Substitute Boyfriend (4 page)

He shook his head.  “Honey, you know I like a little kink
, but what was it you said?  You’re vanilla.  And your readers expect vanilla from you, right?”

Ah…there it was.  Oh, thank you, my sweet muse
, for infusing my brain with something perfect just in the fucking nick of time.  I wanted to verbally emasculate him, but that wasn’t going to happen, so at least I could march out of there with my dignity intact.  “Sweetheart, I might be vanilla, but I’m a goddamned hot vanilla latte with whipped cream.  And I have the right to refuse you service.”

Okay, maybe not as clever as I’d thought at the time, but it was enough to propel me out the door, into the cool evening where I walked down the block and let the heat of early summer dry the tears on my cheeks.

Chapter Five

I GAVE THE cab driver twenty bucks—enough for the ride plus a tip—and I stepped out onto the sidewalk.  Damn, it was hot for an early summer night.  It should have been cooler this time of evening, so I figured we were in for a scorcher this year.  The cab had been air conditioned, though, and soon enough I’d be inside.

I walked toward Roman’s apartment on the ground floor.  I’d called him after I had my wits about me, but he could tell something was wrong.  I’d told him I needed a friend to drink with and I’d been fortunate.  He didn’t have plans.  He was reading one of the textbooks he’d be using to teach Abnormal Psych beginning Monday,
but it was just a brush up, he said.  He didn’t really need to go through it again, had just wanted to be prepared.

Yeah, I knew that feeling.  Sometimes I felt like a fraud teaching my classes, interpreting literature.  Some of the loftier ideas didn’t
always work for me.  I wasn’t a pedantic, know-it-all professor like a lot of the academics I knew.  Sure, I was considered a scholar and a hell of a researcher (and writer too, but little did they know about my secret life as Eliza Brennan) by my colleagues, but most of the time, I felt like a fake.  I knew what was expected, and I could wear that mask, but it really wasn’t who I was at the heart of me.  I was smart, sure, but I didn’t think of myself as being in the same league as many of my peers.  My place in academia often felt like a sham to me…and I think that’s why Roman was my best friend ever.  He was an academic, sure, and smart as hell.  The guy was a genius, especially when you started talking psychology, but he was also down to earth and not afraid to be himself.  I admired that.  And the fact that his interests were akin to mine helped immensely.

Honestly, Roman was the guy who didn’t have to prepare for class, but he did anyway.

That’s why I didn’t feel bad about coming over for a couple of drinks.  He could probably stand some loosening up.  A guy like Roman?  He should have been out with someone that night.  I also knew a bit of a darker side of the guy too, though, and that was that he sometimes was (and he’d admitted this aloud) a bit of a misanthrope.  He got along so well with people, but he hated most of them.  I think it was his psychology background.  Unbeknownst to most of us, Roman had psychoanalyzed us in the first ten minutes of meeting him, and he was all about motivations.  What motivates us to do what we do?  Why the hell did we do all the dumb ass things we did?  So he seemed to know the intent behind the move every person made.  It was amazing.

Maybe that too was part of why we got along so well.  He knew I was, in my heart, a good person who genuinely liked him.  I wasn’t someone who saw him as a path to something else, someth
ing he’d accused others of.

I reached his door, grateful I would have my friend to myself.  I just wanted a few drinks, and I knew—like always—that Roman and I would start talking about something and hours would elapse and I would feel so much better.  I’d asked him what he wanted to drink, because I was going to swing by the liquor store on the way over, but he said he had plenty of stuff.
  “Hard liquor?” I’d asked.

“Whatever you want.”

Hmm.  He and I hadn’t done any drinking together.  In spite of the fact that Ridley and I had met at a bar, I wasn’t much of a drinker period.  I’d gone through a phase while working on my bachelor’s degree, but I’d been younger and more resilient.  Nowadays, I experienced fewer hangovers but also didn’t want to party as much as I had in my younger days.

Part of the reason?
  Well…I had my own secret little world, a world full of lively people, ones whose lives were literally in my hands—or fingers, as it were.  Those people consumed my nights and days, and the past year, I hadn’t done much else other than work.  Ridley had helped fuel that, because he was like a physical manifestation of the world that now absorbed every moment outside of teaching and the activities around those duties.

Roman was at the door seconds after I rang the bell.  “So what the hell is up with you, Beth?”

I shook my head.  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

He shrugged as he stepped aside for me to walk through. 
“Fair enough.”  He closed the door and said, “Come with me to the kitchen.  I have a plethora of beverages for your perusal.”

