Page 100 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8
A heady rush of need filled Auggie. She wanted to be the focus of that. For just an evening.
She looked down. “I’ve never been with anyone. I spent all those years taking care of my mother, and then... Then I just tried to get away. I tried to put as much space between myself and the old world as I could. I tried to be somebody different. I... I never stopped. I never wanted to take care of anyone ever again. Just myself. And so I have. But it’s a very lonely sort of existence. Sometimes I... Okay, that’s a lie. I was going to say sometimes I want to connect with someone. I don’t. I never have. I have my friends, and that’s been enough. Right now I’m wondering. I’m wondering if I want more. If I need more.”
“Are you propositioning me?”
“They’re going to call me a slut. I might as well be one. If I can’t control the way that people are going to see me when all of this is over, then perhaps I should get something for my trouble.”
“You’ve never been with anyone?” His dark eyes were alight with a terrible fire that excited her, that thrilled her down to the soles of her feet.
“No one.”
“You realize that’s a rare and precious thing to offer to a man like me. I don’t traffic in the rare and precious. I am very good at what I do.”
“What is it you do?” She leaned in, tenting her fingers, resting her chin on top of them.
“Little girl, don’t push me.”
“Tell me,” she said, the tension inside of her rising up to unbearable levels. The temptation to throw everything away, everything but this, everything but her need.
“This seems very out of character for you,” he said.
“It is. But all of this is. It’s an incredibly foolish thing. But I’ve never played with fire before, and I’m sort of enjoying the idea of it.”
“What I do, is I give women pleasure. But then I forget about them. And you must never lose sight of that. At the end of this time together, I will never think of you again. I can’t anymore.”
“I know that you’re not a silly playboy who doesn’t feel anything.”
He took a breath. “I’m worse than that. I’m a monster who puts on a playboy smile, and charms everyone around him. But I feel very little.”
She didn’t think that was true. She’d seen him shimmering with dark emotion on more than one occasion. She thought he felt too much.
He would never admit it, though. But she knew it all the same.
She didn’t know where her boldness came from. She got up from her seat, and moved to the one next to him, her heart pounding heavily. “Do you feel pleasure?” she asked, her mouth inching ever closer to his.
“Auggie,” he said. The first time that he had ever said her name out loud like that. August, that was what he normally called her. And she didn’t mind it, but hearing him say her nickname did things to her.
“What?”
“I’m attempting to warn you off. I’ve never carried on a two-month affair with anyone in my life.”
“It doesn’t need to be two months.”
“We are going to be in each other’s vicinity, and you honestly think that if we sleep together, once will be enough?”
“Maybe it will be. I don’t care about the future. And all I have ever cared about is the future. But I want... What I want is this fantasy. This one. Where we are both beautiful, and nothing else matters.”
There was a look in his eye in that moment that she couldn’t quite define. A desperation. Like he wanted to claim that for himself as well. Like he wanted to believe in the façade too.
“Why can’t we?”
“All right,” he said. “My beautiful fiancée.”
It sent a shiver down her spine. This wasn’t her. It was a character she was playing. But it was glorious all the same. She loved it. This was the sort of dangerous game she would never allow herself to play under any other circumstances. This was the luxury of touch, of being desired, being wanted that she had always denied herself, because she never wanted to be needed, not ever again. Not emotionally. She could be needed at her job, but it was different.
But this was only a game. He couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t want anything from her.
And all she could want from him was this.