Substitute Boyfriend Read online

  Before I could figure it out, he knocked on the door. Oh, God, at least I hoped it was Ridley. It could have been the postal carrier, for all I knew. Maybe it was a package. It was a Monday, after all. It was the week before summer classes started, so I was enjoying what little time I had left. I had already prepped for the two classes I was going to teach and some work-study student on campus was making copies of my syllabi and other papers I’d have to give my students, because, even though more and more things were being housed online, I still felt better giving students a hard copy of that stupid syllabus and course calendar on day one. If they lost it, they could find it online, but I found the papers comforting somehow.

  You’d find that strange, considering I sold thousands of ebooks a year and only a handful of paperbacks, but that’s beside the point.

  I answered the door. It was Ridley. What a relief. And he’d taken me seriously.

  Sweet Jesus, he was yummy. He was wearing a white wifebeater…and I had been right about the snug blue jeans, only the ones highlighting his fine ass were faded. He was wearing hoop earrings and, yeah, those sunglasses that made him look a little mysterious. So fuckin’ what that the newness was gone? He was hot as hell and he was there for me to play my boyfriend whenever I asked.

  And, just as I’d requested, he took me in his arms. He didn’t say a word, instead pulling me close and kissing me hard and deep. While his tongue assaulted me, he twirled me so that my back was against the wall, and then he began kissing my neck just the way he knew I liked it. My breath was already coming in short gasps as I tried to hold myself together, but he was so hot, so virile that sometimes it was hard for me to contain myself. My fingers dug into his shoulders as he wedged his knee in between my legs.

  Okay, the blowjob could wait. I was way too hot to be able to concentrate solely on his cock in my mouth.

  Then again, that might make it even better…yeah. The anticipation.

  No, I was talking about Ridley. He’d grown to be pretty attentive…as long as he hadn’t come. And he’d gotten good at prolonging climax too, but I knew if I blew him first, I’d have to take care of myself, and that wouldn’t work for the scene I was writing. Nope, we had to go with the flow.

  And, right now, Ridley was doing a great job. I was so glad I’d thought to change into a sundress. The heroine in my book had worn a dress for the date, so I figured I should also wear a dress to make my descriptions later more authentic. I wouldn’t have to imagine what Ridley would have done if I’d been wearing a dress. I could instead describe it.

  He knew how I liked it, though, so there wasn’t any of the bumbling that might really occur with a real date-leading-to-first-night-together, and I assured myself that was okay, because I wrote fantasy books, right? I mean seriously. Not all men have huge cocks and are awesome in bed or are great kissers with killer looks.

  Not every guy on the planet is perfect.

  Even Ridley. Yeah, he was hotter than hell. I would be lying if I said otherwise. Sweet Jesus, was he nice to stare at. I got wet just looking at him. Seriously. The guy was unbelievably gorgeous. He was attractive and had a beautiful body, and I wouldn’t complain about his cock. It was on the large side.

  And, with training, he’d become a good lover. Almost excellent. He was definitely not as selfish in bed as he’d started out.

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, he’d certainly improved in the lover department. Yanking my panties halfway down my thighs, he eased his finger between my legs. He slid between my folds and found me, throbbing and needy. I could feel his breath on my neck as he chuckled. He was amused at how turned on I got by him, but I failed to see how funny that was. I was in serious need of an orgasm, and he was snickering at me.

  Oh, my God. I was crazy close, closer than I should have been and likely closer than a woman on a first date would be. Or maybe not. Hell if I knew. All I did know was that I couldn’t pretend to be my generic romantic heroine anymore. I was again Elizabeth Slade, college instructor and semi-successful romance writer, and I was being brought to orgasm by my sexy pretend boyfriend Ridley—first by his finger and then by his enormous cock. And we did it up against the front door of my second-story apartment.

