Page 33 of Faking the Pass

The Amendment

R osie

I wasn’t sure where Presley had slept last night, but it wasn’t in the bed with me.

Which should have made me happy. I’d wanted to restore a safe distance between us, and apparently I’d succeeded.

But I felt guilty. He’d probably woken up with crippling back pain from sleeping on the floor—or on that tiny office loveseat.

The entire next day was uncomfortable. He was clearly avoiding me. That was probably for the best.

Lines were starting to get blurred here.

Last night, I’d been teetering on the edge of erasing them altogether.

But the fact remained I couldn’t be casual about this. And Presley hadn’t argued with me when I’d told him that.

I laughed at myself. What had I thought would happen when I made that confession?

He’d tell me it wasn’t casual for him either?

He’d fall at my feet and declare his undying love after a few weeks of knowing me?

Yes, he’d said that he wanted me. I already knew that.

There was a truckload of undeniable sexual tension between us, but that would probably be the case with pretty much any heterosexual man and woman stuck together in a small house on a beautiful island. Probably.

Anyway, Presley had said as much. Harmless vacation sex , he’d called it.

For me—when it came to him—there was no such thing as harmless sex.

I’d been trying to pretend not to care, but there was no more denying it. This was so much more than a fake relationship for me.

The potential to get my heart broken here was staggering.

Nearly as staggering as the long, hard pressure I’d felt against my abdomen when Presley had pinned me up against the wall, kissing me like he was starving and I was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

I hadn’t been able to keep myself from bringing my hand between us and touching him there.

And when he’d pushed the top of my sundress down to expose my breasts and breathed the word, “finally” against the tip of one, I’d nearly melted to the floor.

He’d sounded almost worshipful.

No, Rosie, what he sounded was incredibly turned on and very ready for some casual vacation sex.

I couldn’t let myself give in to wishful thinking and start imagining there was any more to it on his part.

Which meant I needed to do my best to avoid him as well. It was the only way I’d get through the rest of this trip with my heart intact.

Claiming to need a day out of the sun, I went back to the bedroom after breakfast, shut the door, and watched a movie.

When it ended, I still wasn’t ready to leave my little sanctuary, so I called Danielle to check in.

For the past few years, she’d been the voice of reason in my life, and I was feeling a desperate need for some of that right now.

My gaze went to the window that looked out over the pool deck. Presley had decided to go for a swim here at the house instead of down at the beach today, and the sight of Presley Lowe in swim trunks was enough to make any reasonable woman start questioning reality.

As the phone rang, I watched him move across the pool with swift, powerful strokes.

Reaching the end, he put his big hands on the ladder rails and hoisted himself out of the water, giving me a tantalizing view of his wet chest and abdomen, the muscles putting on a show no movie could ever compete with.

I hit the button to close the blinds.

“Hello?” Danielle finally answered. She sounded excited. “Is this Mrs. Presley Lowe?”

“For the moment. How are you?”

“Great! It’s so good to hear from you. I didn’t think you’d have time to call from your honeymoon.”

“I’m positively made of time right now,” I said. “No work. No responsibilities.”

No sex.

“You got back to California with no trouble I hope?” I asked.

“Well, you know flying these days, but I got here,” she said. “And where are you? I’ve been dying to know—and I want details.”

“We’re on an island in Indonesia—a private one. Apparently there are more than eighteen-thousand of them here. This one’s owned by his brother. It’s gorgeous. The house is stunning, the weather is perfect, and the water is the clearest blue I’ve ever seen.”

“Amazing. And how’s married life?”

She used a suggestive tone, and I could practically see the mischievous twinkle in her eye.

“Has the famously uptight Mr. Lowe relaxed a bit?”

“You know it’s not like that.” Though it very nearly was last night.

“But yes, he has chilled out a bit,” I said. “We’ve been having a good time hiking and snorkeling and watching movies and stuff.”

“Mmmhmmm,” she hummed in a knowing way. “And how is the stuff ? Is he huge? He must be huge—I couldn’t believe the size of him and all his brothers in person.”

My mind flashed to the mental images I’d created from the tactile impressions his stuff had left on me when we’d gotten closer than we should have.

I couldn’t help it.

I had a good imagination, and Presley had given me lots of inspiration to work with.

“I don’t know,” I told her. It was a half truth. “I haven’t seen it.”

“What?”

Danielle let out a shocked laugh. “I didn’t think there was any way you’d make it this far without tearing each other’s clothes off. Not with how he was looking at you during the ceremony and the reception.”

A flare of heat lit up my chest.

“Really? I didn’t notice anything.”

Honestly, I wouldn’t know how Presley had looked at me. I’d been so busy not looking at him during the reception. And the ceremony had been such a nervous blur, I barely remembered it.

“Then you must be blind,” Danielle said. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

What?

“Everyone who?” I asked. “You mean his family? Are you keeping in touch with them?”

“No, I mean the wedding video,” she clarified. “The boy looks totally smitten.”

“What video? You mean the one the film crew did? How did you see it? I haven’t even seen it yet.”

“It went out this morning on all his socials. You didn’t know?”

Moving the phone away from my ear, I did a frantic search for the video, tapping my screen so hard I practically sprained my finger.

“Hello? Hello, are you still there Rosie?”

I was, but I’d gone speechless as the video began to play.

“Rosie, I think I lost you,” Danielle’s voice sounded very far away, drowned out by the sound of my own heartbeat slamming my eardrums.

