As Grace gives me what I guess is meant to be an enticing look, reality shifts and I’m staring at Kyra instead. She’s standing beneath an altar in a white dress, hugging her hips but flowing elegantly around her legs. Her face is free of makeup, letting me indulge in her sexy-as-fuck blush, as my heart hammers like wedding bells in my chest.
“Forever,” I imagine myself saying, smoothing a strand of her beautifully wild hair from her face. “Me and you… forever.”
I’m tugged back to the present when Grace moves to place her hand on my arm.
I shift away on instinct. The thought of another woman touching me provokes an animal reflex, as though the beast deep inside knows that we have to protect the sanctity of what Kyra and I have… or what we’re going to have.
Grace tilts her head, clearly wounded. I grit my teeth, forcing myself to grin. It’s not her fault I’m not attracted to her, to any of them… it’s not her fault she isn’t Kyra.
We finish the rest of the shoot without Grace trying to touch me again. The games are meant to be romantic, a bonding experience, but I can’t help but wish I was playing them with Kyra instead, with no cameras to watch how feral we’d go on each other when the pressure becomes too much.
After the shoot, I head out into the parking lot, scanning for Kyra’s car. But then I remember. The chauffeur.
An idea occurs to me, making me smile for real this time, not fake like during the shoot.
I wonder if she’d like it… I’m almost laughing now, as I think about it, wondering if I can pull it off. It’s the sort of thing we’ll look back on and laugh about when we’re a happily married couple, our house filled with laughter and love. It’s the sort of memory that will stick with us forever.
Screw it.
After enduring all the bullshit of the show, it’s time I had a little fun.
I take out my phone and call the driver.
“Thanks so much for this,” Kyra says, climbing into the back of the car.
I’m wearing a driver’s hat and fake glasses with a fake mustache attached to my upper lip, feeling like a little kid as I glance in the rearview mirror and nod briefly. My woman is preoccupied with her own thoughts, her head bowed so she doesn’t meet my eyes.
I suppress a laugh. This is more fun than I’ve had all week.
Deepening my voice to a ridiculous level, I say, “You’re welcome, ma’am.”
I turn my face away from the mirror quickly, guiding the car from the parking spot and joining the traffic.
“How was it today, ma’am?”
She pauses. Risking a glance in the rearview mirror, I see that she’s biting her lip, as though wondering who I am. I would normally never do something like this, but I feel so comfortable with my woman, comfortable enough to behave in a silly way when I rarely do so otherwise.
“It was… fine.” I can feel her staring at me as she tries to figure me out. “Thanks for asking.”
I take my voice to a truly absurd level now, growling like an ogre. “You’re welcome.”
“Kayden?”
I break out into laughter, chuckling deeply, my belly hurting. She giggles, caught up in it too, until we’re both prisoners to the mirth. It gets so bad I have to pull over, sitting back in my seat.
“Come up here, Kyra.”
“I can’t believe you’ve got on a fake mustache.” She giggles as she climbs from the car.
I reach over and open the passenger side for her, taking off the hat and mustache as she sits down. Suddenly the laughter stops as I look her up and down, from her wavy hair, begging to be grabbed and caressed and lavished in attention, to her pants clinging tightly onto her legs, outlining her shape in a captivating way.
“What are you doing, huh?” she asks, grinning up at me.
“I don’t know.” I shrug, smirking. “I guess I just felt like having some fun. And you seemed like the perfect candidate to have fun with.”
“Do I seem gullible?”
“You saw through it pretty quick, Kyra. I’d hardly call you gullible.”
“Well… it wasn’t exactly hard. It’s not like you’re a master of disguise or anything.”
I gesture to the hat and mustache combo on the dashboard. “Hey, I’ll have you know I spent many, many, many seconds choosing my disguise.”
She giggles and slaps my arm playfully. She immediately withdraws it, as if she thinks she’s gone too far, but her touch lingers on my skin, a brand that sears through my shirt and burns into my flesh, making me think of how her hand would feel dragging down my back, wrapped around my base…
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize,” I snap fiercely.
She flinches and nods.
“All I mean is… you don’t have to apologize for being you, Kyra, for behaving how you want to behave. You don’t have to apologize to me. Ever.”