The Pretend Boyfriend (The Pretend Boyfriend #3)(17)
Author: Artemis Hunt

It was better this time for Adie, as he predicted. But she was still staring up at him with that glassy, love-struck look he only knew too well. Gawd. He had to break this off before she gets ideas.

In fact, he might be too late.

She had already gotten ideas, the way inexperienced – in more ways than one – virgins did when they were f**ked the first time. Ideas that this would continue beyond the first few f**ks. Ideas that they were having a real relationship. Ideas that Brian Morton actually did relationships.

But he went on f**king her anyway, just to put on a show for Goldie – who never took her eyes off them, no matter how disgusted she pretended to be. And the next morning, he f**ked Adie again in the shower before he left.

“When can I see you again?” she said breathlessly at the door.

He was tempted to tell her, “Never again”, but he had promised Warwick that he would carry this on until April Fools’ Day.

“Tonight, after class.” He ran his fingertip suggestively down the area between her clavicles.

Her besotted expression disturbed him.

That night, they studied together in the library. And then he took her to his rented apartment outside campus – in which he lived alone – and f**ked her again. No . . . maybe it should be called ‘making love’. He was tender and giving and loving – to let her have a contrast to last night’s brutal f**king.

He found himself enjoying her company, despite his misgivings. At the same time, Warwick managed to get Goldie to go on a date.

“One more night,” Brian thundered. “If blondie doesn’t put out, you’re on your own.”

“One more night,” Warwick promised.

That night, knowing it would be his last with Adie, Brian gave her a night she would never forget. Not only did he do everything a man could do with a woman with her – everything she was comfortable with, of course – but they lay together in bed afterward, cuddling. Almost like a real couple.

Brian stared at the ceiling while Adie fell asleep in his arms, his mind in turmoil.

*

Warwick came in the next morning, looking like a cat which had been through someone else’s cream.

“I take it you got laid,” Brian remarked. He pulled a strand of golden hair off Warwick’s jacket. “Oooh, and what do we have here? Fur of a golden retriever?”

“God, her pu**y was so tight,” Warwick breathed.

“Spare me the details. I don’t want to puke my hash browns.” Brian was never one who liked to talk cock. He was into f**king, not talking about it.

“OK, you can lay the April Fools’ joke now on little cousin.” Warwick handed Brian five hundred dollars.

Brian was hesitant. “I think she’s in rather deep.”

Warwick snorted. “Don’t kid yourself. You’re not that hot.”

“It’s not about being hot, although I’m practically at Dante’s Inferno Circle Nine,” Brian grumbled.

“Why the long face? It isn’t as if you haven’t dumped trash before.”

“Hey, watch what you say. She isn’t trash.”

Warwick threw back his head and laughed. “I do believe someone’s got a rash of lurrvvvve.”

“I do not. Shut up.”

Warwick whooped. They were on the Green, and students were milling around, studying on the grass or just making small talk.

“Hey, everyone!” he yelled. “Brian Morton has got the hots for this loser of a girl, and – ”

“Shut up!” Brian pulled him down. “Do you want me to punch you in the face? What’s Goldlilocks going to say about that shiner on your pretty mug then?”

“Then you’re not breaking it off with her.” Warwick’s cheeks dimpled.

“How can I break off something that wasn’t in existence in the first place?” Brian had transited back to his ‘I don’t believe in love, I believe in f**king’ mode. It was easier to be this way than to admit he felt something for somebody. No, it wasn’t love. He wasn’t idiotic enough to ever fall in love with someone – at least, that was what he told himself. But he certainly wore a copious amount of guilt for what he was about to do.

He should have done it that first night.

Shit.

With a real trepidation that he did not want to acknowledge, he made the march to Adie’s room. He did not want to do this anymore than he wanted to take a trip to the dentist, but it was something that had to be done. Why had he ever agreed to this for five hundred measly bucks? Oh yeah. He was Brian Morton, and he had a rep to protect and propagate.

You are Ming the Merciless. Take no prisoners.

Still, his conscience was eating a hole in his guts as he raised his fist to knock. The door opened. It was Goldie. She eyed him with dislike. Why? Because he f**ked Adie, her wallflower cousin, and not her?

“Where’s Adie?”

“Adie,” Goldie called a little too loudly for Brian’s taste. “Your Romeo’s here.”

Brian gritted his teeth as Adie bounced up, all inner glow and freshness. His back prickled with a most uncomfortable sensation, as if a vat of ants had been poured over it.

“I need to talk to you.” His face was serious.

She suddenly keyed in on it. Fear flitted across her face. He thought numbly: she knows she’s about to get dumped.

The knowing look on Goldie’s face said it all too. Brian pulled Adie out of the room and took her away. Down, down the stairs they went – passing people who stared at them. They know too, Brian thought. Warwick probably spread the word around. Asshole.

Finally, in a secluded section beneath a flowering tree, he stopped her.

“What is it?” she said, the tension evident in her voice.

“We need to stop seeing each other,” he said flatly.

“Wh-what?”

“I’ve moved on. I’ve had you . . . and now I’m moving on. To someone else.”

The look on her face was one of a deer caught in the headlights. He didn’t expect this. He had expected her to swear at him. Then her face changed, and she looked as if she was dying.

His guts clenched. That was why he never allowed himself to get to know them before and after he had f**ked them. It led to inevitably painful scenarios like this. He didn’t know how to cope with something like this, especially since he had the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old.

So he went for the only offensive he knew: to push them off the cliff. Give them no chance whatsoever to recover.