  Even though I couldn’t be in the head of my heroine at the moment, I’d still be able to translate what happened in my book later. Sometimes I’d even steal lines from Ridley, making them words the hero said. It worked really well when I was writing about a cocksure alpha male…not so well if the guy was supposed to be sensitive and caring.

  So he was stroking my clit and I gasped when he got it right the first time. I let out a low moan against his chest. “I love how wet you get for me.” That was a testament to how much the guy turned me on—even though I found his amusement at my obvious state of arousal annoying, I still managed to fall over that precipice. I moaned again, louder this time, my pussy clenching against his fingers and he kept up the pressure until I begged him to stop.

  He pulled his wallet out of his pocket, a chain hanging from the leather square, and he slid a condom out. He unwrapped it quickly, with the ease and motion of an expert, and rolled it over his thick, throbbing cock. Suddenly, I was ready for him again, and the way he held me up against the wall while he slammed into me added to the heightened, frenzied feeling building up inside me once more. He felt fantastic, and before I knew it, my thighs were clamping around his hips as I groaned, my mouth open against his salty neck. He shuddered as he came inside me and I let out a long breath, feeling fully satisfied.

  Hot damn. What a life.

  * * *

  We did wind up in bed…eventually. I don’t think Ridley ever got used to the snuggling part, but he did like to spend the night once in a while when I’d exhausted him more than usual. He was dozing off a little, but it was mid-afternoon, so I knew he’d leave in a while. He wasn’t complaining, because he knew I knew he was in between jobs. He usually did things like landscaping or construction work, like hanging drywall, but he was starting a new job roofing on Wednesday. I knew he wasn’t too irritated that I called him when he wasn’t working; otherwise, why would he bother telling me his work schedule?

  Still…I knew he didn’t like that he couldn’t demand me whenever he liked.

  Or at least that was what I had always thought, but for some reason, that thought had been nagging at me—the thought that maybe he just didn’t give a shit.

  And here was stupid little me, falling more head over heels with Ridley every day, especially when he continued to become a more attentive lover.

  I lifted my head off the pillow and looked at his face. I realized that he didn’t want a serious relationship…and with his past, I wasn’t sure that I wanted that either, even though the stupid part of my brain thought I did. Not only did he have a criminal and prison background, but I knew he had an ex-wife. He might have had children too, but I didn’t want to ask. He might’ve told me if I questioned him, and I really didn’t want to know.

  That didn’t mean I didn’t want him around more. “Ridley, baby?”

  His eyes stayed closed. “Yeah?”

  “Um…I’m having a hard time writing the whole scene. You know, like the stuff that happens before the sex. Like in the scene I was writing now. I had to struggle with writing their date.”

  He didn’t open those pretty blues…but at least he answered. “And?” I rested my head on his chest.

  “Well, I’m thinking maybe it might be easier for me to capture that sexual tension if we play it out more.”

  He snorted and moved out from underneath my head, sitting on the edge of the bed and then standing up. “Darlin’, you want me to start play acting in the middle of a restaurant while all kinds of people listen in?”

  Well, when he put it that way, it sounded kind of stupid. “I don’t know. I guess I could cook something and we could do it in my kitchen or—”

  He walked out of the bedroom. My God, what a beautiful ass that man had—perfectly shaped, smooth, lovely. I heard him walk into the
bathroom. He didn’t close the door and I heard him taking a leak—a loud leak. I was grateful, though, that I heard him put the lid back down after he flushed. It had taken a while to train—er, sweet talk him into that kind of behavior.

  He came back in the bedroom and then I got a view of his gorgeous cock. He had his clothes in his hands, though, so I knew he was getting ready to bail on me. He was pulling his underwear on when he said, “Whatever you like, honey. Just say the word. You know I like to make you happy.”

  Yeah, I knew he did. I just wished he didn’t feel so distant most times. I crawled to the end of the bed, smiling at him. “Yes.”

  “You need anything else from me before I go?”

