Endurance Read online

  “Because you can’t stand me!” I exclaim. Then I lower my voice and lean toward him a bit. “Because you make it your mission to annoy the shit out of me any chance you get. Because for the next four weeks you’re going to have to keep your dick dry! What will your teammates say?”

  His face falls. “Keep my dick dry? Why on earth would I do that?”

  My mouth falls open. “Because you’re supposed to be in a relationship with me. That’s what’s expected of us. That’s what your lawyer told my father we were supposed to be doing.”

  “You said it yourself, though. It’s a fake relationship. I don’t see why I have to be faithful.” He shrugs as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. But what we’re seeing as obvious are two very different things.

  “It’s a fake relationship,” I punctuate. “A fake monogamous relationship.”

  “But it’s not real.” He leans closer to me and I pull away. “So I don’t see why we can’t act on our urges.”

  “You are not getting between my legs, Tanner Harris!” I hiss.

  “I didn’t say I’d be fucking you, Ryan. It’d be a shame for my superior endurance to go to waste.”

  His cavalier expression is cutting. His half-smile now looks horrifying as I realise what he’s implying. But instead of letting his words hurt, I turn my emotions into anger. I zero that anger in on him so hard that everything around his face blurs. I’m barely able to keep my scathing tone to a whisper.

  “Look, Harris. This is my reputation at stake, too. I’m not going to be your fucking political beard while you continue whoring around London as if you’re on some bloody holiday and I’m a pathetic wife stuck at home.”

  “You say beard like it’s a bad thing.” He rubs his chin, a dirty glint in his eyes. “Most women call this their thigh tickler.”

  I baulk. “You are disgusting. I don’t care what most women call it. This is the situation we’re faced with, and I won’t let you jeopardise what we’re doing and humiliate me because you can’t keep your STD-infested cock in your trousers for a few short weeks.”

  “Look,” he barks back at me and then looks around as he draws attention to us. He shifts to the edge of his seat, so close now that I can feel the heat between his legs and smell the alcohol on his breath. “I’m suspended from everything. Football practice, team meetings, matches. All of it. I can’t attend, not even to sit on the bench. So you are not about to bench me at the one thing I can actually take pleasure in during this entire mess.”

  “This is a mess you created! Not me!” I insist.

  He shakes his head and turns so he’s facing the counter again. Taking another large gulp of his drink, his jaw muscle ticks with annoyance. “I’m not even sure my team will believe this anyhow. You and me together? It doesn’t make sense. And it’s certainly not worth being completely miserable the entire time.”

  The look of disdain he shoots me out of the corner of his eye sends me over the edge. Before I realise what I’m doing, I grab my glass of wine and chuck it in his face. “Surely they’ll believe that.”

  I slam my glass down and shove myself off the stool, stomping through the crowd of people as fast as my stilettos will allow. I’m completely oblivious to the gawking eyes all around me. Tanner Harris will not get the upper hand on me again!

  Fuck.

  Him.

  I burst through the doors of the restaurant and my vision blurs as flashes begin going off. There are at least three photographers with huge-lens cameras standing in the crowd of people. Everyone’s eyes are on me as they try to figure out why all the attention is facing my way.

  I hear Tanner yelling my name from inside, but it doesn’t stop me. I make a quick left down the busy alley full of people, excusing myself as I bump into a group of men.

  “Ryan, stop!” he shouts again.

  Now, not only are there photographers furiously snapping photos, but people have their mobiles lifted and are recording the entire scene.

  Tanner’s voice sounds closer, so I look back and see him swerving around the crowd. His eyes are wide and desperate as he takes in all the mobiles pointed at him.

  I try to increase my speed but it’s no use. I’m in heels and he’s in boots. A firm grip wraps around my bicep, stopping me in my tracks.

  “Bloody hell, Belle, would you just stop?”

  He twirls me around to face him, a pleading look in his eyes. Glancing around with annoyance ticking in his jaw, he pulls me over to a brick doorframe in the alley. It’s not any farther away from the onlookers, but at least it’s out of the street lights.

