Page 37 of Untamed
Time to get our first kiss out of the way so it doesn’t happen in front of an audience.
I turn away from Ruth, body humming at the thought as I jog down the stairs. I wait until I’m out of sight to adjust the fit of my jeans, because as much as I don’t want to admit the way I want my new fake girlfriend, I sure as hell don’t want her to figure it out first.
12
Ruth
Idon’t know what’s happening.
I have no interest in a relationship. Getting entangled with a man again has absolutely zero appeal to me. They lie. They cheat. They use. They manipulate.
And when they don’t get their way, they become dangerous.
So why am I sweating right now? Why is my belly doing somersaults? And why in the chicken fried fuck do I have a heartbeat between my thighs?
Unfortunately, I know exactly why. And he’s running downstairs like nothing happened. Oblivious that he has ruined my whole day by doing nothing more than helping me over the gate.
He did it without even grunting. Not a sign of strain on his face as Tucker picked me up like it was nothing and carefully set me on my feet. As someone who grunts when they pick up their twenty-two pound toddler, that’s an impressive feat. Combined with the rippling of his arm muscles as they flexed under his tanned skin and his hands gripping my waist, I would have been crazy not to react.
Right?
This is just a normal thing. It would happen to anyone. It doesn’t mean I find Tucker attractive in a way I would ever have any interest in acting on. More the way I would find a hot guy in a magazine attractive. Pretty to look at—and maybe lust over just a tiny bit—but that’s it. Nothing more.
I’m just managing to pull myself together when an unfamiliar male voice carries up the stairs.
“I’m just making sure you’re okay. You don’t normally take days off, and Trevor said you’ve been gone two in a row now.” He pauses, and when he starts speaking again, there’s a hint of a smile in his voice. “Plus, Mariah said you had a visitor yesterday.”
I creep toward the top of the stairs, not wanting to be seen, but desperate for a little bit of insight into how his family feels about this trick Tucker and I are playing on them.
I sort of feel bad about it. Not bad enough to call it off, though. Not when it’s what’s going to get my daughter across the country without me having to pinch every penny.
And make a few of them bleed.
“Her name is Ruth.” Tucker pauses, making me worry he’s struggling to lie straight to a family member’s face. But his voice is strong and steady when he says, “She’s my girlfriend.”
Everything goes silent. Like whichever brother he’s talking to can’t believe the words that just came out of Tucker’s mouth. But Tucker’s not done rendering people speechless, because he digs our hole deeper with his next words, upping the stakes exponentially.
“She’s already moved in here. I think I might propose.”
I’m going to pass out. Hyperventilate at the very least.
Pretending to be the first woman to make the famously single Tucker Bradshaw commit to a simple relationship was going to be hard enough. But now I have to be the kind of woman he’d consider proposing to?
A woman like that certainly would have kissed him.
Probably done more than kiss him.
I press a hand to my stomach in an attempt to smother out the strange sensation I refuse to identify in my belly. It’s not the fluttery feel of interest or excitement. Not genuinely anyway. I’m just reacting this way because I’m in the midst of a very long dry spell. One that started when I discovered I was pregnant with Birdie, and will possibly never end.
Because sex isn’t worth the fallout. It’s messy and sweaty and ends in disappointment and a UTI.
Unfortunately, that opinion does nothing to explain why I would be reacting weirdly without it, so I’m just going to ignore that too.
“You’re thinking about getting married.” The brother sounds skeptical at best. “To a random woman who’s currently living with you.”
This is going south. Quickly. We haven’t even really started and already his family doesn’t believe us. I know Tucker said he would give me the money I need regardless, but in my experience men don’t love doing the things they say they’ll do.
That leaves me exactly one option—sell the hell out of our fake relationship.
