his eyes in those photos, watching them. Like peacock tail eyes.

She clasps her hands. It's the only way to keep them from trembling. She eyes the phone, willing it to ring. Willing his voice to be on the other end:

Sammie, sorry I got holed up. I had to run to Detroit for a family emergency.

Sorry, Sammie, my phone ran out of battery. The shops didn't have a spare.

It isn't like him not to call in two days. They have been seeing each other rather often in the past six months, even if they had not been technically dating. She touches her ears. The diamond earrings he gave her are still embedded in her earlobes, fitted snugly into the holes she has bored into her flesh when she was a teenager.

It is exactly like him not to tell her what he's up to either.

Only ... she thinks she knows. And the knowledge of it is awful, awful, awful.

There's only one thing for her to do.

Resolutely, she grabs her jacket and her car keys. She is going to take a ride to a place she knows fairly well.

As Sam draws into the parking lot of Adele Jankovic's building, she sees what she is looking for. Brian's new Jeep, the one he traded the Ferrari in for to fund the advertising for their gym.