Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127527 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 638(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127527 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 638(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
He flashed her a little grin. “Thank you.”
Larkin frowned. “It won’t be that simple, Piper. They’ll all want details, and I’d have to come up with some big story and invent a guy from scratch. No, thanks.”
“You don’t have to invent one,” Piper told her. “You can have a guy pretend to be your boyfriend. And this one here, well, he has a debt to pay.”
Larkin stared at her for a long moment. “Wait, what?”
“No, I wouldn’t make a good pretend boyfriend,” said Teague, scratching the un-inked side of his neck. “Trust me on that.”
Piper leaned toward him. “But just—”
“No.” Larkin slashed an arm through the air. “Not happening. No way am I spending more time around him than I absolutely have to.”
He gave a mock frown of offense. “That’s not nice.”
“You telling lies about me isn’t nice,” Larkin shot back.
“I apologized for that.”
“But, as you admitted, you didn’t mean it.”
He sighed again. “How about this? I regret that I’m incapable of regretting it.”
“If you don’t experience regret, you can’t possibly regret that you’re unable to feel regret.”
“Only if you want to get technical about it.”
Yep, she was totally gonna throw her soda at him. Which Piper must have sensed, because she laid a restraining hand on Larkin’s arm.
“Putting all that aside for a second,” Khloë cut in, turning to Teague, “you would make a terrible fake boyfriend—that much is true. But Piper’s right, you do owe Larkin. This would get the others off her back.”
Larkin shook her head. “I’m not even going to pretend to date a well-known hit-and-run.”
He cast her a distinct look of affront. “I’m not a hit-and-run.”
“Now you’re just lying. Again.”
“It’s a habit.”
“Break it.”
Khloë pursed her lips. “Granted, Teague is in fact a fan of hook-ups—”
“Which is a good reason for Larkin not to use me as her fake boyfriend,” he said. “Knox and the other guys in your circle wouldn’t want her dating me. They’d get all het up about it.”
Larkin paused with her soda halfway to her mouth. “Yeah, they really would.” And the thought of them het up about anything made her feel all warm inside. A little payback would be nice. Her demon smirked at the idea.
Piper looked at her, her pale-green eyes dancing with mischief. “They’d likely freak, though not outwardly. And yes, I can see that that thought fills you with joy. Personally, I think it makes sense to hop on this plan. It would be easier to pretend that he’s your boyfriend than any other guy, what with all the rumors that you two are involved. And who else is crazy enough to risk the wrath of Knox and the sentinels by playing this game?”
“It would work,” Khloë chipped in. She turned to Teague when he went to object. “It would also make female hellhorses stop hounding you to father their children.”
He stared at his anchor, his lips parted. “Yeah, it really would.” His brows dipped low. “But I thought you don’t want me sexing-up your friends. You made me take a blood oath not to date them without asking you first. Then, when I once joked that I was gonna find a nice girl and settle down, you made me take an oath not to seek anything serious from your friends.”
Khloë waved that away. “This wouldn’t be real. It would be an act. You could pull it off.”
“Yeah, I could.” He gestured at Larkin, adding, “But she couldn’t.”
Larkin’s back snapped straight. “Excuse me?”
He slid his gaze back to her. “You have those things. You know. Morals. You’ll feel bad lying to people you care about, and it will show. People will see right through your act.”
Both Larkin and her inner demon bristled at his dismissive tone. “If anyone will struggle to keep up the pretense, it’s you. Purely because you’ll get bored fast, and you won’t want to remain celibate—which you’d have to do, because I’m not dating someone who’s ‘cheating’ on me. As such, you’ll throw in the towel, leaving me hanging.”
“Wrong. I could pull it off. I could even do temporary celibacy. And I could keep both up for however long I needed to.”
“It would need to be for at least four months,” Piper interjected. “Five would be better.”
“Five?” echoed Larkin while Teague asked, “That long?”
“Yes.” Piper looked at her. “You want to make it seem like it’s serious, because then our cupids in there won’t go back to matchmaking when you two ‘break up’. They’ll feel that you need time alone.”
Khloë pointed her finger at the nightmare. “Good point.”
“Also,” began Piper, “maybe five months of celibacy will discourage him from ever again involving you in his lies, Larkin. If nothing else, it’ll make an excellent punishment.”
Hmmm, another good point. One that made Larkin want to smile.
“Five months it is, then.” Khloë looked at Teague. “Yes, you’ll miss sex, but you owe Larkin. You could stick it out that long, right?”