  I considered asking him for another orgasm before realizing that I didn’t have a scene in mind for it…and I needed to be more judicious about being the woman who cried horny. I’d have to save his magic touch for next time—which meant I needed to get back to writing that damned book.

  Chapter Three

  MY PRETEND BOYFRIEND might not have wanted to dine with me, but my best buddy Roman Decker would. We met for lunch the next day, just like we often did. During a regular semester, we’d go out to eat at least once a week (usually three or four), often at some place on campus. Today, though, we had no obligations, and we met at a real restaurant, a little deli with tasty homemade soups and salad dressings.

  We were waiting for our main courses when I asked, “Ready for next week?”

  He grinned. Roman and I had been solid friends for the past three years since he’d been hired by the school. He and I just clicked from day one, and I knew it was because our political views were almost identical. We also had the same sense of humor. We found ourselves hanging in the halls chatting for hours at a time and started spending time together outside of work. We went to movies and concerts together and shared book suggestions. We met for coffee. We talked about students we had in common and gave each other tips for surviving certain personalities in the classroom. We even worked out together on rare occasion.

  Oh—one thing. Roman did not know about the Eliza part of my personality—you know, the published writer side of me.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. That wasn’t the case at all. It had just never come up. There had never been a reason to tell him, and the time had never been right. After a while, I began to think it would sound like I was bragging or something. So I just never told him…but I’d always planned to—someday.

  Ah, yes, the elusive someday that never comes.

  “I’m ready in the sense that I’m prepared. But I’d rather have another two or three weeks off. Then I’d be really ready for classes.” His dimples stood out when he smiled, his brown eyes flashing. That was one thing I’d say about Roman—he was a good-looking guy. I was surprised he didn’t have female students flocking to him constantly for “help” with his classes. He had hair that was longer than most of the male faculty—past his chin—but no one had ever said a word about it, because he was one of the most professional academics you’d ever meet. I could tell from his ears too that once upon a time they’d been pierced—multiple times. I knew from the occasional concert we went to that two of the holes hadn’t closed up, but I got the feeling the jewelry wasn’t a priority anymore. And he was tall, taller than most of the other instructors on campus. He was in great shape too, but I was never able to tell much, because he wore plenty of clothing. Even the time or two that we’d jogged together, he wore sweats and a long-sleeved shirt. And then I realized it was because the times we’d jogged together were a drizzly fall morning one time and another time it was deep into winter. It had been a nice day but not that nice. Oh, and that voice of his…a low baritone. I could imagine the girls in his classes closing their eyes, locking his voice in their memories for when they wanted to hear it in their heads later.

  Roman didn’t date much, or at least I didn’t know about it when he did. From things he’d said, I got the feeling he’d just exited a long-term relationship before moving to our little burg of Winchester, and the break up had been excruciating. He’d never said a word, but he was originally from Colorado Springs, and when he got the job at WCC, he moved to Winchester, and I’d always had the feeling it was to escape some painful memories. It would have been easy enough for him to commute. The Springs wasn’t that far away from Winchester.

  Bad idea, the English teacher psychoanalyzing the psychology prof. Chances were he put out those vibes to deflect attention from his looks, because I seriously wondered why the girls didn’t swarm him like honeybees around a rose bush.

  But why the hell did I care? Roman was the best friend I had on campus. It was pathetic when I thought about it, but he was likely my best friend ever. He didn’t know that, and I would never tell him, but I trusted him more than I had anyone else in my life. He made me laugh and there was no drama with him.

  In all fairness, he didn’t know much about my love life either. He knew I was “seeing” someone, but he didn’t know about my arrangement with Ridley. Roman just knew that sometimes I was unavailable to do things…but that had only been during the last six or seven months that Ridley and I had been seeing each other.

  Seeing was not exactly accurate, I know. Fucking was much more precise.

  But we weren’t talking about our relationships or anything like that. No…we were lamenting that summer classes were getting ready to start. I told him, “Yeah, me too. I wouldn’t mind a sabbatical, frankly.”

