I can’t wrap my mind around what just happened between me and Autumn. The sex on several surfaces of this apartment was fan-fucking-tastic, and I want to ask her when we can do that again. I know later tonight, I’ll find myself alone in bed with her, and the question will have to wait, or maybe I’ll get an after-hours showing. I’d definitely be down for that. As of right now, I’m throwing on anything that looks clean off the floor and throwing it on over my bare body so that I can help Autumn cover up the scene that transpired less than ten minutes ago.
I think I remember leaving the underwear on the countertop before I wrapped her sexy body around mine and hauled her to our bedroom, but I was mesmerized by her, and they could be anywhere.
Boxers, a t-shirt, and jeans are all I need, and I’m back on the chase to find Autumn somewhere in the apartment. I’m preparing to be met with a fight. Even though Isaac thinks we’re dating, he can’t be all that surprised even if he suspected that we got down and nasty in the kitchen. And fuck, we did.
Now, offering Isaac a place to crash in order to see that Autumn and I are a happy couple, is screwing with the plans I have for. Mostly keeping her under me for as long as possible. I’m becoming addicted the more we’re together and it’s not just the sex… I could feel the need to be with her growing a little more each day before I took her on the countertop.
We should have gone straight from the shower to the king-sized bed in the master. I wasn’t done with her and I’m still not.
I hear Autumn’s voice and her laugh, then I hear Isaac’s voice, and he seems to be in a good mood too. Good, maybe she found the underwear before he did.
“Hey,” I say walking into the kitchen, seeing Isaac leaning against the island with his forearms holing him up. A plate of cookies and a gallon of milk sitting out in front of him.
“Hey,” Isaac says flatly, taking a bite of cookie and washing it down with a glass of ice-cold milk the way he always did when we were kids. He’s still not happy to see me, and I’m becoming tired of this disapproval. At first, I understood his position, almost accepting of it, but now…
I glance around the kitchen island, but no panties. I check over the countertop on the face side where all the cookies are lined out of baking sheets, and again… no panties. I look over at Autumn, and she shrugs at me when her brother isn’t looking as if to say she has no idea where they went. Maybe I brought them back with us to the bedroom.
Oh well, no panties, no problem. Works for me. Maybe I brought them back with us to the bedroom and forgot. My hands were very busy at that moment. Who knows what I grabbed in a frenzy to get Autumn back to the master?
I walk over to the over-the-counter cabinets above the cooling cookies and grab a glass. I set it next to the island, and the gallon of milk is still sitting out. Isaac eyeballs me for a second. He grabs the handle on the milk like he’s about to deny me milk… milk I paid for, but then he seems to shake off the look and releases the carton, sliding it over to me with irritation.
“I have to head out. I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Autumn finishes.
“Fine,” Isaac says.
He looks over at my wet hair and then over at hers. “You two leave enough hot water for the rest of us?” His hand balls into a fist on the granite countertop, but he looks more like he’s trying to check his anger than planning to use those knuckles on me. This is progress.
I look over at her, trying my hardest not to toss my bedroom eyes at her. Her cheeks turn a little rosy under her brother’s accusation, but she recovers quickly.
“You’re making it really fucking hard to leave you still standing, Conley,” he says, peering up at me with fire in his eyes.
Autumn steps forward and dips down to Isaac’s eye level. “You know, you could always stay somewhere else.”
“I’m fine here,” he says, meeting her eye contact.
A swell of pride hits me, seeing her go toe-to-toe with Isaac to defend me… to defend us.
“Then I suggest you stop threatening my boyfriend in our home, which he generously invited you to stay in after you cold-cocked him.”
I try to hide my smirk. Good girl. Glad to see her setting some limits on how much he can walk on her. I guess he and I both used to walk on her as kids. My chest squeezes uncomfortably tight. I’m regretting that now.
