“Fine.” His mouth hardened again, as if he didn’t like that.
Too bad for him. Monday, this was over. She nodded and pocketed his phone, reaffirming her vow to herself and finished dressing.
Jake frowned as she turned her back on him, yanking her clothes on with angry motions. There was no way in hell she could become nothing to him on Monday. Though she had every right to make that demand, for some reason, it made him break out in a cold sweat. All scenes came to an end at some point. This one should, too. But that rationale didn’t sit well in his mind. In fact, his mind bucked like a bronc at the idea of losing her come Monday. She’d be his work wife, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying.
So he formed a plan.
Jake reached over to hold her hand for a moment. “Go inside, have a shower if you want. Then meet me back down here.”
“Okay. Why?” She was still pissed, but at least she didn’t ignore him completely.
“I have a surprise for you.”
She didn’t look excited about a surprise of any sort. If she was smart, she was probably right not to be excited. He knew how to become hers, completely. It scared the shit out of him, and he didn’t understand the drive he had to complete this. Some of it was because he had to do it, to leave Kate. He had to do it, for Tia. And a part of him had to, for him.
She’d been right to demand that he not contact Kate. If they were going to pretend married, then he had to face that Kate was off limits. A hard limit. He’d be putting Tia and Chase first if he went along with this.
But this wasn’t done Monday. He knew he should go along with it, but something inside him felt like it was suffocating when she put that limit on him. He didn’t do feelings. He didn’t do emotion. But he didn’t want the good feelings she gave him to wither up like dead flowers. He had to make her so happy she’d forget her demand when Monday arrived. It was his only choice.
****
Tia came downstairs, wearing the floral peasant skirt Jake had wanted her to wear, sans underwear. She had on a white shirt that was pretty with it, and the look Jake graced her with as he waited was worth the effort she’d taken to put on a little mascara. She’d never had a man wait for her at the bottom of the stairs looking like she was prom queen. Especially when she wore something so casual.
Jake held out a bouquet of spring flowers, most of them yellow, and her heart melted. He had remembered her favorite color. “Where did you get these?” She inhaled the scent of the pale, yellow rose at the center and sighed. “These are beautiful.”
“The garden.” He grabbed her hand and dragged her outside to the porch and down the stairs to stand under a tree in the front yard, one with a tire swing on one low, strong branch. “Stand here.”
“Okay. Do I want to know why?” She glanced around, wondering what he was up to. The whole thing smacked of something suspicious. She looked back at him—he’d changed into a very nice button down shirt in light blue and dressier pants, his hair neat instead of tousled. Very handsome, and he oozed sex appeal in a very dressy, classy way. Neat Jake scared her way more than cowboy Jake. “Jake? You’re making me nervous.”
“We’re going to say our wedding vows.”
“What?” She snapped her attention to his face, sure he’d lost his sanity completely. “Does insanity run in your family?” She sucked in a breath as her heart contracted, squeezing, and suddenly the air in her lungs seemed trapped, oxygen unable to escape, unable to draw in a breath.
“No, they’re all healthy and sane.” He took her trembling hand in his larger one. Her Jake, so calm, at ease everywhere he went, looked scared as hell but determined. “You ready?”
The fact that he was scared settled her just a bit. “If we’re role-playing, then we did this Thursday, before we got here.”
“We need to reaffirm our vows. I cheated on you. I need to say them again.”
“Jake, this isn’t real—”
“What in our life is real?” His sigh was one of frustration. “We go to work and become someone different. We go home and become someone different. We go to the club and become someone else. I’m doing this because I am done playing a role. I want to be married for the weekend. The house demands it.”
“That’s…crazy. The whole thing is insane, and frankly, Jake, you are fucked up. This house is fucked up.”
“And you’re less fucked up?” She started to open her mouth, and he shook his head. “You told me your past. You told me what you did with Chase. Tell me that’s not fucked up.”
“Go to hell.” Damn him for using that against her.
He grabbed her under the chin and drew her gaze back to him. He searched her eyes earnestly. “Do you want me to be yours for the rest of the weekend? Yours. Not Kate’s. Yours to make love to, to spend time with, because when we’re not having sex, we do have a good time, don’t we?”
