Between Desire and Denial: A Fake Dating Romance (Hardy Billionaires)

Dimitri got off on a thrill, loved the risk, would do something completely stupid just to see how it ended up. He loved when someone pushed him or defied him. He got that burst of fire in his green eyes before one side of his mouth lifted. “Go on then, Honeybee.” No fear at all that it could ruin his reputation. If anything, he was like a trained military dog that had just been hit, wagging his tail ready to lunge into chaos. “Scream loud.”

Then he accelerated—rapidly—in that insanely expensive car.

“Holy crap.” I gripped the handle above the door and gasped as the speed climbed so fast. “You’re breaking the speed limit.”

“I’ll risk the ticket.” He shrugged and kept going.

“Well, how about not risking my life while you’re at it!”

He glanced at me then and slowed the car abruptly enough that my body leaned forward but his arm was fast enough to shoot out and catch me. “No one’s on the road. I’m trained to handle this car.”

“You’re trained? Really?” I rolled my eyes.

“Took lessons with the best,” he told me, and I believed him because there was no reason to brag at this point. “I shouldn’t speed though. Not with you in the car. It’s a risk I won’t take.”

“Oh good. So you do understand the idea of risks.” I tried to reason with him another way. “You realize us trying to be in a real relationship is a huge risk to each of our friendships with Kee. And what about us? We’re fri—”

“Don’t you dare say we’re friends, or I’ll pull this car over and fuck you on top of it.”

“Do you hear yourself?” I threw up my hands. “We’re in the middle of you trying to make a good impression on the people around here and you’re talking about fucking me in public.”

“Your point?”

I swear he wanted to get a rise out of me, and I didn’t care anymore. I gave him one. Like Lucille said, people deserved prickly sometimes. I threw my hand so hard on his dashboard, I wanted to dent it. Instead, though, I immediately snatched it back and rubbed it as pain shot through it. “Crap.” He glanced over at me with concern and slid his hand in mine fast to take over rubbing it. “What are you doing?” I murmured as I looked down at it.

“Taking care of you.”

Those four words. Him worrying over me. Him taking care of me and rubbing my hand for just a moment. It shifted something in me. I blinked back the tears that had started to fill my eyes. “You don’t understand, Dimitri. Everything around here is a mess. And so am I. I’m the biggest mess of all. You can’t want me.”

“But I do. And I’m going to show you. Deny me all you want. I’ll be waiting till you don’t.”

After he pulled into the garage and turned off the car, silence descended on us.

“I’m scared I’m not enough. I’m scared to commit and then find out I wasn’t enough.” I swiped at the first tear that fell before I shoved through the door to the backyard instead of inside. I stared out at the clear stars over our backyard. I didn’t spend much time out here. I’d told myself the lawn service would handle it, but I saw how the lights twinkled over the fences, how our overhead lights provided just the right dim glow.

“Just because you don’t see yourself as absolutely one in a hundred billion doesn’t mean I don’t.”

“A hundred billion, huh? That’s pretty exact.”

“There’s about a hundred billion stars in this galaxy, Olive. I know because I was on a plane discussing another business investment I’m considering. And you know what I kept thinking of? You. You shine brighter than the hundred billion stars for me.”

I stared out at them. And then I looked out at how we could see other backyards connected to ours in the moonlight, how the hills rolled into the stars on the right and the city lights to the left.

This whole community was so intertwined, and I’d missed how we all fit together. How I could fit in. How I should. Yet, pieces were falling into place, and I wondered if Dimitri would fall into place with me.

I sighed and glanced at the hot tub. I shoved off the lid and felt the steam swirl out into the night air.

“Going in?” Dimitri murmured behind me.

“I shouldn’t.” I shook my head. “I should go work on my thesis and finish figuring out exactly what our proposal should be for the board meeting. You should want me to do that.”

“And yet I want you in the hot tub instead.” His voice vibrated against the soft skin of my neck in just the right way, making me shiver.

I turned to look up at him in the moonlight. He stood right against me, and I fit there with him. Then he pulled me even closer by my waist so I could feel how hard he was. “If I say yes, it doesn’t mean yes to everything.”

He gripped my hips and moved me forward toward the stone hot tub steps. When I hesitated for a second, he gripped me tight and lifted me right over the edge of the hot tub and set me in it. “I’m not asking for a yes to everything right now, Olive.” His hand brushed against my neck and then to the red straps of my dress. He pulled on one and then the other until it fell fluidly into the water.

“My dress is going to be ruined,” I murmured as I stood there in the red bra and panties I’d picked out for tonight.

“Good. I’ll buy you a new one that goes all the way up to your chin and down to your toes.”

“For all the dates I’ll be going on later?” I said as I shoved the dress down into the water and stepped around it.

He was shaking his head at me as he undid his shirt buttons and pulled it off. “You know I took my jet back and had them speed half the way.”

“Why? You were Mr. Perfect at that point. You knew no one else was going to show,” I reminded him as he unbuckled his belt. He pulled it through his belt loops and walked up the stairs to the hot tub, unbuttoning his slacks and getting rid of them.