I started laughing.  “Hold on.  Mind if I take these shoes off first?”  I was wearing three-inch red heels, shoes I’d only ever worn once before, and that was when I first bought them.  Yes, they were with a character in mind.  They definitely weren’t
me
.

“Yeah, they’re making you pretty tall.”  Roman was probably about six foot three, but I felt really tall in those heels, and I didn’t have to tilt my neck as much to talk to him.  That was the
cool part, but they were killing my feet.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dressed like that.  What’s up?”

I laughed.  “Seriously, it’s a long story.”

“That you don’t want to talk about.  Yeah, I got you, Slade, but you
will
tell me before the night’s over.”  Damn psychology prof.

I set my shoes by the door and let out a sigh. 
Much better.  I grinned at Roman and walked over to him as he began leading me once more toward the kitchen.  “You seem pretty confident about that.”

“Damn straight.  And you know I’m always right.”

I
didn’t
know that…but I was pretty sure it was true.

* * *

Oh, wow.  Yeah, I was enjoying myself, but I was fuzzy.  Way too fuzzy.  Had I just fucking said what I thought I said?

I was blinking my eyes, the laughter
gone, trying to figure out what the hell had just come out of my mouth based on Roman’s reaction.  I was hoping the look on his face would give away if I’d just blown my biggest fucking secret of all time.

His head was cocked, and he was assessing me.  No, make that
psychoanalyzing
me.

Oh, shit.  That could only mean one thing…

“You do
what
on the side?”

Yeah…I’d definitely let the cat out of the bag. 
Er, lion.  I blinked again, trying to steady myself, but who the hell was I kidding?  I was half blitzed.  “I write erotic romance novels.”

He took another swig of beer.  “That’s what I
thought
you said.”  He grinned, his dimples carving a deep gash in his cheeks.  “Under a pseudonym?”

“Of course!”

“Anything I’ve heard of?”

“Oh, I doubt it.  My biggest book to date is called
The Deadliest Game
, and it’s about—”

“Hold on.  Let me wrap my mind around all this.  You’re a writer. 
And I’ve never known this.
  How long have you been publishing?”

“Two years.”

“No shit.  What’s your pen name?”

“Eliza Brennan.”  I could see the in
credulity in his eyes.  “Just a sec.”  I got to my feet so I could find where I’d tossed my purse.  I wobbled to the living room where that oversized bag sat next to my shoes, fetching out my phone and walking back in the kitchen.  I’d already punched in my passcode and had pulled up my Facebook page so I could show him my profile. 
Ah
.  5,233 likes, two more since I’d last logged in.  I handed him the phone and walked over to the cupboard.  I needed some water.  I wanted to be sober for the remainder of the conversation.  I’d already let my biggest secret slip.  Granted, I didn’t mind that I’d told Roman.  I trusted him.  I just wish I’d been in a clearer frame of mind when I’d let it out of my lips.

“Wow.”

“Hold on.”  I sat next to him again and took the phone from him.  I pulled up the browser and typed my pen name into Google so he could see what happened.  I handed it over again and let him scroll and click with his finger.

“Damn, Beth…or, should I say,
Eliza
.  This is crazy.”  He looked up.  “I can’t believe I didn’t know about that.”

I grinned.  “I don’t tell you all my secrets.”

“But—”

“Yeah, I know.  I’m sorry.
I didn’t mean to hide it from you.  I just—”

“No, that’s not it.  Everyone has secrets.  That’s cool.  I’m just shocked as hell that I hadn’t figured that one out.”

I blinked.  Well, I was glad he wasn’t offended that I hadn’t told him anything.  I was more worried about hurting his feelings than anything else.  That he wasn’t bothered by it made me more relaxed.  “I’ve kept it secret from
everyone
, Roman.  My parents don’t know; none of my friends—including you; no one at work…”

“Not even your
sister
?”  He knew my sister and I were close.  She and I went out to lunch once a month, and he knew that much, but I’d never told him much more about my family.

“
Especially
not my sister.  She’d disown me.”

“Are you so sure about that?”

“Yeah, so much so that I won’t chance it.”

“Hmm.”
  He polished off his beer and stood up so he could throw the bottle in the trash.  He came back and sat down again, this time pouring himself a shot of the poison I’d been drinking into the glass I’d used for it.  “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.”
  While he slammed his shot, I took my phone back and opened up the Kindle app.

“You’re not going to hit me with
all
your dark and dirty secrets now, are you?”