“Yes.” She’d never had so much fun with a man before out of bed.
He nodded and released her chin. He looked away, out at the horses in the pasture next to the yard. “I’m tired of being second best. So are you. I want to be able to feel something for someone, even if it’s just for a snapshot in time, and not feel wrong about it.” His voice held a longing the girly girl in her echoed. That part of her wanted to feel, too.
“But why a fake wedding? Why can’t we just be…us.”
He turned his attention back to her. “Because we both need the symbolism the vows give. We need the boundaries set by what vows mean. At least, I do. You probably do, too.”
She laughed sharply. “We’re spies. We don’t do boundaries.”
“We’re normal for the weekend. This is what normal people do.”
“You have no idea what normal is. That’s your problem.” Tia poked him in the chest to make a point. “Normal people do not have a fake wedding to have fake wedding sex for a weekend. Normal people go to Vegas and do it for real.”
His eyes lit up. “Then let’s go. I can get Chase to get us on a plane in two hours. Three tops. We’ll be married by midnight. For real.”
“No!” Fucking crazy man. She had pushed him, but she never thought he’d run with her suggestion.
But his jaw set again, the way it did when he proposed they play wedding sex, and she knew she was doomed. “It’s either this, or we go to Vegas. Pick.”
“Jesus, Jake. You are crazy. I’m not going to Vegas.” The idea that he’d marry her for real to prove a point made her…weak. The weakness crept into her knees, her heart, her mind, and a part of her that wished she had the confidence to scream, yes, marry me. For real.
But the tough girl held on, and the pain in her heart intensified. Going to Vegas would kill her. Staying would maim her, but going to Vegas would surely kill her.
His thumb traced a lazy pattern on the back of her hand. “You sure? I’ll make the call.”
“Why?”
“I told you why.” His jaw set again, and he dropped her hand to cross his arms over his chest.
“No. Not why do you want this. Why do you want to hurt me like this? Do you know how much this hurts? I can’t breathe.”
He blinked at her admission. “I thought you were a masochist.” But instead of softening his resolve, he seemed to feed on the fact that she hurt. Damn the sadist in him. “I thought you liked a little pain.”
She had to get him to see reason. “Even masochists have limits to what they will and won’t do.”
He cocked his head. “Are you at the limit of what you can take? Because I wouldn’t be a good Dom unless I pushed you to that limit.”
She drew in a very deep breath and wiped the sweat from her palms. “I’m there.”
His jaw set again. So stubborn. “Then you need to do this. That right there is the reason why you must marry me for the weekend. If allowing me to be yours for the weekend hurts, then push the limits. Look how much you’ve learned after twenty-four hours with me. You’ve come five times. Five. That’s huge limit pushing.”
“An orgasm isn’t limit pushing.”
“How many orgasms have you faked? Care to share, honey?”
She looked away. Damn him, he was right.
“Pick. Vegas or here,” he commanded.
That voice… “Command me to marry you.”
He shook his head. “I won’t. You have to consent to this. Safe, sane, consensual.”
“I think you’re on the fringe of sane, ready to cross into insane.”
“Yes or no, Tia.”
That voice gave her shivers of delight mixed with dread. How could she resist him when a part of her had wanted to be married in the worst way? He was so sure, so insistent. If this was the only way that would happen, then so be it. It would be only a weekend. How bad could it be?
But somewhere, deep inside, she knew this could be very, very bad.
“Yes. I’ll marry you for the weekend.”
He took her hand again, the fear she’d seen earlier in his eyes now gone. He wanted this. If he didn’t, he was a damned good liar. She closed her eyes and just breathed, inhaling his clean scent, the flowers, and the spring air.
“I Jacob Adam Anderson take you, Tia—”
Her eyes flew open. “That’s not my name.”
“What? Why?” He frowned down at her.
“If you’re going to marry me, even for a fake weekend, you have to use my real name. Tatiana Richards is an alias—legal, but it’s not my birth name.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“Sarah—don’t laugh—Anderson.” It felt weird to say her real name after so many years of being Tia. Even weirder that they shared the same last name.
His mouth tugged into a smile. “You’re joking.”
She shrugged.
