Fake Shot (Boston Rebels Book 2)

“I gotta be honest,” Zach Reid says as Colt pulls me down onto his lap, nearly causing me to lose the contents of my margarita as I’m unexpectedly jostled, “I did not see this coming.”

“See what coming?” Colt asks, amusement in his voice as he turns his head to look out at the bar that’s become the unofficial watering hole of the Boston Rebels. A tequila bar is the last place I’d expect a hockey team to hang out, but even though you can order hundred dollar margaritas with top-shelf tequila, it looks and feels like a college bar. Shellacked wooden walls with neon signs hanging all around. There’s a back area with pool tables, and the front of the space has booths lining the perimeter with a big bar in the center. And, being located in Beacon Hill, it’s just far enough from the arena that fans probably don’t flock here after the games.

“You two.” Zach eyes me where I sit, probably looking as uncomfortable as I feel on Colt’s lap. There’s barely enough room for me to fit between him and the tabletop. It would have made a whole lot more sense for him to just push over and give me my own seat, like Zach just did for Ashleigh as we returned from the bar.

“What can I say,” Colt says, running his nose up the side of my neck. “We’re good at keeping secrets.”

I can barely hold in the smile, because of all the things he’s said in the hour we’ve been here, this is the one that stands out to me as incredibly true, but for an entirely different reason. Not only is the fake status of our relationship a secret, but we both have our own secrets, the entirety of which we haven’t even shared with each other yet.

In all the years I crushed on him, I never imagined us faking being together. But the way he picked me up and turned in circles with me in his arms after I hit that golf ball the other night, the smile he gave me as he told me I was a natural, it felt way too real. And tonight, the way he keeps dropping his voice when he uses my nickname, the way he can’t seem to let me be more than a few inches from him, it doesn’t feel fake. Obviously, he’s an incredibly good liar, which is something I would do well not to forget.

We fall into easy conversation as Ashleigh tells us about finishing up her first semester as an astrophysics PhD student in the Astro/Aero department at MIT. The girl is going to be a literal rocket scientist when she finishes her graduate work, and it amazes me how down to earth she seems even though she’s obviously next-level smart. And then Zach is telling us about the vacation they have planned in July, and as Ashleigh’s gushing about how excited she is to learn to scuba dive, she lets out a huge yawn.

“My girl’s tired,” Zach says. “Time to go home.”

They could very well be going home to sleep, but just like with Drew and Audrey, I can’t help but think that they’re going home to fuck. Why is everyone around me happily paired off and getting laid regularly, and here I am, still a virgin at twenty-five?

As much as I don’t want to date anyone—don’t trust myself enough to be vulnerable like that—I really would like to know what it’s like to share my body with someone else. If I could just get over the mental hurdle of it.

As we say goodbye and Zach and Ashleigh leave, Colt’s thumb traces the column of my spine, just above my tailbone, and it sends a shiver up my back, causing me to squirm. His other arm wraps around my lower abdomen, anchoring me in place.

“You’d better stop that,” he says, his words a dark caress that slides along my neck and curls behind my ear, making me shiver again. “Or we’re going to have a big problem.”

I can’t help the laugh that shakes my body as I feel him growing hard between my ass cheeks. “I’m pretty sure we already have a big problem.” I don’t know what comes over me as I grind against him intentionally—a slow, circling press of my hips that I hope will quell the aching need building between my legs.

“Jules,” he warns.

“Colt.” My voice is teasing as I repeat the action. I’m only on my second drink, not nearly enough to blame my actions on the alcohol. No, it’s my stupid inability to be in control of myself whenever he’s around, but I’m not sure I really care at the moment.

“Here’s how this is going to go.” His growl reverberates against me as his lips brush my earlobe again. “Either you stop that right now, or I’m going to slide my hand between your legs and make you come so hard this entire bar will hear you screaming my name.”

The need that courses through me is like a hot flash, and I have the overwhelming desire to rip my clothes off. I slide my hips back and forth again and he hisses out a breath.

“Good choice,” he says as his fingers trail from my abdomen along my leggings and down toward my clit, which is literally aching for his touch. Even though I shouldn’t let him, I want his hands on me more than I’ve ever wanted anything. “Let’s put on a convincing show.”

His words are the slap that jolts me out of my lust-induced haze as my half-lidded eyes fly open and glance around the bar. I slide off his lap before he has a chance to stop me.

“Change your mind?” he teases, making me believe that was his intention all along—he was just seeing how far he could push me before I backed out.

“Shit, Colt. You can’t say things like that to your fake fiancée.”

“That was tame, Jules. You should hear the things I’d say if we weren’t pretending.”

I’m so tempted to throw out a taunting remark so that he’ll elaborate, but now I’m hyper aware how many of his teammates at the surrounding tables are watching us, trying to gauge what’s going on. And I’m not really in the mood for acting anymore.

“I’m tired,” I say through a forced yawn. “I got up at five and now it’s almost midnight. I’m going to head home.” Shifting in my seat, I move my legs out of the booth so I can stand, but Colt grabs the back of my jersey to hold me in place.