  “I’m sorry, all right. I didn’t mean what I said.” He moves his other hand to my free arm so he can force me to face him. The red wine has been wiped off of his face, but I can still see flecks of moisture clinging to his beard.

  “Of course you meant it!” I rip my arms out of his grasp, not giving a shit that I’m shouting. “I make you miserable. Your words were very clear. Feeling’s mutual, arsehole.”

  I turn to walk away, but his rough hand gently cups my cheek, giving me pause. His other hand reaches up to embrace the other side of my face so he can force my gaze to his. His face is dangerously close to mine as he speaks. “It’s not you that makes me miserable. It’s this scenario. You can’t be happy with this either.”

  “God, no!” I exclaim. “I don’t want to be here anymore than you do, but here we are. You need to commit to this, Tanner.”

  The crowd feels as if they are slowly closing in around us. He swallows hard, looking like he wants to argue but knowing he needs to watch what he says so they don’t overhear. It annoys me. His weakness burns the very fibre of my being.

  “Be a man for once in your life!” I snap. “Take responsibility and own this. The very least you can do is be a fucking gentleman. I know it’s a completely foreign concept to you and not one the Harris Hoes ever expect, but—”

  Kiss.

  He’s kissing me.

  He’s pressing me up against the brick wall and he’s kissing me as if his life depends on it.

  Perhaps in this case, it does.

  But it catches me off guard. My stony lips reflexively soften as he tilts his head and increases the pressure on the inside of my mouth…with his tongue.

  His tongue!

  The cheeky bastard is completely out of control, and I’m still so mad at him. My adrenaline is still high, my rage still so acute. So I decide to fight fire with fire.

  I bite down.

  He lets out an audible growl against my lips and his tongue retracts, giving me room to sink my teeth down onto his pouty, smouldering, annoying as fuck, lower lip. This elicits a different reaction than I expected. He releases my face and lowers his hands to my waist, pulling my hips into his. His body is rock hard against mine as he pushes us both further into the bricks.

  Further into this madness.

  My hands reach up and comb through the damp beard on his jaw, tugging softly and relishing in the coarse texture of it on my fingertips, lips, and chin. The messiness, the burn, the wild, beast-like feeling of him is intoxicating.

  This foolishness has to stop.

  I’m kissing Tanner Harris in a busy London alley with people snapping pictures all around us. And the way he rolls his hips into mine makes everything in my body quiver with need.

  I need to get a hold of this situation.

  Finally, I find myself again, no longer lost in his touch and his kiss. I pull back, breathing heavily on his lips. “What the fuck was that?” I pant.

  The side of his mouth curls up. “Sorry, I’ve never been much of a gentleman.”

  I grab Belle’s hand and pull her through the crowd of people flocking around us. As we make our way back toward the restaurant, I’m praying like fuck that our seats haven’t been filled yet. If they have, I’ll wait. I’m starving and that starter I had of Belle’s fucking lips did nothing to satisfy my appetite.

  If anything, it made me hungrier.

  What starte
d as a simple solution—kiss her and make it look like a lover’s quarrel—quickly ramped up into, Holy shit, I need to be inside this woman right now. Sod all these prats watching us.

  This situation with Belle is going to get very complicated very fast. I haven’t forgotten all the reasons I didn’t kiss her three months ago. But the fact that we’re being forced together for the next few weeks seems to overrule all those reasons.

  Doesn’t it?

  Even if it doesn’t, Belle certainly isn’t too keen on turning this fake dating into a friends with benefits scenario, which would suit me a lot better. So if monogamy is what will be required of me, I’m going to become very well acquainted with my hand over the next month.

  I find our seats waiting for us when we get back inside and do my best to ignore all the people gawking at us. Belle did just throw a glass of red wine in my face, so I’d probably be staring, too. I zip up my jacket to hide the evidence of her outburst on my T-shirt. Then, when the waitress comes over, I tell her to bring us a variety of whatever she recommends.

  “I hope that’s all right,” I say, feeling tense and introspective and glancing awkwardly at Belle.

