Page 72 of The Faking Game
“Yes, but we’re not going to do what the others are doing.” West’s other hand comes to rest on the side of my thigh, his arm draped over me. It’s a possessive, casual gesture. He’s resting his arm around the woman he brought here.
The shots have helped make me feel lighter. Less in my head. I run my fingers along his forearm where it rests on the side of the chair. I’ve never touched a man like this before. Casually, no expectations, just to explore.
His sleeve is rolled up, and his forearms are thick, dappled with dark hair.
“Because you don’t date,” I say. “That’s why you’ve never been on one of those couches.”
“No, trouble. Because like I said, I don’t share. And that includes letting others watch when I make a woman come.”
His hand is big and curved over the end of the armrest, and his words whisper through me in a heated echo.When I make a woman come.
I’ve only come by myself. Heated touches in my own bedroom, to fantasies with nameless, faceless men. To stories and my own imagination. His hand, though… what would it feel like if it was him?
I run my nails lightly over his skin, from wrist to elbow. “Who are we performing for?”
West’s mouth shifts to my ear. “The man in the pin-striped suit. He’s sitting directly opposite us.”
The man who can’t stop watching us.
“That’s your cousin?”
“Yes.” Beneath my searching fingers, his hand tightens on the end of the armrest. “He’s a nuisance.”
“You’re not close.”
“No. We’re not.”
“And he needs to think you’re committed? Or in love?”
West’s head turns, and I catch sight of his narrowed eyes. “Is there a difference?”
“Of course. Why would he think you’re committed and not just… bringing a date here to have fun?” I shift in his lap. This isn’t unlike a few of the modeling gigs I’ve done, when I’m posing with male models. It’s choreographed. Clinical. Acting.
To tell a story.
“He should think we’re serious.”
“I’m in love with you. That’s what you’re saying.” I put my hand flat on his chest and smile like I’m charmed by something he’s saying. My forehead is pressed against the warm, bare skin of his neck. He smells good.
His hands tighten their hold. “Yes.”
“I’m good at pretending,” I say.
“Yes, I know you are.”
“I’ve posed like this before for shoots.” I reach for his hand, the one around my waist, and pull it more thoroughly into my lap. I play with his long fingers, weave them around my own, and look like I’m the happiest, laziest, most content woman in the world.
It’s not a difficult mask to wear.
It might not even be a mask at all.
West’s voice is by my ear. “You pose with male models a lot?”
“Sometimes. But I’m turning down most modeling gigs now.” Or trying to, at least. It’s hard sometimes, when my brother is asking. I have a shoot for a Valmont brand just a week from now that I wasn’t able to get out of.
“They must ask you out.”
“Sometimes,” I say again. My finger brushes over his signet ring. The goldenB, for the Belmont Academy. The school in Vermont. The one he attended with my brother and Alex and James. I don’t know what happened there. But Rafe was sent away a rowdy teenager and returned ready for university with three best friends, a ring he never took off, and a purpose.
