Fakers (29 page)

“Always.”

twenty-eight

K
yra was up early
the next morning. Before Hale woke up, she’d gotten in a punishing
workout, shower, and breakfast. When he finally stirred, just as
the sun was fully rising, she was back in bed, working. She pulled
out her earphones and looked over at him with a smile.

“I’m tired,” he said, sounding half
asleep.

“You worked hard last night.”

“Could probably conjure that strength now,”
Hale said, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“Ha!” She snorted. “Is the crew coming
today?”

“Nah.” He pulled the sheet back up to his
shoulders and burrowed deeper into the pillows. “Gave them today
off to prepare their houses for the storm this weekend.”

“That was nice of you,” she commented,
tucking one of her earphones back in and jigging her foot in time
to the lilting beat.

He grunted in response. Just when his
breathing turned to the slow, deliberate breaths of sleep, a loud
honk sounded from outside. Kyra smirked as he reared up in bed.

“What the fuck?”

“Furniture.” She slapped his arm, springing
from the bed. “You get to help.”

As she passed by the bed, she ripped off the
sheets, exposing the length of his hard, naked body. She didn’t
bother paying attention to his string of colorful curse words as
she pounded down the steps and swung the front door open before the
furniture guys even had a chance to knock.

“Morning!” She beamed up at the surprised
man. His beard was bright red and his belly protruded nearly a foot
in front of him.

“Ma’am,” he said gruffly with a nod. “We’ve
got some furniture for you today.”

Kyra clapped her hands together in
excitement. “Awesome! Let’s get to it then.” She swiveled around
and hollered up the stairs, “Hale! Hurry up!”

“Uh…I’m Dusty.”

She shook his offered hand quickly before
stepping around him onto the porch. A floor lamp was being lowered
from a large truck in front of her house. She already knew the
neighborhood ladies would complain because the truck was blocking
the street. Mrs. Harrison could suck it, Kyra thought. Her house
was finally getting furniture!

She practically danced down her front walk
to the back of the truck. Inside, she recognized her wrought-iron
bed frame with gilded roses. The old sixties record player was
right in front, and her mouth watered at finally being able to play
her records.

Hale finally came downstairs after Dusty and
his helper had muscled in a heavy coffee table. Together, the four
of them got everything inside and in the right rooms. By the time
it was all done, Hale was wiping beads of sweat off his brow and
Kyra was flitting from room to room, trying to figure out how to
arrange everything. She stopped long enough to tip the guys from
the salvage store before they left. Hale collapsed onto her pink
zebra chair, which happened to be the only comfy seat she had in
her living room. She pulled out her phone to take notes. Her first
one:
couches
.

“You know,” he said, “this isn’t what you
pay me to do. I’m a contractor, not a mover.”

Distracted, Kyra looked up from her phone.
She’d already been shopping for cute couches. “What?”

“I don’t arrange furniture either. And I
certainly don’t rearrange furniture fifty million times.”

“I’m not going to ask you to rearrange it
fifty million times,” she said, frowning.

Hale gestured toward her. “I see what you’re
doing. The crazy is brewing in your eyes right now. You have that
fifty million
look on your face.”

Kyra sniffed. He might have a point. She
really had no clue where she wanted everything. “So you’re not
going to help me?”

“I’ll help you.” He crossed his legs at the
ankle, stretching his arms over his head. His shirt lifted,
revealing a swath of tan skin and patch of dark hair below his
belly button. Kyra knew that spot on him well by now, but her mouth
still pooled with warm saliva. “But it’ll cost you.”

“You’re going to charge me?”

“In many ways.” He smirked. “Later tonight.
Maybe even during all this furniture arranging if I get bored or
you piss me off extra good.”

Kyra rolled her eyes. “Okay, whatever,
Fabio. Let’s get going.”

Later that night, after she had asked him to
rearrange everything numerous, but not quite fifty million, times,
she realized he really did intend on charging her.

“Excuse me?” she asked, a crimson blush
crawling up her neck. Pizza boxes were still out on the counter,
but Hale had distracted her from cleaning up.