  He chuckled. “Good luck. Do we even do sabbaticals here?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve only seen it twice, before your time, and that was with instructors who’d been here forever and were pretty much over it. I think their chairs gave them sabbaticals just to keep them around longer.”

  “And why? If they were that burned out, they probably weren’t exactly inspiring their students anyway.”

  “Yeah.” I knew Roman was right. He’d been teaching as long as I had, only Winchester Community College was his third school. I’d been with WCC since I’d started teaching, and I had no intentions of going anywhere else. But Roman had experience with larger schools, and he’d confirmed that all the institutions of higher ed that he’d worked in had a similar political structure…one that he and I both wanted to avoid at all costs. Unlike a lot of the other bullshit that happened at our fine institution, he and I and a few other instructors actually wanted to teach students. As strange as that seemed, that was our hope.

  Unfortunately, there was so much political red tape that teaching was often the last thing on the minds of the folks in charge.

  “Three classes this summer?”

  “Yeah.” I frowned. Three boring freshman classes. “Two sections of Comp One and Technical Writing.” I would have almost rather sawed my wrist off with a table knife than teach technical writing, but the powers that be wanted me teaching those. Summers were for serious students, they said, ones who wanted to get their degrees quickly and get out of school or transfer to a four-year university. We didn’t want to waste their time with electives and classes that might be considered fun. Save creative writing for fall.

  Blech.

  But I didn’t have a choice. I wanted to keep teaching, even though I was feeling a little blah about it, so I’d do what my chair told me to. I asked Roman, “What about you?”

  “Psychology One.”

  “Of course.”

  He grinned. “And Abnormal Psych.”

  “What?” Abnormal Psych was one of those more exotic classes, one students wanted to take but they had to go through Psych One first. That and Abnormal Psych often seemed like a less than serious class, although if anyone regarded it as such, they’d never sat in Roman’s classroom. He was tough—but that was part of his charm as an instructor. “I can’t believe they gave you that over the summer.” A fun class…and he knew it.

  He shrugged. “What can I say? I have pull with my chair.”

  “Whatever.” I stuck my tongue out at him playfully, and the
n the waitress brought our food. We continued discussing school and the semester. When we were done eating, I was sad to leave—not because I had a little more to do to prep for classes but because Roman was one of the few people on the planet who never failed to make me laugh and smile…and I was going to miss him until next week.

  Chapter Four

  FRIDAY NIGHT. HONESTLY, it was just another night to me. Even during a regular semester, Friday nights merely meant I could sleep a little later the next day, but I’d been known to teach a Saturday morning class or two, so even that didn’t always hold true.

  I wasn’t much of a dater, either, so it’s not like I was waiting to go out on the town.

  Not much of a partier…so I wasn’t dying to get hammered.

  Nope. It was a typical night for me. I’d been on campus that afternoon making sure I had everything ready to go for Monday, and then I’d gone by the gym for a workout, come home and showered, then did a perfunctory cleaning of my apartment.

  But all of that was obligation, and I didn’t necessarily like any of it.

  Finally, the time had come for me to sit down at my computer. That was what had been calling my name all day—the book I’d been writing. The characters had been chattering in my head nonstop and there was a scene I had to get down—a misunderstanding between the heroine and her possible soulmate, although if he was her soulmate was still in question till the end of the book. She thought he was the one but she had her nagging doubts, and he was a notorious bad boy, so she could never be sure she could put all her faith in him.

  So I had this argument to get down on the page. Certain words and phrases the two characters needed to say to each other had been rolling around in my brain. There was a misunderstanding. He didn’t get why she took things the wrong way, and she couldn’t communicate to him how his behavior often seemed like he was blowing her off. I wanted them to reach a tentative draw—but with the heroine’s trust still hanging in the balance—and, as I wrote the scene that night, I knew that it would have to end in a hot can’t-resist-you sex scene. They needed to kiss—I mean fuck—and make up.