Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(66)

And not hard, but oak tree hard.

No, not oak tree. Wrought iron.

Yeah.

I’m a wrought iron fence post here.

“Henri?” I pant, a chuckle growing deep inside me that pauses as I look at her again.

She peers at me from between her legs, because she’s that kind of flexible, and I swear my cock grows another inch.

Naked Henri.

Bent over.

Looking at me between her legs while she strokes her cat, who’s shuddering like she’s also coming down off a post-orgasm high, but that’s not the weirdest part.

The weirdest part is how much I want Henri again.

Right now.

The woman who was all the insanity and chaos in my life a month ago has somehow become the one woman I desperately need again.

“Luca?”

So this is what tongue-tied feels like. A million things want to come out of my mouth at once. Pet the pussy between your legs too for me, baby. You’re so damn hot. Thank you for the most fun sex I’ve ever had. Life isn’t boring with you. Stay. Come sit on my face. Can I fuck you again in the shower?

And I can’t say any of that to Henri, because I’ve promised her I won’t.

So instead, I blurt out a grunt that I hope sounds like I’m asking if she’s okay, and after she stares at me for a long minute like my body’s been invaded by those yellow cartoon characters that are always yammering nonsense unless they’re talking about bananas, she slowly nods. “Yeah. I’m okay. That was…nice. Are you okay? Are you stuck? Do you need help? That doesn’t look good for your back, and you have to play a game in—oh my gosh, do you need to go? When do you have to be at the ballpark? Are you going to be late? Is there a bus? There’s always a bus, right? Do you need me to leave? I have a room at a hotel down the street, and I—”

“Henri.”

She sucks her lips into her mouth like she’s realized she’s talking too much.

Except she’s not talking too much.

She’s talking a Henri amount of talking, and it’s exactly right.

But I can’t say that either. Again, because I’ve promised her I won’t.

I clear my throat. “You should probably stand up before all that blood running to your head makes you pass out.”

She blinks twice, then bolts straight up.

Which means she bangs her head straight into the TV stand.

“Shit!” I roll and leap to my feet, trip over the sheets that enabled our slide off the bed, and end up on my side next to her while she plops down onto her ass between the bed and the TV stand. “You okay?”

She’s rubbing the back of her head as she shifts her eyes to look at me.

Dogzilla leaps onto her knee and balances there, which is impressive for what has to be a fifteen-pound, lazy-ass cat.

And as I lay there, with a carpet burn starting to make its presence known on the side of my ribcage, my dick torn between wanting to ask for another round and go into hiding in case the cat notices and wants a play toy—and yeah, that’s my excuse, and it has nothing to do with worrying that there’s a connection between my dick and my heart—I start to snicker.

Henri’s lips twitch.

And I want to kiss her.

I don’t care if we screw around again.

I just want to sit here, laugh with her, and kiss her.

It’s becoming crystal clear to me why she’s been engaged five times. Because Henri Bacon is the kind of woman who makes it so very easy to fall in love.

Not that this is love.

But I’m willing to concede to feelings of affection stronger than I’ve let myself feel in years.

“You had breakfast?” I ask her.

She shakes her head, that smile still lighting her pretty brown eyes.

“Then let’s go celebrate a book launch.”





25





Henri



Wow.

I had sex. With Luca. And it was fun, and it was good—so good—and I want to do it again, and I also want to ask him to marry me.

But I am not going to ask him to marry me.

This was my next test. The logical next step in my training to learn to not ducking fall in love.

And yes, I mean ducking, because I’ve already used up my quotient of the other word for the week, and— No.

You know what?

Fuck it.

That’s right.

Fuck it.

Elsa might think that a person shouldn’t use the fuck word, but that doesn’t mean that I, Henrietta Leonora Bacon, have to follow her rules too.

I write books.

Words are tools. And if I want to use the fuck word, I will use the fuck word.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but please stop,” Luca says over omelets at a greasy spoon down the road from the hotel, where we’re having a peaceful breakfast away from all of his family while they work out their own problems. “Whatever it is, it’s not worth hyperventilating over.”

I square my shoulders, look him in the eye—which is hard when I all want to do is stare at his rainbow hair—and let it all come out.

Kind of. “I was thinking I should say fuck more often.”

A woman at the next table gasps and covers her toddler’s ears, and I wince. “Sorry,” I whisper to her.