  She nods woodenly, and I just now notice that her dark lipstick is smeared on her face.

  “You, uh…” I gesture toward my lips and she immediately touches her mouth.

  “Will you excuse me?”

  I nod and she gets up and walks toward the toilets.

  I take the moment of solitude to give myself a quick pep talk so I can get out of my head once and for all. I’ve been going about this situation all wrong. I’ve only been thinking about myself and haven’t been listening to what she needs out of this. I need to quit being the Tanner Harris I’ve been for the last couple of months and start being the Tanner Harris that Vi would expect of me. This arrangement is important for Belle’s job, too, and it’s time I be considerate of that.

  When she gets back, she barely sits down on her stool before I puke out the words that have been rolling around in my mouth. “I’m sorry, Belle. I said stupid things. Awful things. I was being a prat and only thinking of myself and you didn’t deserve that. I’m also sorry for attacking you out there like that without any warning. I just…felt everybody surrounding us, and it was the only thing I could think of to salvage this evening. I am sorry.”

  “You called me Belle again,” she replies, frowning.

  After everything I said, her response is unexpected.

  “Do you prefer I continue calling you Ryan?”

  She adamantly shakes her head. “No, no, it’s just something I’ve notice you do when you’re not being the arrogant arse the papers all portray you to be.”

  I swallow a drink of my now slightly warm beer and mull over her observation. I guess I started calling her Ryan after that night at Old George when I realised we could never be anything more than acquaintances. Maybe it helped establish some boundaries for me. Boundaries seem rather irrelevant now.

  She interrupts my thoughts. “I’m sorry, too, for erm…throwing my wine in your face.”

  I smile. I can’t believe I’m smiling. A crazy chick tossed a drink in my face and I’m smiling at her like she couldn’t possibly help herself. “It’s okay.”

  She shakes her head. “It’s not. It’s awful. I have a hair-trigger temper and it gets me in trouble…a lot.”

  My brows climb. “What kind of trouble? Like at work?”

  “No, actually. That’s the one place I’m completely level-headed. I think the drama of the medical situations I’m faced with are so intense there’s not really room for me to be irrational.” The waitress sets fresh drinks down between us and we both take a necessary gulp. “My family life, on the other hand, is a whole other story.”

  “You said you and your dad aren’t close?”

  “No. I’m not close with any of my family. All of this”—she gestures to her face and body—“is just a bit much for their scene.” She lets out a sad sort of self-deprecating laugh that bothers me.

  I eye her objectively for a minute and can’t find a single flaw. “What does that mean?”

  Her dark eyes pin me with a look that tells me she thinks I’m clueless. “It means that if I would have tossed my wine on anybody in their social circle, I would be written out of the will.” She pauses and frowns at me. “Why is it you seem to be so forgiving?”

  “For you throwing wine on me in public?”

  She nods.

  I shrug. “I guess I can admire someone who’s passionate about their convictions, even if it is at the expense of mine.”

  “Aren’t you equally passionate?”

  I shake my head. “No. I’m quite laid back for the most part. Growing up with four siblings and a father who cares more about football than he does about anything else sort of forces you to be.”

  “Then we’re a match made in heaven, Tanner, because my passion, as you so kindly called it, usually sends men running for the hills.” She looks at me for a few seconds. “Then again, I forgot the fact that you are not here by choice.”

  The chef behind the counter interrupts our quickly darkening conversation by serving us several small plates of food. It all looks and smells amazing. Plus, I think we both know that more eating and less talking is probably for the best.

  We tuck into it all like it’s our last meal. I don’t know what the majority of the food is when the waitress tells us all about the various sauces and seasonings, but I don’t have to understand what I’m eating to know it’s incredible. Belle seems to be enjoying it just as much. I guess this would be a perk of monogamous dating. Restaurants, good food, good drinks, attractive company. I can see the appeal.

  But nothing about the night tops the way Belle’s eyes light up when she sees they have a dark chocolate ganache truffle dessert. She looks like a kid getting a puppy on Christmas morning. It’s sweet and hilarious and innocent.

