“One more. Just one more.”

I looked down at Georgie as she panted and lay back on the sofa, splaying her limbs out on the spacious cushions. Her hair was damp with perspiration. “I can’t take any more!”

“Oh, yes you can. You’ll take it all if you want to keep our deal.”

She groaned and sat up. A bead of sweat glistened on her forehead. “Fine. One more fake date. But that’s it. You’ve already dragged me to a park, a lake, an abandoned outdoor theatre, and the beach. Not to mention that hike we just went on down to the Reserve,” she said, counting off each date on her hand. She blinked hard at the same time as if to keep her eyes from snapping shut. “It’s getting late, and I’m still catching my breath from the hike.”

It was six-thirty, and we’d just returned from one of today’s many pretend mini-dates. I was getting a little weary too, but I didn’t want to stop, because hanging out with Georgie was even more enjoyable than I initially predicted. It was also somewhat weird. After spending so much time with her in so many different places, it felt like we’d known each other a hell of a lot longer than a few days.

I suppose that wasn’t too surprising, though. On each of our pretend dates, we’d discussed nearly every possible thing her family might ask us. As such, I’d come to know a lot about my fake girlfriend.

I knew her birthday, the street address of the house she grew up in, and where she went to high school and college. I knew her mother Margaret divorced her father when she was seven and remarried two times. Divorced two more times as well. I knew her little sister’s name and birthday, and the fact that she was trying to be a novelist. Christ, I’d even memorized the names of each one of Georgie’s childhood pets.

This whole process was dating on steroids.

I chuckled as Georgie let out another groan. “Hey, I’m just trying to help! I’ve saved the best till last. Besides, all our other date photos were taken while it was still light. We want some night-time pics, right? To vary things a bit. Really sell the angle that we’re dating and spending a ton of time together.”

She grudgingly nodded. “Good point. Sorry for the grumpiness. I’ve had a long week,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. “Anyway, what did you have in mind, my pushy boyfriend?”

Nerves spiked in me when she said that last part. I knew she was kidding, but something about it set me on edge. Maybe because I’d never really been anyone’s boyfriend before. Real or fake. Or maybe I simply liked hearing those words on Georgie’s lips.

I cleared my throat. “There’s a street festival down near the Mission Beach Boardwalk. Food, fun, and plenty of camera-ready moments. Plus it’s a beautiful night. Perfect weather.”

Georgie nodded. Then her forehead puckered. “But it’ll be really busy. Won’t people recognize you?”

I shrugged. “So what?”

She cast her eyes down. “You don’t want people thinking we’re actually together, do you? I mean… I’ve read the gossip columns before. I know you’re a lone wolf. You like to keep your options open. Very open.”

I pressed my lips into a thin line at the reminder that this was all fake. Not only that—I was somewhat bothered by the way Georgie saw me. Just a playboy. A commitment-phobe Casanova. Once upon a time, I would’ve laughed and patted myself on the back for having such a reputation. Now it just bored me.

“I don’t think anyone will notice us. The festival is a family event. Not many city gossip queens out and about around there,” I finally replied.

She yawned and nodded. “Okay. But you’re buying me a coffee when we get there.”

“Sure. I’ll take it out of my five grand paycheck.” I winked at her, and she laughed.

“I’m kidding. I’ll pay, obviously. Anyway, I’ll get changed again, and we’ll head off. By the way, where did I put my keys?” she said, craning her neck and looking around the living room.

I arched a brow. “I thought we’d go in my car. No point taking two. You can just come back here and get yours afterwards.”

She nodded and smiled. Suddenly I could barely think straight, just from the sight of those luscious lips curled into that perfect beaming smile.

Jesus. This girl…

It was a perfect fall evening outside, and the trees lining my hilly street swayed in a light breeze as I pulled out of my long driveway ten minutes later. Georgie was in the passenger seat beside me, clad in blue skinny jeans and a light grey sweatshirt. She’d scraped her hair back into a tight bun to hide what the wind had done to it on our quick hike in the nearby reserve.

I smiled to myself at the thought. She really didn’t want anyone seeing her as messy or imperfect, but I liked her like that; liked it when I saw any side of her that wasn’t coolly calm and perfectly in control. It was real. Raw. Turned me on like nothing else.

As we cruised away from my house, I nodded toward her. “Check the glove box. There’s a little something in there for you.”

She frowned, eyebrows knitting in confusion. Leaning forward, she opened the compartment, then gasped as she drew out the gift-wrapped box within.

“You got me a gift?” Her eyes widened. “Nate, that’s really sweet, but it wasn’t necessary.”

I grinned. “It is sweet, in a manner of speaking, but I doubt you’ll be thanking me for it in a minute.”

