Page 77 of The Match Faker
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says, so quiet, gentle.
She’s covered in my come, a mess. Her eyes shining, her lips glistening.
All the air is stolen from my lungs. “You look so fucking beautiful.”
She takes my face in her hands and lifts her mouth to mine. She stops short of kissing me, giving me the choice to opt out. She should know by now; I’ll never opt out of kissing her.
When I press my mouth to hers, she hums a happy sound against my lips. I’ll do almost anything to hear that sound again.
The next timeI wake up, the bed is empty again, but this time, Jasmine is moving around the apartment. The floor is too creaky and old for anyone to manage stealth.
“What time is it?” I ask, sitting up slowly.
She doesn’t answer right away, and when my sleep-logged brain catches up with my eyeballs, I understand why. She was trying to sneak out.
“You could have woken me up,” I say, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and stretching. “Do you want a cup of coffee to go?” I grab a T-shirt from the floor, sniff it, and put it on.
She stands by the door, bags in hand. Fidgeting. That’s not good.
“Jasmine.” My tone is the same one I use when I find newly minted nineteen-year-olds doing bumps in the bathroom and want them to question their choices. “What’s wrong?”
She sets down her bags, clasps her hands in front of her, transforms in front of my eyes into that controlled woman I first met. “Thank you so much for your help and for allowing me to help you.”
My stomach bottoms out at her polite tone. “What are you doing?” I’m standing in the middle of my home, but I feel lost. Where is the woman I spent last night with? The one who was brave and beautiful and bare, not just of all clothing but pretense.
She swallows, her steely gaze faltering. “Now that we’ve helped one another, I think it’s best for us to go our separate ways.” With a deep breath in, she holds out her hand.
A laugh threatens to sputter out of me, so I do my best to hide it behind my hand, turning the move into some sortof masculine, jaw-working action she doesn’t buy for a second. “You want me to shake your hand?” I close the distance between us, ignoring her still proffered palm. “Jasmine.” I lean in close, drop my voice like we are sharing a secret.
She plasters herself against the door as if she’s suddenly uncomfortable with our proximity. As if she’s fucking scared of me.
“My tongue was in your pussy last night. You were wearing my pearl necklace hours ago.” I thumb her pearl earring, understanding now why she wore them to bed. For me. “Now you want to shake hands. Like this was some sort of business transaction?”
Her skin flushes a deep red as she scowls. She pushes me away and I go, taking the space she needs becausefuckI need it, too.
Teeth gritted, she says, “I’m sorry if my actions last night gave you the wrong impression.”
I’m losing my mind. This is a dream. Whatever this is, it isn’t real. “Are you a fucking robot? What the hell is going on?”
Finally, she drops her white-knuckle grip on the act. “This wasn’t supposed to turn into athing, Nick,” she hisses.
“So fucking what?” I don’t yell, but only just barely. My chest aches so acutely I worry I’ll have a cardiac event right here and now. “It turned into a thing.”
“All of the reasons I thought we wouldn’t work when I thought you were therealNick?”
Wow.Realwas certainly a choice. What am I, a puppet from the imagination of Jim Henson?
“Those reasons still apply,” she bites out. “Look at you. I have to go to work now. Meanwhile, you don’t have to be up for hours because you work at abar.”
I throw my head back and laugh, mostly to push away the way those words slice into me. “Is it that our hours aren’tcompatible? Or is it something else? Like say…” I shrug. “My bank account balance?”
“Fuck you,” she says quietly, looking over my shoulder. Her eyes shine with unshed tears.
I should stop, but something snapped in me back around the wordreal. I want her to hurt as much as she’s hurt me.
“Everything is a transaction for you. Even sex.”