“Some other man was bound to see you sitting there alone and hit on you. I couldn’t have that.”

He stepped in, right up to me, and I practically moaned as his wet skin touched mine. Then he reached over and turned the bubbles on. Every sensation was heightened now that he was in there with me and the hot water moving around us. I felt his cool breath, the touch of his soft lips against my cheek, the way his hand dragged the hot water across my stomach. “I can’t have another man look at all this. I’ve missed it too much for anyone else to admire.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I murmured but I was already wrapping my arm around the one he had against my body and pressing my ass into him because I’d missed him too. So much.

He stepped us back enough to pull me down as he sat, and then I was in his lap, leaning my head back as he kissed my neck and ran his hands over my bra, behind my back to unhook it, and then I pushed the straps off.

His hands immediately covered my breasts, and I reached behind me to shove at his boxers. He moved away though, not ready to let me have him yet. “I want you. I want you right now, Dimitri.”

“I know, Honeybee. It was too long,” he murmured in my ear. “I love seeing how much you really want me though. Give me another minute, huh? Let me make you feel good first.”

“It’ll feel good when your cock is in me,” I whimpered.

I felt the scruff on his jaw as he shook his head against my neck. “I spent too much time away from you. I won’t again. I need to apologize to this pussy of yours first, baby. Spread your legs.”

“No. Please.” But Dimitri was done with my requests. He yanked the thong from my legs and it ripped under the water, the red fabric floating up away from my sex, leaving me bare with the bubbles moving right against me and my arousal. His hand cupped me, and I jolted into him.

“How can you beg for my cock when this pussy wants it all?”

He slid a finger in, and I spread my legs immediately. I felt his cock against my ass then, too, and he shifted it so the tip pressed right against my other hole, making me whimper and moan. He chuckled and flexed his hips just a little, making my ass tense against the tip of him.

“Dimitri, please.” I didn’t even know what I was asking for at this point. I placed my hands on his knees for leverage and pushed back on his cock. He swore as my ass stretched just a little and his fingers thrust in me fast as his thumb rolled over my clit.

All the sensations, the hot water rising and falling on my breasts, him biting into my neck, my body missing the feel of his. Every part of me coiled up and burst apart as I cried out into the night.

My body shook with the orgasm that rolled through me so fast that the water splashed around me as I arched back into him. He was quick to keep his cock from moving further into my ass, but he thrust his fingers up and down to milk my aftershocks as he murmured, “That’s it, Honeybee. Take all you want. Fuck my hand with that pretty little pussy of yours and show me just how good of a girlfriend you are. See how you take it. How you want it. How you’re mine.”

I was shaking my head back and forth against his shoulder now as he moved his thumb over my clit again, like he was testing how sensitive I was. “It’s too good, Dimitri. I can’t have another.”

He hummed. “I think you can. This pussy is mine. I know how much it can take. Now …” He bit my ear. “How wet are you in here? Put that pussy on me. Let me feel it.”

“Last time you go bare before my new birth control kicks in.” I rocked my hips up against the tip of his cock now. I was spreading my legs, moaning and whimpering at the feel of it.

“Olive, you okay over there?” I suddenly heard. And I froze.

It was the middle of the freaking night, but we were still outside, still in public. And it was right then that I saw Jameson’s silhouette walking over from his side of the yard and knew in a second he’d see us in the hot tub.

“Better say something or your old crush is going to see how much of a boyfriend I really am to you.” Dimitri’s voice was low in warning, restrained, almost unhinged and off kilter.

He squeezed my hip hard, and I loved how it felt, the rush of it all. He’d unhinged something in me too, something I didn’t want to bottle back up. It was bold and wrong and taboo and completely something I never would have done before, something I’d wondered about, though, something I would be doing just for me.

I also knew Dimitri wouldn’t be doing this for himself at all. I saw the conflict in his eyes, and for some reason, I felt the pull, the need to indulge in this. Rufford had hid me from everyone. I wasn’t publicly desired—or even privately.

“I’ve never done this with anyone,” I whispered to Dimitri. “But I might want to.”

Dimitri’s jaw clenched up and down. “Jesus, and you’re the only woman I absolutely don’t want to do this with.” But then he leaned in close. “Only for you, Honeybee.”

I relaxed into Dimitri and said loudly, “I’m more than fine, Jameson.” I purred out his name and his face appeared from the shadows as he squinted over at us.

I bore down on Dimitri’s cock and gasped as I took him all the way up in me, my breasts floating in the water as I sank down onto him. Dimitri pinched and rolled my clit hard as if to punish me for my decision, but the pain mixed with pleasure as I stared at Jameson’s eyes raking over us.

“You two are asking for trouble out here,” he murmured, but he didn’t step back to go inside. Instead, he walked forward slowly.

“You’re asking for trouble taking my girl to lunch without me,” Dimitri told him in a serious, quiet voice, and I imagined they were staring at one another because Jameson’s gaze was trained right past me.

