Fool Me Forever (The Confidence Game 2)

Sponge cake. Layers of sweetness and complexity. Cheesy toast. All the ingredients and knowing when to use them. Halsey was as unique as his alicorn. “I’m having trouble dealing with that, too.”

“Can we go back to the fantasy? We have the whole weekend.”

“I’d like that.”

He rounded the counter. “In the fantasy, I can feel you up under my shirt, carry you back to bed, and have my way with you.”

She stood on the stool rung and opened her arms to him. “Your way seems to be everything I like.” They met nose to nose and his hands slid under the T-shirt to spread over her butt, and she liked that, too.

“How is it I can’t get enough of you? Don’t let me take you some place you don’t want to go with all this.”

He could easily do that. But for now, she wasn’t thinking about Sunday night, about leaving and knowing that their future contact would be emails about the practical aspects of returning Cookie Jar’s money. For now, she was scraping her teeth over his bottom lip while she pressed as close to him as she could get, and he helped with that by holding her tight.

She was so gone on him, when a bell rang she wasn’t sure if it was in her head.

“I have to get that,” he said.

“I’m not sharing. They’ll go away.”

“It’s a delivery. We needed groceries.” He rubbed her back. “And maybe some other things.”

The bell rang again, and she let him go to answer it.

He came back with shopping bags and put a red one in front of her. “Much as I want to keep you naked all weekend, I thought you might feel a little vulnerable without your own clothes.”

She peeked in the bag. “You bought me clothes?”

“A little to get by on.”

The first thing she pulled out was a plain black tankini. “Your version of getting by might be different from mine.”

“There’s a pool. I thought you might like a swim.”

If it fit. She checked the tag. It was always hard to tell with swimwear.

The next thing out of the bag was a simple gray T-shirt dress like the one she’d worn when he’d first come to her apartment. It would definitely fit. There were black leather slides her size, a pair of wide-leg yoga pants, a tank with a matching linen cardigan, and plain cotton underwear.

“You checked my shoes for my size, but the rest?”

“I had to guess the rest from the labels in your scuba suit and bra. I want you to be comfortable, and I didn’t want you having to slink home in your sequins and pearls.”

“You didn’t have to do this.” It was unbelievably considerate. He didn’t splash out on sexy lingerie. He didn’t buy her a crotchless teddy or a naughty nurses outfit. He’d shopped carefully, spent moderately, and bought items that were practical and modest not to embarrass her, but for her comfort. She was overwhelmed again.

Best she could do while a thousand thoughts of how much she loved this, loved him for his thoughtfulness bounced around in her head, was to burrow into his arms.

In the bedroom, she pulled herself together, broke off the shop tags and removed labels, and bounced back into the living room dressed for a day of hanging out with her alicorn. The pants were fantastic, the tank a little tighter than she’d normally wear, but the grin he gave her made it worthwhile.

It was then she got the apartment tour. Four bedrooms, including the two she’d seen, and a home office that was half work space and half gallery. The furnishing in the rest of the loft was modern, expensive, and luxurious. His kitchen was gourmet, almost made her want to cook a meal in it. The office was all about the quirk. Halsey’s inner antique collecting freak flag was hoisted high. He had a huge wooden desk that might as well have been the Resolute. He had a collection of tiny old cameras hidden in tie pins, hats, walking canes, lighters, and pipes.

There was an awesome lipstick pistol and pair of spectacles that had a space in the arms that once held cyanide pills. She picked up a small metal bullet-shaped capsule and opened it to find a tiny rasp, saw, file, screwdriver, knife, and pliers and almost dropped it when he said it was a rectal tool kit from the sixties.

He grinned at her. “It’s my museum of devious doings. Now that you’ve seen this, you know all there is to know about me.”

Not yet she didn’t. She didn’t know what he looked like unshaven or what made him sad or how to reconcile the contrary concepts of Halsey as a genuine, caring, best-of-breed boyfriend with the fact he was a fake. In that, it was like her father all over again.

She waggled the capsule at him. “Have you ever had cause to—”

He took it out of her hand. “No. Zeke, however…”