“No, I’m here,” I said after gasping for a new breath. “Can I call you later?”

“Sure. You okay?”

“Yeah… yeah I’m fine. All good.” It was a lie.

As I watched the video of our ceremony and then the footage taken during the hours afterwards, I was definitely not fine.

In fact, I felt a bit like I was having a heart attack, and I couldn’t have torn my eyes away from the screen even if lightning struck the house and the roof was on fire.

The video team must have emailed this to Presley once they’d finished editing. Apparently they’d placed a couple of minicams inside the chapel—one trained on his face, one on mine.

Those shots were tight, and the editor had interspersed them with shots from the doorway, where you could see our full bodies and the heads of our guests silhouetted in the candlelight.

It was absolutely stunning.

The close up shots of our faces even more so. Well, I kind of looked like a deer in headlights, but Presley’s face was… beautiful.

As he listened to the minister and said his vows, he looked so serious, so focused and intense. But it wasn’t the kind of intensity I’d seen on his face during football game broadcasts.

This was softer and maybe a little… tender?

And his voice… I’d always loved it, but listening to it here… wow .

As Danielle had said, there were shots of Presley’s face all during the reception dinner and the dancing where they captured his expression.

He looked for all the world like he wanted to be there, doing exactly what he was doing.

They got some of me, too— my tears during the toasts, me looking up at him during our first dance, in wonder over his song choice.

It all looked so… real . No wonder people were talking.

After watching the video beginning to end several times, I scrolled through the comments on one platform then another.

Our fake wedding seemed to be having the desired effect already.

It might have occurred to me to be irritated that Presley had posted this publicly without letting me see it first—if it hadn’t been working so well .

This was the plan right? People were apparently captivated by the idea of us.

There were almost no posts I could find about the previous wedding that hadn’t actually happened.

It was a testament to Presley’s undeniable appeal that more women were shipping the two of us than were trolling me for jumping from one guy to the other so quickly.

There was basically a consensus that Presley Lowe would be irresistible.

And they were right.

Of course there were also plenty of comments from women devastated that he was no longer on the market. Opening the blinds a crack, I watched him standing near the edge of the pool, toweling off his legs.

In my opinion, he was mistaken that a wedding band would keep all of his pursuers away—some women wouldn’t care.

And I’d been wrong to think I’d be able to spend so much time in close proximity with him and keep up my resistance to his charms.

I couldn’t fight it anymore.

Not after watching that wedding video.

But I’d thought of a way to handle this that would keep me safe. At least somewhat.

When I saw him open the door to the house to come inside, I opened my own door and went to meet him.

Presley turned to me, rubbing his wet hair with a towel and causing that ripped abdominal area to put on a fascinating show.

“Hey.” He sounded surprised. “Get caught up on your rest?”

Walking straight up to him, I placed my hands on those delicious abs. The contrast of hot, smooth skin and firm muscle was delicious.

It made me want to devour him and be devoured by him.

“Yes. And now I’m ready,” I said.

His eyelids flared, then dropped to half-mast, like he was experiencing a rush of pleasure.

“Ready for what?” he asked in a low, growly tone.

“To amend the contract.”

Something inside me had been freed—a wild thing, like a prowling jungle cat let out of a cage.

I let my hands explore Presley’s stomach and chest the way I’d been longing to do since I’d first seen them exposed like this. No texture in the world felt better than this, his skin, stretched tautly over the segmented hardness underneath.

Though he didn’t move or touch me back, his breathing changed. He sounded like he’d been doing wind sprints.

“What kind of amendment did you have in mind?” he asked.

His hands finally moved, sifting through my hair and caressing my shoulders, and chills raced all over my body. I was already glowing with anticipation.

Though the physical touch was scrambling my brain a bit, I managed to answer. It was very important to get these details nailed down before things went any further.

“We could put in a temporary clause to the contract… to include sex… the more than kissing kind. Temporarily. Like, a hall pass while we’re on vacation.”

I rushed to add, “When we get home, things will go back to normal. Separate bedrooms, separate beds.”

His expression showed no reaction. Now he wore that look I’d seen on TV Sunday afternoons. Focused. Intense.

Impossible to read.

“Is that what you want?” he asked quietly, his voice controlled.

My face went hot. Was he trying to make me admit I wanted him? I did, of course, but I couldn’t allow myself to say things I’d only have to walk back later.

“It just makes sense,” I said. “There’s only one bed, and you know…”

My voice trailed off, too embarrassed to confess how hot he made me.

“Healthy male, healthy female?” he asked, a note of amusement lightening the growl.

“Yes. Right. Very healthy in your case.” My eyes roamed over his incredible body. “And I thought after what happened in the hallway last night, you might—”

He cut me off by yanking me close to him.

“Yes.”

The confirmation was blunt and adamant and followed by a blistering kiss that went on for minutes without either of us pausing to breathe.

When we finally came up for air, Presley rested his forehead against mine, and his hands were moving everywhere as if he couldn’t decide which part to explore first.

“Do you want me to let you go, so you can write it down in your little notebook?” he asked, drawing his teeth over his full bottom lip in a way that made me impatient to kiss him again.

“No.”

I paused for a fortifying breath then told him the truth.

“I don’t want you to let me go for a long, long time.”

That sensual mouth broke into a full smile.

“You got it.”

Then he swept an arm behind my knees, scooping me up and heading for the bedroom in long, rapid strides.