I started laughing.  “I’m afraid I’ve already hit you with the biggest.”  He chuckled.  I’d typed my pen name in the search bar on my Kindle app, and it pulled up eleven books—all of the covers were hot to one degree or another.  I preferred
cover models with long hair and tattoos…half-naked men.  There were three books that had couples on them, but the rest of them were men alone—hard-bodied, glistening, tattooed…just yummy.  I handed the phone to him again and took a long swig of water.  Why were my cheeks feeling so hot?  Roman knew I wasn’t a sheltered, innocent, shy thing, so why would writing some sexy books be embarrassing?

He smiled and handed my phone back to me again.  “That’s crazy, Beth.  Good crazy…but crazy.”

I shrugged.  “Yeah, well, now you know all my secrets.”  Wait, no.  That wasn’t true…and he saw it all over my fucking face.

Roman’s eyebrows lifted. 
“Really?”

“Well…I don’t know that the last one counts.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s interrelated to writing…and it’s why I was so upset tonight.”

“So spill the beans already.”

I swallowed and shook my head.  Yep, I was
gonna tell him.  “I also have a pretend boyfriend…and he cheated on me tonight.”

Chapter Six

I COULD TELL from the sparkle in Roman’s eyes that he wanted to laugh but he suspected it would be insensitive.  So he furrowed his brow, just like a good friend would, and asked, “What the hell is a
pretend boyfriend
?”

I wasn’t sure where to start…
and I figured I should just tell him the whole story.  So I did.  I told him about how I’d picked Ridley up at a bar and the man had discovered my secret identity, then volunteered for the role, apparently not understanding how demanding I could be.

Roman shook his head.  Oh, he must have been disappointed in me.  But I’d misunderstood.  “You know what the problem is?”  I gulped.  I had several suspicions, but there was no way I was going to voice them.  I’d done enough talking already.  “He’s not like you at all. 
Sounds to me like you have nothing in common.”

I snorted then, unable to help myself.  “You got that right.”

“So he was probably looking for a companion that better suited him for the evening.”

Wow.  Okay, so why the hell did that hurt so much?  Roman could have just grabbed the chef’s knife out of its place in the knife holder on the counter and plunged it into my chest, and I guarantee it would have been less painful. 
“Some bimbo who wears too much makeup?”

“If that’s what he’s into.”  Roman leaned over the table.  “Sorry, kid.  I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, but be honest with yourself.  Do you see this guy in your life ten years from now?”

Honestly, no.  I couldn’t see Ridley in my life at all, but I’d wanted to try.  He was so fucking hot, and he could make my blood boil.  So, no—realistically, I knew that Ridley didn’t fit anywhere in my life, but why couldn’t we give it a try?  When I’d suggested a date to the guy—a
real
one—I’d set it up as though maybe I’d wanted to extend my fictional life out more, and Ridley had talked to me like I was a good little puppy.  I was surprised he hadn’t patted me on the head.

And then I’d dropped it.  Why was that?

I took a deep breath and shrugged.  In the back of my mind, I knew Roman was right, but that didn’t mean I liked hearing it.  “Ten years from now, if he looks then like he looks now…”  Roman cocked his head.  I could see the
Really?
expression in his eyes.  “All right.  Okay.  So no.  You’re right.  We’re like night and day.”

“The sex good?”

My internal filter flew off.  I’m not sure why.  The alcohol maybe…or perhaps I was tired of keeping all those secrets from my friend.  “It got better as we went, because I told him what to do, but…no.  I’ve had lots better.”

Roman nodded and grew strangely quiet.  It was freaking me out.  Finally, though, he said, “So what are you going to do—I mean writing wise—now that your
pretend boyfriend
is out of the picture?”  I took a deep breath.  Before I could answer, he added, “Or are you going to kiss and make up?”

Part of me wanted to…really wanted to.  For no good reason, I wanted to keep Ridley around.  Maybe I was lonely and liked having a pretend boyfriend whom I could call whenever the mood struck.  Honestly, he’d helped me work out a lot of sex scenes.  The books I wrote now as opposed to two years ago were more realistic, and I wrote more sex now than I did back then.  I knew that was fueled by my desire to have Ridley around.  I needed an excuse to have him over, and needing to write a sex scene helped me fool myself into thinking it was just about the books.

It was more than that, though, and I knew the psychologist in Roman saw right through me…so there was no need to put on an act.  He would know I was full of shit, and there was no need to even try.  I wasn’t in the mood to have him pick me apart, not while I was feeling so vulnerable, so I knew I should just be truthful.  “I guess I’ll just do what I did before Ridley was in the picture—I’ll write strictly from my imagination.”