“Why?”

“Just open it. You’ll see.”

She tore off the silver bow and red wrapping paper, and then she scoffed as she saw what lay beneath. “Seriously? A box of gummy penises?” she said, turning to me with skeptically-arched brows.

My lips twitched. “We met at the Monthly Man Candy calendar shoot, and now you’re paying me to be your man candy. So I thought it would be funny to give you your very own edible man candy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Funny to a thirteen-year-old, maybe.”

I shrugged a shoulder. “Hey, sometimes immature jokes are the best.”

“Says the person who just gave me a box of dick-shaped candy. Convenient.”

“You’re pretending to be annoyed, but I can tell you’re amused,” I said sagely, steering the car down a winding slope. Georgie shook her head, but I could see a smile playing on her lips in my peripheral vision.

She popped one of the gummies in her mouth and chewed. “Mm, these are surprisingly delicious. Want one?” she asked, holding a red one out to me.

“Pass. I’d rather not drive with a cock in my mouth,” I said with a grin.

She laughed. “Hey, if I have to sit here with all these penises in my mouth, then so do you,” she said, jamming three between my lips as I halted at a stop sign. Her touch ignited a spark within me, and I felt myself stiffening.

I chewed for a moment. “You’re right. Those strawberry-flavored dicks are my jam.”

Georgie snickered. “I wish I recorded you saying that. Good blackmail material right there.”

“Wow. With all the blackmail talk, it actually feels like we’re in a real relationship.”

She laughed, then went quiet for a moment. “Crap. I just realized. We still didn’t come up with our backstory.”

“I thought you said earlier that you were telling your family we met through work friends?”

Georgie shook her head. “My mom is a nosy hawk. She’ll want to know every last detail. What friend? Why would we have mutual work friends when we’re in such different lines of work? That’s just two of the six million questions she’ll likely ask.”

“Point taken.”

She scrunched up her face. “Hmm. Why would we have work friends in common?”

“Because of the charity shoot?”

“No.” She shook her head again. “I told them we met about two months ago, and they knew the charity calendar was shot this week.”

“Damn. Maybe I hired your company to make a new business card design for CryptX?”

Another head-shake. “That’s not really part of my job.” She sat up straighter. “Hang on, I have an idea. My friend Reuben. He’s the security guard at the studio. He actually used to work a night security detail at an investment bank. That’s vaguely related to your company.”

“Close enough. Reuben it is. What’s his last name?”

“Sanders. He has a wife named Carissa and two kids named Felix and Ava.”

“Got it. So we met through him.”

We discussed the rest of our fake backstory for a few minutes before settling into a comfortable silence for the rest of the drive down to Mission Beach. While we looked for parking near the street festival, Georgie piped up again. “Oh, I bet my mom will ask this too: what movie did we watch on our first date?”

“Hm. Warcraft.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Not that.”

“Oh, come on. It’s great,” I said with a grin. “By the way, watch that seatbelt when you try to undo it. It’s been a bit weird ever since I got the car, but I never remember to get it fixed.”

“Okay,” she said, fiddling with the clip as we pulled into a spot. “As for the movie, I don’t even know what that one is about, but from the title alone I know I wouldn’t be interested.”

I winked. “I’ll make you watch it eventually.”

“You wish.”

The paved walkway alongside the beach had been transformed into a street fair with colorful tents, booths, carnival games, and typical festival foods like funnel cakes, cotton candy and lemonade. Bright lights and carnival music beckoned throngs of excited children to try the rides while their harried parents chased after them, trying to keep a watchful eye on them. Georgie and I wandered along at a leisurely pace, taking in the sights and smells combined with the clean, crisp sea air.

“I haven’t been to something like this since I was a kid,” she said, stopping to watch a man in a dunk tank.

“Me neither,” I replied. “Hey, you wanna grab something to eat?”

“Sure. We didn’t have dinner yet, so I’m starving.” She patted her stomach, and I chuckled.

We picked up some fully-loaded hot dogs from a nearby stand and slowly munched on them as we continued along the walk. As I predicted, no one recognized me or tried to talk to me. A couple of people looked at me sideways as if they knew me but couldn’t quite place me, but other than that, we were left alone.

We passed a happy couple asking a tall redheaded woman to take their photo, and we caught a snippet of their conversation as we passed. “We’re from Alabama, but we’re here on our honeymoon,” the woman said in a twangy Southern accent. “I’ve always wanted to come here!”

I looked over at Georgie. “That’ll be your sister and her fiancé in a few weeks. Honeymooners.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Three and a half weeks, to be exact.”

“You excited?”

“Of course.” She smiled. “She and Bobby will have the cutest babies one day.”