With Autumn gone for the afternoon, that means Isaac and I will have to play nice while she’s gone. What a weird alternate universe, where being with Autumn is easy… the girl I used to groan about when Isaac’s mom said we had to include her in our shenanigans. Now it’s my best friend that I need a buffer to stay in the same room with. Who knows, maybe with Autumn gone, it will feel more like the old days.
“Okay, I have to go. I already texted the girls and told them I’d be late, but I need to get down there,” she says, sending a glance my way.
“See you tonight?” I ask her.
Maybe if I’m lucky, Isaac will decide to stay out all night so i get his sister to myself this evening but since he’s training… I doubt it.
“Yeah.” She smiles over at me.
“Good.”
A knock sounds at the door, and her eyes dart over to me first.
“I’m not expecting anyone,” I say.
Autumn and I look at Isaac, and he shrugs and shakes his head with a mouth full of cookie. Seems he isn’t expecting anyone either.
She turns and walks toward the door, but I don’t like this idea.
If she wasn’t expecting anyone, I should be the one to open the door. I’ve yet to get a crazy fan or a stalker, but Isaac and I are the public figures in this room, and if it was a crazed fan or worse, it should be him or me to deal with them, not her. Maybe I’m being overprotective, especially in a building with a doorman and security, but that feels like it fits under my new job description as a boyfriend, fake or otherwise. Even if Autumn and I weren’t living in a fake relationship, and she was only here visiting with her brother, I’d still feel as though I share the responsibility with Isaac for her safety while she’s in my presence.
I frown for a second. Had I always been this protective of her and never noticed it? Is it because she is the little sister of my best friend or because she is Autumn?
Even as I ask the question to myself, I know the answer. It’s because it’s Autumn. No one—not even Isaac—could protect her better than me.
I pass her up with my longer stride, beating her to the door. “Wait there,” I tell her and point toward the end of the foyer. “I’ll see who it is.”
I open the door, and when I see who it is. I’m about ready to slam it in the asshole’s face.
Derek.
Autumn’s boss and the man who texted her at 6 a.m. this morning.
The boss that she didn’t sleep with. Didn’t being the operative word here. A bit of information I got when she attempted to tell me they were in a relationship.
They were most certainly not. No dude in his right man who saw long-term in his future wouldn’t let a knock-out like Autumn go out and date another man. I sure as hell wouldn’t, even if it meant she came home with the Powerball winning numbers. Some things aren’t worth the money.
“What the fuck do you want?”
Oh shit, did I just say that out loud? That was unintentional, but now that I’ve said it, I won’t take it back. I meant it. He shouldn’t be here. Autumn was mine, not his… at least for the next few weeks. And I was going to soak up each second of it.
“Is Autumn here? This is the address she sent us in an email,” he says, pressing up on the balls of his feet to try to get a look over my shoulder, but it’s a feeble attempt. My six-four has at least four to five inches on him.
“What do you need her for?” I ask, not opening the door any wider.
“Derek?” I hear Autumn say, coming behind me and attempting to pull the door wide and out of my hands. I let her because if I don’t, she’ll ask why and the only reason I’ll have is “I don’t like looking at his face when I know what he wants to do to you.” I doubt she’ll find my reasoning compelling enough to agree to deny him entry. Although, I’d bet she’s denied him entry enough times if they’ve gone on dates and he never sealed the deal.
“Hey!” he says, side-stepping past me and walking toward her. Fucking bold move. “I wanted to come to check on you since you’ve been working from home.”
“A phone call would have sufficed,” I say under my breath.
Autumn hears it and gives me side-eye, then she turns and heads for the kitchen quickly, bringing Derek with her, probably hoping to let him know that the three of us are not alone and not to spill the beans. Although if there were anyone I’d like to come clean with, it’s Isaac.
“Have you met my brother? He came into town from Vegas to visit.” She offers up her brother, and Isaac walks around the island, his chest half-puffed already. Half of me hopes he’ll deck Derek right on the spot. That would probably get rid of the guy once and for all, and I wouldn’t have to get my hands dirty, but Isaac’s not a hot head going around hitting any and all men who make eyes at his sister… just me. In fairness, I broke the bro code.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Derek,” he says, reaching out and shaking Isaac’s hand.