“I asked if you remembered when you said you
wanted to suck my dick.”

“Possibly.”

He stalked toward her. “You remember,” he
whispered a few inches from her face. “I can tell because your
hands are starting to tremble. They always do that when you’re
turned on. So, tell me, Kyra. Do you want to suck my dick?”

“Yes.” Her hands were indeed trembling, as
were her fingertips and knees.

“Have you ever had a dick in your
mouth?”

“Yes.”

Hale scowled, his face turning dark and
vicious. He didn’t like her answer one bit. “It won’t be like this.
Understand?”

“Yes,” she quietly said again.

“Good.” He backed up against the counters
and dropped his jeans. They naturally hung so low on his tapered
hips that they easily slid right off without even being unbuttoned.
He wore no boxers, and his erection was free to press into the
rigid creases of his stomach muscles. His massive, tattooed thighs
were spread as far as his jeans would allow. Everything Kyra saw
screamed
man
to her. “Come here.” He crooked his finger at
her, beckoning her closer.

She obeyed. “Hale…” Her breath whooshed out
of her, leaving her gasping when he took her hand and wrapped it
around his erection.

“You can start now.”

His hands cupped her shoulders and pressed
her down. Kyra resisted. “Hale, you can’t just command someone
to…to suck…well, to do
that
.”

“Why not? I said you would be charged. This
is your payment.”

Kyra rolled her eyes, crossing her arms and
stepping away from him. “You’re such an ass.”

Hale smiled wickedly. His hand was faster
than she could even see. Grasping her wrist, he jerked her against
him, pressing her stomach into his dick. Her insides liquefied into
bubbling lava.

“We had a bargain, Kyra.” He cooed the words
into her ear, grinding his hips against her until she thought her
skin might light on fire.

When the haze he had stirred in her cleared
enough for her to form a thought, she realized Hale was the one
naked here. There was an intimate power in being the only one in
the room with clothes on. And he was already hard as granite, with
barely a touch from her. He had given her all the control in this
situation, even if he was bossing her around. She could either get
flustered and embarrassed or embrace the situation and live it.

She slanted her eyes up at him and grinned,
sinking to the ground in front of him. His breath hissed through
gritted teeth when Kyra took him in her hand. She explored the
length of his dick, her fingers nowhere close to wrapping around
his width.

She slipped the tip of his penis into her
mouth as she looked up at him. His nostrils were flared, his lips
parted. Using her tongue over his tip as she worked her hand up and
down him, she found the things he clearly enjoyed the most. Her
mouth made sucking, popping noises as the moisture built up along
his length. When she withdrew her mouth and licked up his length,
the muscles in his legs went rigid, the strain evident in his face
before he pulled her to her feet after a few moments.

“Let’s finish this somewhere else.”

He took her hand and tugged her from the
kitchen and up the stairs. They’d put her new bed up here, in
addition to some other pieces, so it looked completely different
now that it was organized. Hale spun her around so her back was to
the bed before he pushed her down.

Laughing, she landed on the soft blankets.
The iron frame rattled against the wall as he climbed on top of
her, his face drawn into serious lines. He jerked her workout
shorts down her legs, taking her still-slightly damp bikini bottom
with it. He didn’t bother with her top.

“You have a dirty mouth, Kyra. I can tell
you’ve done that to other guys.” He reached down for her, testing
her wetness. She was more than ready. “I’m figuring out that that
pisses me off.”

“What does?” she asked, her previous
amusement was long gone. He plunged two fingers inside of her.

“That you’ve done that to someone else.”

Kyra pressed herself into his hand as she
hooked her leg over his hip. “What about if I screw guys after you?
Does that make you mad too?” Her growl almost matched Hale’s. He
shoved his fingers deeper into her, making the headboard slam
against the wall. Kyra groaned, spreading her legs wider.

“Do you really want to talk about this right
now?”

“Why not?” She pulled his erection out of
his jeans and positioned it against her.

“Fine,” he hissed. He shoved himself inside
of her all at once. “And yeah, it fucking pisses me off.”

