The event goes even better than I’d hoped. Grace looks absolutely incredible, every inch the perfect girlfriend. She’s as nervous as a little Bambi and I admit I like the way she clings to my arm throughout the afternoon. The vultures follow us everywhere as we move about the estate.

I could feel their eyes on us and the snarky convos they were having with each other, picking faults that weren't even there. No wonder Grace was nervous. These women are venomous. If she drank a few too many glasses of champagne I couldn’t blame her.

“No more,” I told her though, after she reached at a passing tray for another.

“Last one,” she giggled.

We sit on chairs lined on the beach for the wedding, facing the sunset. Grace moves to the edge of hers so her thigh presses into mine as though she’d like to merge into my strength and security. I feel a kind of security too, from her body lining mine. She’s turned out to be so much more than the beard I wanted as a shield from the hungry mob. Grace is gorgeous and feisty and smart. Any man would be happy to keep her around.

Finally all the self-penned poetic vows of the torturous ceremony are over.

“Let’s get a drink,” I tell her. Her face turns to me and I see her eyes are full of tears. “What is it, Baby?”

Fuck, a wash of something unrecognizable flows through my gut. I put my arm around her and she rests her head on my shoulder, heaving interior sobs. I love how brave she is, making attempts to force down her emotion. But I also wish she felt free to exhale them all into my embrace so she could be free of them.

I hold her, letting the emotion dissipate and trying not to let my cock go into an overdrive of desire at having her pressed against me. Once her wash of feeling has ebbed, I take her hand and we head for the bar set up on the beach.

“Two cognacs,” I tell the bartender. “Remy.”

Grace takes the huge snifter from me and downs a slug. Her eyes bulge and she splutters.

“Take it easy, slugger,” I tell her.

“This stuff is strong,” she laughs. “It makes my chest all hot.”

My eyes travel down, automatically, as though I might see the heat traversing across the exposed tops of her breasts. Her chest is definitely scorching hot. My cock unfurls and pushes out, aching to be inside Grace’s body. Just looking at this girl has my body craving her warmth.

Again I take her hand to lead her down the beach. She walks like she’s on the moon, her heels sinking into the sand. She bends over to unknot the strappy ties and I can’t take my eyes off her perfect round ass. Carrying her shoes and glass means I can’t keep her in my grip with both her hands full. I take them and knot the laces together then throw them over my shoulder.

She looks at me, surprised that I’d go to that effort just so as to keep our hands interlocked. I’m shocked at my actions myself. All I know is I want Grace’s hand in mine. I could make out that it’s because I want to give her comfort, but the truth is, she’s doing exactly the same for me. The real truth is, I want all of her in my hands.

“It’s so beautiful,” she breathes, stopping at the water’s edge to look out across the water. “Can you even imagine living here all the time?”

She looks back at me and I shrug with as much humility as I can muster.

“Oh, of course,” she sighs, “This is common ground for you. That’s kind of sad for you that you don’t get to experience the loveliness.”

She turns back to the water with such a sense of her own sadness and loneliness hanging around her, I can’t resist. I take the two steps to move in behind her, my body close, barely a hair’s breadth between us. I want to wrap my arms around her but this has to come from her. Apparently without considering her move, she senses me there and leans back into me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

My free arm encircles her immediately. My palm sliding up and around her waist until it curls around her back and she’s locked under my iron forearm. Her tits shelved on my forearm muscle are a complete distraction and again my dick starts to leap forward.

I don’t want Grace to think I’m the pig she thinks I am. She deserves this moment of feeling good. I compress her a little more firmly against my chest wall, squeezing out a sigh from her. I feel her body relax against me while mine goes into a tailspin of desire as her firm cheeks press into my blasting wood.

The need to have her connected to every one of my senses is too powerful. Without even thinking what I’m doing, I tip my head down and inhale the scent of the side of her neck. It’s all her. There’s no expensive mix of tuberose on her skin. I assume because she doesn’t have the money to waste on perfume and didn’t waste mine on that either. I’m amazed that she had that kind of respect for my charge card and didn’t go to town at my expense.

The aroma of femininity is all Grace. And do I kid myself, I’m sure I detect the pheromone scent of desire coming through her pores? That’s got to be my imagination, based on the reaction I have to the scent of her skin. Her scent is hypnotic. Addictive.

“Your aroma should be bottled and sold in discos for a heady rush,” I gruff against her skin, my lips brushing her light as a feather.

“That tickles,” she squirms. I’m certain the sensation is overwhelming her as much as me.

We’re standing on a beach in front of one of the most luxurious mansions in New York, dressed in thousands of dollars of fabrics, drinking four hundred dollars worth of grape liquor and yet all my senses are feral. My lust is animalistic, the scent of her body, the pressure of her flesh against me. I’m not a billionaire playboy, I’m a beast with prehistoric urges. Those are the elements that combine to send the blood pounding in my veins. Those senses make it so fucking difficult not to bend Grace over on her knees and push deep into her tight caress.

“God, this is amazing,” she whispers.

She arches her back slightly so her butt presses harder against me. Then she tenses up. All her tranquil relaxation skitters back inside her when she brushes against the massive bulge in my pants, throbbing hard against the fabric, dying for a single taste of her. I have to force the demon me back down and curb the animal rearing up in my core. I have to be a socialized man.

“Come, we’ll miss the wedding breakfast,” I say, pulling back and taking her hand once more.

“Breakfast at sunset,” she babbles, trying to cover over the awkwardness suddenly risen between us.

Without thinking, we’d both forgotten the pact and slipped into the roles of being a couple. This time I carry her shoes in one hand, the snifter in my other and walk a good distance away from her side. Enough that my burly security guy could fit easily between us but not so much that anyone gets the idea we’re fighting and tries some stunt.

The reception steward leads us smoothly to our table and I pull out the chair for Grace. Once again I feel all eyes on us, eagerly scrounging for any slip up. So, telling myself, kidding myself, it’s only for the game, I tip my head down. My hands grip her chair back as I graze my lips along the side of her neck. She startles, as though an electric shock hit her throat, then remembers the deal.

She smiles and relaxes but I’m also overcome again with the intimate connection. The almond aroma of her warm skin, soft as the velvet underbelly of a baby animal. The loose tendrils of her black as night hair tickling my stubble. I pull back to stand up but my lips are drawn back to her soft pillar of skin.

I don’t want to leave her sensuous neck. I want to continue brushing my lips over her skin, trailing a whisper breath across every inch of her flesh, all the way down her luscious curves. Over her chest, swirling my tongue around her nipples until they peak and she writhes with soft moans. Over her smooth stomach to the little dip at her hipbone. Would she tremble as I linger there? The last defense point of her torso before I meander my lips slowly down over her delicious lacy new panties.

There my mouth would turn rougher, biting through the fabric as I travel over her mound. My delirium, I know for certain, would almost undo me as the most intense scent from her filled my nostrils. She’d part her thighs for me or I’d push them apart and my undoing would be complete. I’d fill my lips with her clit and compress her folds and the soaking wet material, holding her in my bite until she cried out.

Fuck, I have to snap myself out of this. I’m surrounded my a hundred tables of ten and it’s not vain to think that most of those eyes are burning into my back. My fingers are gripping Grace’s chair hard enough to snap it right off. My urgent need for her naked body writhing and sighing under my hold is driving me insane.

I plant one kiss on the bare skin of her shoulder. Just for the sake of the game. Then I indicate to the waiter to bring me a drink, a fucking stiff one and slide into my seat. I’m hoping no one notices how fucking huge my need for my fake girlfriend really is. Especially Grace.