“You sure she’s yours? Sure it’s real between you two?” Jameson was goading us for his own agenda, I knew that. Yet, Dimitri thought he was taunting us about our relationship.

The rumble in Dimitri’s chest was enough of a response before he sucked on my neck. “Tell me you want to go in, Honeybee. I’ll fuck you just the way you want inside.”

His restraint was about to snap. And I knew right then, I wanted it to. I needed it for me. I wanted him to take this risk with me just as I was taking a risk with him. “You want to go inside instead of showing Jameson how much you want me?”

It was a challenge. He knew it and so did I.

His jaw clenched once, then twice before his hand wrapped around my breast. Then, he thrust into me hard. I felt the power of it, the stretch in my pussy, the way there was possession along with passion.

And then he lifted me to bend me over the edge of the hot tub, my knees on the seat, my tits on display for Jameson out of the water. “Watch how I fuck her, Jameson. Know that she’s mine.”

He didn’t hesitate then, nor did I. He brought my ass back and thrust his hips forward, over and over again. The hot water splashed around us, matching our rhythm and showing our passion. I lost myself in how good he felt, how his cock stretched my walls, how he slid in and out, how his hands gripped me with bruising precision and didn’t let go of me, not even for a second. The stars shined down on us, the moonlight illuminating how Jameson watched as I unraveled in the ecstasy of knowing Dimitri was willing to lose control for me, to show another person how important I was to him in that moment.

There was a sort of rush and appeal for a man doing something for me even when he didn’t want to. I’d felt his hesitation, felt how possessive he was in that moment, because right after he got off with me, he wrapped his arms around my body and pulled me back into the water. Then he commanded Jameson, “Go inside.”

Jameson nodded to us both. “I think you two might be the real deal. See you at lunch, Olive Bee. Don’t be late.”

I turned to look at Dimitri after Jameson disappeared and saw how his jaw was clenched, his neck completely tensed. “That lunch will be over my dead body.”

I chuckled and got off his lap, hopping out of the hot tub fast and running toward the door. “Stop stewing and get inside before someone calls the cops on us.”

I ran inside and glanced at the primary suite’s hall. I should have been showering upstairs and sleeping there now. That had been the deal. The bed was all set up. So, I went up there and took a shower immediately.

Dimitri wasn’t done with me though. I heard the door open and felt him step in behind me before he said, “Why the hell are you up here showering?”

“That was the original plan, Dimitri.”

He pushed me up against the stone wall and stared down at me with fire in his eyes. “Are you trying to drive me insane?”

“What?” I felt his cock rising along with his temper as we stared at each other.

He lifted my leg and crouched a bit to slide his cock into me slowly, inch by delicious inch. “Does this feel like we’re sticking to the plan of me being your fake boyfriend?”

“Dimitri—”

My nails dug into him as he lifted my other leg too. Then he reared back and thrust into me hard. Again and again and again. “You’re. Mine.” Another thrust. “Mine in my bed.” Another thrust. “Mine in the hot tub.” Another thrust. “Mine everywhere.”

“I don’t think—”

His hand went to my throat. “Careful what you say now, Honeybee.”

I couldn’t say a single thing. The heat in the shower when he’d clamped down on my throat increased a hundred degrees, and my body convulsed around him. And I felt how he released himself in me, too, his body flexing and uncoiling the tension he held. He didn’t hold back as he pumped into me.

And when I’d settled against him, he didn’t let me go even as I tried to pull away. Instead, he grabbed his soap and started to wash every part of me—quietly, softly, meticulously.

We showered in silence, but the connection was too loud to ignore. It was getting harder and harder to deny this relationship was real.

I tried not to focus on it and let him carry me to the bedroom downstairs, where he firmly planted me on my side of his bed. “Don’t even think about sleeping in the spare bedroom,” he grumbled.

“Seems like that’s a talk for another day,” I murmured.

“Or never,” he retorted as he turned out the light and circled the bed to get in, completely naked. “You sleep next to me in our house every day.”

“Won’t be our house when you sell it,” I reminded him.

“Not sure I can sell the house when I have memories of fucking you in the hot tub.”

I groaned. “Don’t remind me. I can’t believe we did that in front of Jameson.”

He nuzzled up against me. “I’ll never do that again. Not even for you.”

“Do what?”

“Fuck my girl in front of another man just because she likes it, or just to prove a point.”

“I didn’t— Well, I was curious how it would be, and it was …”

“It was what?” He bit my ear.

“Well, I know why people are into voyeurism now.”

He almost snarled. “I’m not. Never again, Olive. These tits, this pussy.” He slid his hand over me, and I moaned. “These sounds are only for me.” He sucked on my neck, and I whimpered as he nipped at my skin. “Do you understand?”

“Dimitri—”

He slid his finger into me again, and I spread my legs, my body ready for anything he was willing to give.

“Say you understand, Honeybee. That you belong to me.”

I knew I did. The truth settled deep in my bones. I said it over and over. But I wondered if he’d feel the same once the news of the Diamond Syndicate came out.