Isaac’s eyebrow is turned up for a minute. He thinks this is weird, that’s obvious. Isaac doesn’t have much of a poker face.
Derek turns to Autumn. “Didn’t realize we were meeting family already.”
What the fuck did you just say, asshole? And in my damn apartment where I just fucked the girl who I’m supposed to be dating. Your ass is the one who sold off your ‘girlfriend’ for a payday from The Hawkeyes. There’s no way she’ll go back to dating him after this is all over. She deserves a hell of a lot better. Thinking on how much I’ve fucked up over the last year, she deserves better than me, too, but a future between us isn’t realistic anyway, not with Isaac already ordering my headstone. It probably reads:
Here lies the worst friend on the fucking planet.
I hope his dick decays first.
Briggs Michael Conley
Autumn looks a little uncomfortable about his comment, and I should fucking say… where the hell does he get off coming over unannounced to our apartment while we’re trying to look like a couple?
“Already?” Isaac asks. “I thought you’ve been working together for the last four years since Autumn graduated from college?”
I fold my arms over my chest, a smirk brushing across my lips. I’m not offering this wanker a lifesaver. He can tread his way out of the deep end he threw himself in.
“Uh, we’ve been working together awhile. But how often does upper management meet the families… I mean, really?” She gives a tight laugh.
Isaac’s right eyebrow is furrowed, a tell that something seems off, but he’s not pushing the subject. Autumn turns to Derek quickly. “And you already know my boyfriend, Briggs Conley,” she says, gesturing toward me in an attempt to change the subject.
He looks at me with that same look he did at the first meeting we all had in The Hawkeyes conference room, where I was basically forced to fake date Autumn, which Autumn told me was his idea. I guess I did owe the guy a little since he was the one that got us together.
He barely looks over at me. “Right. Hello again,” he says, avoiding shaking my hand, but I reach over anyway. If he doesn’t take it, he’ll look bad in front of Autumn and Isaac, and he knows it. He reaches out and takes my hand, and I put a little extra pressure in my squeeze until he flinches.
Autumn’s eyes connect on something on the floor, and I follow her line of sight. Her boy shorts lying on the ground under the island. They must have fallen off the island during the encounter. I see Derek follow both of our attention, and he clears his voice the second he realizes what they are. I’m closer than Autumn, so I quickly pick them up and slide them into my back pocket when Isaac turns to put his milk glass in the dishwasher.
Derek clears his voice even louder that time. I think the only thing worse than seeing the evidence that your not-girlfriend is getting laid by someone else is to see that same dude putting her panties in his back pocket.
It might have been an unintentional marking-my-territory stunt, but now that it’s done, I couldn’t be happier.
Fuck him. She deserves better than a guy offering up his girl as a fake girlfriend for someone else. Who knows, by the end of this, I might even help her forget his name.
Autumn tries to divert Derek’s attention from the event. “I was actually just headed out. I have a coffee meeting this afternoon, and now I’m really late for it.”
“Oh! I’ll walk you out.” Derek beams. “I’ll just take a cookie for the road,” he says, grabbing for a cookie that Autumn made for me. You can do a lot of shit to piss a man off, but take one of his cookies that his fake-girlfriend made for him without asking? Now, it’s war.
He bites into the cookies as he tries to usher her out of this apartment as quickly as he can and away from me, I’d suspect.
“Did you make these?” he asks her. “They’re amazing.”
I want to make an excuse to head down with them, but I still don’t know what’s happening between Autumn and I. The door clicks shut after them and it sounds like a coffin shutting. What happens if this whole thing will blow over after our contract is done.
Does she want Derek over me? The idea of it makes me want to connect my knuckles with a sheet of ice. I’d rather get body checked against the Plexiglass by the opposing team without pads on than watch Autumn go out with that dick.