Before, he had eased into her, letting her
adjust to his width. Not this time. Kyra cried out, her hands
reaching behind her to hold on to the wrought iron rods of the bed
as Hale slid out slightly, only to slam back inside her.

It surprised her to learn she liked it
rough. She hooked her other leg around him and just held on as he
hammered into her. Her mouth gaped open, her head pressed into the
mattress as Hale filled every inch of her. He destroyed her, tore
her apart. But she loved the punishment.

After a moment of his grinding pace, Hale
slowed but didn’t ease off the intensity. He reached between them
and worked his finger over Kyra’s clit. It was all she needed. She
cried out, not worrying about being quiet. Too late, she realized
the windows were still open, but she didn’t care as her body
writhed under Hale.

Deep lines formed between Hale’s heavy
brows. The tattoos along his neck twisted and bulged. He emptied
into her, pumping himself against her until his hips finally grew
still. Then he collapsed on her.

His weight was crushing, but he rolled,
pulling her on top of him and keeping himself firmly inside of her.
She was too exhausted to do anything but sprawl on top of him.
Already, the soreness built between her legs.

“Do you not want me to be with anyone else?”
she asked quietly.

She thought Hale must have fallen asleep, it
took him so long to respond. “It would be a nice fantasy.”

“Why does it have to be a fantasy?” she
asked. She twisted her head to look at him, but his gaze was lost
somewhere outside.

“Do I really seem like the marrying type? In
case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little rough around the edges.”

“But I like it.”

“You like what’s not good for you,” Hale
said, but he didn’t know how close he was to the real, darkest
truth of Kyra.

She was suddenly cold as she stood up to go
to the bathroom, tugging at the hem of her shirt. “What’s wrong
with that if it makes us happy?”

Hale sat up, not bothering to cover himself.
“Come on, Kyra. Look at you.” He gestured broadly in her direction.
“You’re not the kind of girl who settles down with someone like
me.”

She snorted, her anger building. “Oh,
really? Am I the same girl you called fake? Or is this the goody
two-shoes Kyra? I’m getting confused with all your judgments of
me.”

He sighed, raking his hand roughly through
his hair. “Come here.”

“No. I’m going to clean up.” She turned back
to the bathroom.

He rose up on the bed, his knees pressing
into the mattress. He was already getting hard again. “Don’t
bother.”

twenty-nine

H
ale didn’t even
stir when Kyra got up the next morning. She had no desire to work
out after everything they had done last night. Instead, she took a
long bath and pulled on some comfortable sweats. She sent a text to
Stevie before she went downstairs for breakfast.

She was still the only one awake after she
tidied the kitchen and tinkered with the furniture some more. Too
restless to shop and too distracted to work, she meandered through
the house and out to the back porch. Any thoughts of surfing were
nixed at the sight of the ocean; the waves were massive and
crashing, and the sky was dark with roiling clouds. Gusts of wind
buffeted against the house and bent the trees. The first few
raindrops hit the back porch as Kyra stood in the doorway, sipping
on her coffee.

With nothing else to do, she drifted up the
stairs and into the front bedroom. By the time she’d picked up a
new album and sat in the window seat, the rain was pattering
against the storm shuttering in splattering drops that rattled the
aluminum. She wondered how many times her mom had been stuck
inside, sitting where Kyra sat now, when the weather turned
bad.

These kinds of questions plagued her. Lately
it seemed like she compared everything she did to her mom. She had
come to Canaan Island to fill the hole inside left behind after her
mother’s death, and she had found more than she thought she would
with all these albums, but they hadn’t helped. If anything, the
hole inside of her was widening.

“Morning, babe.”

Hale stood in the doorway, but he didn’t
come any farther. Kyra had been so consumed staring down at the
pictures of her mom, she hadn’t even heard him go downstairs and
get a cup of coffee.

“Do you want to look at some pictures with
me?” she asked, instantly knowing she wanted him in here with
her.

“You sure?” His words were careful as he
took a slow drink of his coffee.