“What about you? You ever wanna get married or have kids?” I asked. “I remember you saying you’re too busy to date because of work, but that might change, right?”

She shrugged and fell silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” she finally said, her voice quieter than usual.

I felt like I’d struck a nerve, so I nodded but didn’t say anything else. We continued along. I stole a few sideways glances of Georgie, and she eventually noticed me looking.

“You can ask me if you want,” she said.

I frowned. “Ask you what?”

She sighed and stopped walking. “You can ask the same thing nearly everyone else asks me these days. Why my little sister is getting married and I’m still sitting on the shelf. We all know my job isn’t the only reason.”

I touched my hand to her arm. I was right about her earlier. Underneath that strong façade, she was pretty damn insecure.

“I wasn’t gonna ask anything of the sort. The only thing I was thinking about asking was why someone as great as you cares what other people think so much,” I said. Georgie’s eyes widened slightly, and I kept going. “I know the shit your mom says really bothers you, but in the end it’s no one else’s business what you do. You’re still young, anyway, and even if you weren’t… so what? Who gives a fuck if you’re single? How does it affect anyone else’s life other than your own?”

She stared up at me wordlessly, eyes still wide. I frowned and drew my hand back. “Did I say something wrong?”

Georgie shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “Not at all.”

She looked like she was about to say something else when we were interrupted by two women who could’ve been anywhere between the ages of nineteen and thirty. Their heavy makeup made it difficult to tell.

“Oh my gosh! Are you Nate Scott?” one of them trilled at me, her blue eyes wide.

“It’s totally him!” Her friend nudged her, obviously too drunk to realize I could hear her. Her lips were smudged with a blueish stain, telling me the two girls had recently been at a nearby bar which served alcoholic slushies.

“Wanna come hang with us, Nate?” the first one asked, slurring her words now.

Georgie had determined earlier that I probably didn’t want to be recognized while we were out on our pretend date, so she jumped in before I could say anything. “Oh, no, sorry. He’s not who you think,” she said, slinging a petite arm around my waist as she gave the girls a saccharine smile. “This is my boyfriend George.”

I almost snickered at that. George? How original.

I played along anyway, adopting the first accent I could think of. “Gosh darn it, honey, who’s this Nate fella everyone keeps gittin’ me confused with? Why, he must be my long lost twin, eh!”

Georgie’s mouth fell open with horror at my admittedly appalling impression of a Southerner. The two girls looked unimpressed and moved along. I didn’t care. A few months ago, they would’ve been my exact type. Easy to get, and easy to get rid of. But they didn’t catch my interest in the slightest now. Hot, for sure. But they were nothing compared to the sexy goddess next to me. Georgie. She was the only target on my mind right now, even though I knew what a bad idea it was. She was simply irresistible.

When the girls were out of earshot, Georgie doubled over in giggles, then lightly smacked me on the arm. “What the hell was that accent supposed to be?” she said, barely able to get the words out between gasps of laughter.

“I was trying to sound like those people we heard earlier. It was the first thing I thought of.”

She gave me an incredulous look. “What, the couple from Alabama?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ve heard better Southern accents on yowling alley cats. And at the end you actually went a bit Canadian.”

“C’mon, was it really that bad?”

She tilted her head to the side. “No, it was fine. It sounded exactly like someone from Alabama… if they were raised by a pack of wild dogs and given a lobotomy.”

I grinned. “Where do you get all these weird insults from?”

“My friend Tiana,” she said, still giggling. “She comes up with the craziest stuff. You should’ve heard what she said at the shoot the other day about Tripp Huntington-Davis and his cronies. She said that listening to them talk was like checking off a sheet at Dickhead Bingo.”

Now it was my turn to laugh, and I kept going all the way up to the far end of the street festival as Georgie filled me in on other hilarious work stories. I couldn’t remember the last time I had fun like this. I’d had plenty of bedroom fun in the last few years, but nothing like this—good, clean, belly-laughing, side-splitting fun. It made for a refreshing change.

When the laughter had finally died on my lips, I touched Georgie’s arm again. “I just realized we haven’t taken any photos.”

“Oh, crap. I forgot.”

I had a vague suspicion of why it had slipped our minds. The only reason we’d wanted to take photos was to sell this little street festival trip to other people and cover the fact that it was a fake date. But we’d had such a good time together that it had essentially become a real date, and we’d forgotten about all the fakery.

Georgie looked over at a nearby sweets stand. “How about I get a stick of cotton candy, and you take my picture with that Ferris wheel behind me?” she said, pointing over at all the carnival rides. She was all business again.

“Sure.”