“We’re going home.” He leans over and kisses the top of my head, then lets me scoot out of the booth. As soon as I’m standing, he smacks my ass playfully, and when I spin in surprise, he’s already right behind me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and turning me toward the doors of the bar.

We don’t say much as we walk back to the player’s parking area at the arena, but Colt keeps his arm wrapped around my shoulders, his thumb tracing the line of my collarbone the whole time. He’s quiet on the drive back to the South End, and I lean my head back, staring out the sunroof at the hazy night sky illuminated by the city lights, while we listen to the radio.

My mind is a mess, running through all the questions I have about what just happened. What I’m most wondering is: how is he so good at pretending?

The way he demanded I come show him his name on my back in front of the fans during warm-ups, how he hugged me in front of his teammates’ families after the game like he couldn’t possibly go another second without having me in his arms, how he forced me onto his lap and got me all wound up in the bar and how his body was responding to mine.

It’s like he knows exactly what we need to do to convince people this is real, and he’s executing that plan perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that it all feels a little too natural.

And then my mind does that thing I can’t seem to convince it not to do. It flashes back to Vegas. Because that seemed natural too. The way Brock flirted with me all night, the way he held me like he adored me, the way he suggested I meant something to him. And then in the morning, when I woke up hungover and having made a terrible mistake, I discovered that not a single moment of it was real for him.

I’m swallowing down the lump in my throat when I realize that he’s already turning into the alley that runs behind my house. Good. I’m suddenly desperate to get out of this car. I need to put distance between Colt and me. I need to remind myself that my judgment is fucked up, that I can’t believe anything I’m feeling, and that this is all just an act for him.

My hand is already on the door handle when he pulls into his parking spot, and I have one leg out of the car before he even shifts into park.

“I need to ask you a question,” he says before I can get out.

“How about another time?” I step out of the car and shut the door behind me, needing air, needing to clear my head. But he’s out quickly too, following me up the back steps where he grabs ahold of the loose fabric on the jersey and stops me in my tracks. Then he steps up behind me, and because I’m on the stair above him, his head’s level with mine.

“Why are you running away?” His words glide along my skin, raising goosebumps across my neck and down my shoulders.

“I’m not running. I just . . . have to pee.”

“No, Jules. You’re running. I stole glances at you that whole drive home, and you were so lost in thought, it was like you were in another world. Where’d you go back there?”

Squeezing my eyes closed tightly, I try not to feel or remember anything. I just want to go to my room, curl up in a ball, and forget that Vegas ever happened.

“I was just watching the sky, lost in the music, Colt. Don’t make it into something it wasn’t.”

“We were listening to Britney Spears circa 2000. If you were lost in that music,” he says, knowing that I despise pop, “you must be more drunk than I thought.”

“I don’t get drunk.” I spit the words out. My father’s an alcoholic and it only took being drunk once to know how easily I could fall down that rabbit hole of terrible decisions when alcohol is involved. I didn’t drink for years after Vegas, and even now, I never have more than two drinks in one night.

“So are you saying that back at the bar, you weren’t grinding yourself against my cock because you were drunk?”

The whoosh of air that leaves my lungs is an audible sigh. I’d love to use alcohol as an excuse, but now I can’t.

“I’m saying that alcohol impaired my judgment, just like I’m sure it impaired yours.” Being around him is what impaired my judgment, like it always does. But I can’t tell him that, so I’ll blame it on the margaritas.

“Jules, I outweigh you by a hundred pounds. Those two beers didn’t even give me a buzz. Do you think I’d have driven you home if I was under the influence?”

“I guess not.”

“You guess not? Seriously?” He must twist the fabric of the jersey in his fist, because it tightens around me even more as he pulls me closer to him. “I’d never put you, or anyone, in danger like that.”

“I wasn’t suggesting you would. I was just thinking . . . I don’t know . . . that the beer made you . . .” Horny? Well, I sure as hell can’t say that. So how do I explain what happened between us in the bar?

“Want you?” he suggests when I don’t finish my sentence.

“Colt, I know this is all fake. Tonight was just one big show—for the fans and for your teammates—so they’d believe it’s real. You don’t have to worry about me getting confused and thinking that you actually want me.”

He lets go of the back of the jersey and wraps that hand around my abdomen instead, pulling me against him so there’s nothing, not even air, between us. His body is hard ripples of muscle pressed against me, but what catches me most off guard is the way the steel pipe he’s packing in his pants presses between my ass cheeks.

His voice is almost deadly when he says, “Listen to me carefully, Tink. There’s nothing fake about the way I want you. But I promised your brother I wouldn’t touch you, and I don’t go back on promises. Jameson’s been like a brother to me for almost half my life, and I can’t do that to him.” He pauses for the briefest second before dropping his voice even lower. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”

My breath hitches, a sharp intake that’s overly loud in the quiet outdoor space.

Then he says, “Now go inside, disappear up to your room, and give me a minute to compose myself. Then, we’re going to pretend like this didn’t happen.”

I don’t know which hurts more: that he values his relationship with my brother more than what we could have together, or that he’s so ashamed of wanting me that he never wants to bring it up again.

It doesn’t matter, I tell myself as I reach for the back door. You were holding him at a distance for exactly this reason. He’s never wanted a relationship with you, and he never will.