Roman was containing another smile when he said, “So
let me get this straight.  You would set up a scenario and then act it out, and whatever happened, you would just kind of transcribe?”

“Well, no, it wasn’t exactly like that.  I would plot out the whole book.  It was just the sex scenes
…that we would act out.”  My cheeks flamed again.  “Sometimes it’s hard to imagine exactly how something feels or works until you try it.”

Oh, he was enjoying this way too much.  “Can you give me an example?”

I sneered.  “Not without another drink.”  I grabbed the bottle and snatched my shot glass back from him, pouring the amber liquid to the rim.  I drank it down fast.  That one made me shudder, because I’d been sobering up quite nicely.  Then I looked him square in the eyes.  I wanted him to wipe the amused look off his face, because it made it harder for me to talk about it.  “Okay, so,
for example
, I had been picturing this scene in my head where the hero and heroine are in the front seat of a car and he’s going to…”  I looked down at the table.  I really couldn’t look him in the eyes to tell him this.  “…go down on her, but they’re still in the front seat, right?  So I needed to work out if they could actually do it.  You know, if you slide the seat back all the way and then lean it back too and the woman leans against the dash.”

“And?”

I couldn’t help myself.  I smiled.  “It can be done.”  Roman started chuckling.  “But I wouldn’t have known it if I hadn’t tried it.  And I’d often wondered if a guy could fuck me while holding me—without a wall to support me.  You know, stuff like that.”  Damn, that alcohol wasn’t working.  I poured another shot.

But Roman touched my hand before I could
drink more of the liquor.  That forced me to look at him.  “So your pretend boyfriend is gone.”  He cleared his throat.  “What if you had a substitute?  You know, like a stand in?”

I blinked several times.  Okay, maybe I
had
had enough liquor, more than enough, in fact, because I was being pretty thick.  “You mean a substitute Ridley?”

“Yeah…a substitute boyfriend.”

“I guess that could work…but I don’t know if I’d be able to find another guy willing to do it.”

He laughed then, long and hard.  “I could find plenty of guys willing to help you out.”

“Really?  Name one.”

He moved his hand so that he could take mine in his.  I swallowed as the implications washed over me, but he didn’t say anything until my eyes locked with his.  “Me.”

The room was silent then as my eyes continued to search his.  He was dead serious.  And that left me with no words to say.  I stood, my hand falling away from his loose grip, and walked around the table.  He joined me.

Wow.  I felt pretty awkward.  Roman had always been firmly in my friend zone.  I had never, not once, thought about him in a sexual way.  I found that odd, too, because he was a good-looking guy and he was in fantastic shape.  The fact that I’d never considered him made me wonder if it had been one of his psychology mind tricks.

I would have laughed if he hadn’t been looking at me
like that
.  Sweet holy Jesus.  His eyes were dark, his pupils swollen with desire, a look I had never expected to see from my friend—
ever
—and directed at me, no less.  It was kind of freaking me out and made me want to have another drink.

But I couldn’t, because his hands cupped my cheeks and he leaned over to touch his lips to mine.  My heart began to flutter.  It had already made up its mind to jump in and go full throttle.  The only thing holding me back was my brain.  It was telling me that Roman was just my friend and it was a line we shouldn’t cross, and—

Until his tongue entered my mouth.  Fuck whatever my brain had to say.  Holy fuck.  I hadn’t imagined it.  This guy—my best friend, for God’s sake—was a hell of a kisser.  Why had I not ever thought about it before?  By that point, my entire body was engaged.  Fingers locked in his hair?  Check.  Nipples alert and at the ready?  Uh…definitely check.  Pussy getting a little damp?  Hell, yeah.  All systems go.

I didn’t think he was moving fast, but his hands were in my hair, his lips touching my neck as I let out a sigh.  Okay, so these were the kinds of nuances I hadn’t been able to teach Ridley.  Somehow, Roman
already knew what I needed and how to deliver.  Maybe it was because we had been friends for so long, but it was probably because he was the kind of guy who analyzed people.  He likely knew what I wanted before I did.

The rational part of my brain knew that wasn’t true, though.  Roman had always read me like a book, and so why would this moment be any different?

He stopped kissing me and looked me in the eyes.  “So…for the purpose of empirical research, I have to ask this question.”  I gulped, still not trusting myself, and simply nodded my head.  “Have you ever done it on a table?”