“Okay, so I, Jacob Adam Anderson take you, Sarah Anderson, to be my wedded wife for the weekend, to have and to hold, to honor and obey, to be healthy wealthy and wise, until Monday do us part.”
Hearing her real name on his lips made her shiver. The good kind of shiver. She swallowed what spit she could, her mouth so dry. “God, you’re crazy. Jake, we can’t do this.”
“I have a ring.” He withdrew a ring from his pocket, slipped it on her ring finger, and kissed her hand. “There. You’re mine. You want to say vows?”
“Do I have to? You were the bad boy.” She looked down at her left hand. It was his old high school ring, with a blue stone in the center and the name of his high school around the edge. It was too big for her finger, but it felt so right to have it there, the gold warm. Once his. Now hers.
“No, just say I do.”
“I do?” She swallowed again. This may be the only wedding she ever got, and the girly girl wanted the whole experience. “I, Sarah Elizabeth Anderson, take you, Jacob Adam Anderson, to be my wedded husband for the weekend, to have and to hold, to honor and obey, to be healthy, wealthy and wise until Monday do us part.”
He leaned in a kissed her softly, sealing the deal. “Was that so bad?”
Actually, it wasn’t so bad. As soon as she said the words of her fake vows, the cloying feeling in her throat dissipated. The ache in her heart lessened, and she felt more free than she ever felt before, which was weird, because wedding vows were the most ancient form of entrapment. Weren’t they? “I don’t have a ring for you.”
“There’s a ring in your bag you could give me.”
He had to be talking about the plastic cock ring she had in her bag of sex toys. “Be serious.”
“I don’t need anything.” He kissed her forehead. “I have you.”
She leveled a stern glare at him, because she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, which was not a single inch. “Yes, you do need something. The minute you can call her, you will. You need reminding that you are mine.”
Mine.
“Then what do you have that you can give me?”
She thought for a moment. “I’ll be back.” She ran upstairs and came back a moment later with her pocket knife. “Here.”
“A knife?”
“Keep it in your pocket. If you call her, I’ll emasculate you with it.”
“Ouch.” But he smiled at her humor.
“I think that’s enough of a reminder.” She hoped it would be. Her ego couldn’t take it if he went back on his word. He wanted this, but she had to be first. She only hoped he got her point.
“I promise I’m yours. If I have contact with her or Chase, it will be with your permission. Okay?” He lowered his head and kissed her, his lips sweet, sensual, full of promise in the briefest touch. Then he smiled down at her, and for once, Tia believed. It was in his eyes, his smile. The way he pressed his muscular form against her, his cock already hardening. He wanted her. She was his for the weekend.
But then he took her hand, tugging, and she balked. “Where are we going?”
“To bed.”
“I did that last night and this morning. It’s lunchtime. If this was a real wedding, there’d be a meal, cake, and dancing before I had to put out. Plus you promised to take me riding outside the ring.”
He groaned and leaned his forehead against hers, but his mouth curved like a boy ready for mischief. “Just like a woman not to want to get to the important stuff in marriage.”
“I’ll give you sex later. Lots and lots of sex.” His forehead still touched hers, and she found herself staring at his mouth, the lips firm, curving in a small smile. She wanted to kiss him again, feel those lips on hers, her neck, sliding lower…
“Good, because I’m behind. I want you to have twenty orgasms this weekend. My wedding gift to you.”
Her breath quickened. He’d already given her five. Fifteen more sounded like a hell of a wedding gift. “Don’t let me stop you from trying.”
Chapter Eleven
Jake was on cloud nine after his fake wedding. He ushered her to the truck, and they ordered take out from a local diner that was usually outstanding. Tia couldn’t help but razz him about the house rules, and Jake found himself not minding. She was his wife, albeit a fake wife. He would put up with it.
“The house allows this?” She waved the menu in his face.
“The house doesn’t want me to starve and it’s not fast food. I can’t cook. And after watching Chase learn to cook, the idea scares the hell out of me. You know how many pots he went through to get good? My mother would have a heart attack if she knew I was ruining pots at the rate he did. It’s sacrilegious in her mind.”
“What if I teach you? No pots will be harmed that way.”
He frowned. The stakes would have to be skyscraper high for him to learn to cook.