After she bought the treat along with some other bits of candy, I snapped a few photos of her eating it in front of the Ferris wheel. She tore into the pale pink mound of cotton candy with her teeth and let the sugar dissolve on her tongue, and then she swallowed and licked her lips, nearly giving me a damn heart attack as I imagined that tongue tracing my lips instead. I’d gone from zero to fully-hard in less than five seconds, and she had no idea. Thank god for thick jeans and the candy bag, which I’d offered to carry. I was now holding it in front of my crotch with my free hand.

Georgie looked over at me as I finished taking pictures and slipped my phone away. “I know I’ve said this about twenty times, but thank you. Thank you so much,” she said.

“For what?” I asked, trying to ignore how ridiculously turned on she made me. There were kids here, for Christ’s sake.

She waved her arms around us. “This! Doing the whole fake boyfriend thing with me. Helping me so much. I honestly can’t believe it. You must’ve thought I was a complete lunatic when I asked, because who the hell approaches a total stranger and offers them cash to be their fake date for two straight weeks?”

I grinned. “You, apparently.”

Her cheeks were tinged red now. “I was so freaking rude, too. Bringing up your private phone call the way I did and using it against you as bait for my proposal.”

“Hey, now. I don’t see it that way. You weren’t being malicious. You happened to overhear me and thought you could help me if I helped you in return.”

“I guess. But….” She trailed off. Her forehead was crinkled in a puzzled expression.

“What’s up?” I said.

“I can’t believe I haven’t asked this yet,” she murmured, stepping closer. “I’ve been wondering. A lot.”

“Wondering what?” I raised my eyebrows.

She shook her head slowly, as if it might shake something loose in her mind. “When I asked you to do this with me, it was just this wild, spur of the moment idea. I knew it was crazy, but to be quite frank, I was feeling pretty darn desperate. So I had to ask.”

“Yeah, I get it.” We all had our moments of desperation. Some of the world’s finest creations were forged in desperation to fix a problem.

She looked out over the water, then back at me. “The thing is, I didn’t think you’d say yes. Not even to five grand. Not in a million years.” She paused, and her forehead puckered up again. “So why’d you say yes?”

Her eyes were shining and wide as she awaited my response. I dragged a hand through my hair. What was I supposed to say to that? Georgie, I said yes because from the minute I saw you I wanted to fuck you six ways from Sunday?

I chose a route that wouldn’t get me slapped. “How could I say no to that face?” I said with a cheeky smirk, ruffling her wavy hair.

Seemingly satisfied by my answer, Georgie nodded slowly and started along the concrete walkway again. “Well, I’m glad. I mean, I feel dumb as a bag of rocks for coming up with such a ridiculous scheme, but I’m glad I found someone who’s actually willing to be ridiculous with me.”

I chuckled. “I promise I’ll be ridiculous with you as long as you need it.”

“Thanks.” She turned her head to me again. The colored lights from a nearby festival ride made her hair gleam entrancingly in shades of gold and red. “One more question.” She averted her eyes and chewed her bottom lip for a split second. “The money. Is it enough?”

I smiled. She was so fucking cute. “More than enough. You’re a generous boss, Ms. Miller.”

Her shoulders slumped with relief. “I’m glad. I’ve already bought your plane tickets, and we’ll sort your payment transaction out after we return, if that’s okay with you. Or I could do half now and half after?”

“After is fine. Wouldn’t feel right to take a cent from you when I haven’t fulfilled my end of the deal yet.”

And then I’d give her the wrong details and her payment would bounce right back to her own account. Oops.

“Okay. Great.” She smiled and looked right into my eyes. My chest immediately tightened.

For someone I’d been considering as nothing more than a hot future conquest, I was sure thinking about her a hell of a lot. Not just about her body. I was near constantly thinking about her smile, her thoughts, her feelings. All that sappy shit. So clearly I was wrong about simply wanting to nail her. There was something else here. Something more than just a desire for some good old fashioned sex.

I liked sex. Obviously. But it was rare that I actually liked a woman. Usually all I felt was lust, and while I felt more than a fair share of lust toward Georgie, I actually liked her as a person as well. For the first time in what felt like forever, there were feelings at play.

There. I said it. I had some sort of vague feelings for Georgie. This smart, sexy, crazy woman. After spending just one day with her, too. How fucking insane was that? What the hell was she doing to me?

I set my jaw and looked ahead, trying to banish the notion; push it to the farthest corner of my mind. I couldn’t do this shit. Not now. I wasn’t good for a nice girl like Georgie, no matter how much I might want to be. I’d proved time and time again in the past that I wasn’t dependable. I wasn’t that guy. I was just the wrong guy, the one who’d give her the two good weeks I promised her before making way for the Prince Charming who’d inevitably stride into her life at some point.

And right at that moment, as if the universe was assuring me that I should let it go, it started to rain.