  Watching her eat it, however, is the exact opposite description. Her large, touched-up lips wrap around the spoon of chocolate like she’s devouring the most sensual thing on the planet. I suppose it is to her. To me, I’m envisioning something a bit more salty tasting.

  My dick twitches as I recall her referring to dark chocolate as a religion before. I can’t help but feel like I’m witnessing a religious experience. She offers me a bite on more than one occasion, but I refuse because I don’t want to take a single bit away from the show I’m enjoying more than I care to admit. It’s ten times better than any foreplay I’ve ever had.

  When my dirty mind begins picturing her sucking chocolate off my cock, I have to excuse myself to go to the loo and get control of my faculties. Fuck me. How did this bird go from throwing her wine in my face to making me as hard as a rock within the space of an hour? She’s a witch. A temptress. She’s got me completely under her chocolatey, crazy chick spell and I’m entranced.

  She’s just finished off her coffee when I come out, so I quickly pay our bill and pull her behind me as we exit the busy restaurant. The photographers are all gone, which doesn’t surprise me because I’m sure they won’t use any of the shots of us laughing and talking like civilised adults. No, no. They’ll use the one of me covered in wine and her screaming at me in the alley. The media are arseholes like that. Nobody cares to read about a happy story. They want dirt, they want drama, they want domestic disputes. They want something that will trend, and nothing gets people talking more than something completely unexpected.

  As I hail down a cab, I glance at the time on my mobile and see it’s not quite nine. “I kind of want to do one last thing. Think you’re up for it?”

  “What is it?” Belle asks, folding herself into the cab and sliding across the bench to make room for me.

  “I want to see how Sedgewick is doing.”

  She smiles. Genuinely smiles and nods. “I’d love to.”

  The Grosvenor Hotel is owned by one of my old schoolmates whom I grew up with in Chigwell. Duncan and I used to sneak girls into the private park
behind my dad’s mansion and get them to show us their boobies. Now, as grown men, we’re still trying to get girls to show us their boobies, but they’re out of their training bras and are wearing sexy lingerie as they spread out in posh hotel rooms. So life is good.

  Duncan texts me Sedgwick’s room number and lets me know that he was still there earlier in the evening. I was relieved to hear that because, after Sedgwick’s resistance last night, I wasn’t sure he would stay.

  I barely recognise the man who opens the door.

  “Tanner, old boy!” Sedgwick bellows with a jovial smile. “Lovely to see you. Come in, come in! Is that Dr. Ryan with you?”

  “It is,” I reply, glancing down at his bare feet sticking out from beneath the white terry cloth robe.

  “Well, this is a treat. Please, come in. I’m not quite appropriate,” he says, pulling the white towel off his mop of curly greyish-white hair. “But after all we saw of Mr. Harris here last night, I think we’re past the point of proper decorum, don’t you?”

  Belle giggles behind me and I roll my eyes. “For a man so concerned about manners, you sure don’t seem to miss a chance of having a go at me.”

  He laughs and steps back for us to enter. The room looks like it hasn’t been slept in. The bed is made perfectly. The minibar still seems fully stocked. Even the telly is off.

  “How are we this evening, Dr. Ryan? It’s so nice to see you again. I’m not sure I got a chance to properly thank you for the lift last night.”

  “Oh, it was my pleasure. Especially since you had the decency to wear clothes.”

  Sedgwick hoots with a laugh but then purses his lips when I eye them both harshly.

  “Have you been sleeping in the bed?” I ask, walking over to the bed and noting the pillow mint still sitting there.

  Sedg looks down and runs a hand through his damp hair. “I erm…I sat on it once. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I have a bad back.” He looks at Belle as he says the last part like she can understand better because she’s a doctor or something.

  “You probably have a bad back because you slept in a phone box, Sedgwick.” My words are cutting, but I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Even his canvas bag looks like it hasn’t been touched, let alone laundered. I walk over to the mini-fridge and look inside only to see that not a single drink has been touched. “Sedgwick. I told you to order room service. Did you do that?”