Poppy rolled her eyes and lay down, pulling her sunglasses from the top of her head to cover her eyes. “And you’re the worst fake boyfriend ever.”
“Hey, you know that isn’t true.” I knocked my foot against hers. “If I was a bad one, I wouldn’t be friends with your mom.”
“That’s the point, dumbass.” She rolled onto her side, propping herself up on her elbow, and pulled down her glasses to look me in the eye. “She likes you. Now, when this weekend is done, I’m going to have to field questions about you until I can come up with a viable reason for why the hell I’d break up with someone like you.”
“Someone like me? Want to elaborate?”
“No.” She dropped her glasses back in place and herself back onto her back.
I rolled onto my stomach. “Oh, come on. Even I know you’re gonna field her calls and avoid her when this weekend is done. You’ll avoid it until you absolutely have to, then tell her you didn’t want to tell her we’d broken up.”
“Oh yeah? And what excuse am I going to give her, Einstein?”
“I dunno, Red. Make me out to be an asshole. Say I cheated on you or something.”
She snorted. “Please. Look at your damn abs. You couldn’t cheat on a diet. You don’t get abs like that from cheating on a diet.”
“Actually, I’m great at that. There’s a reason I’m at the gym before you even wake up. It’s because I have a minor addiction to sugar.”
“Oh, yeah, I mean, you look it. I’ve never seen you not eating sugar.”
Laughing, I rested back on my elbows. “You laugh. When my eldest sister was pregnant, she craved Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes. One day, when her husband was away working, I went to get her one to take her the next day. I had to go back the following day to get another because I ate the entire thing by myself.”
“You’re so full of shit,” Poppy muttered.
“Believe it or not, Red, it’s the truth.”
“Sure. It’s the truth.” She made air quotes.
I shook my head and turned my face into the sun. She wasn’t going to believe me, and I wasn’t going to fight her for it. She was stubborn and headstrong—I’d learned that much.
Yet, in a weird way, it made her attractive. She wasn’t afraid to say what she thought, and she wasn’t afraid to stand up for what she believed in.
And let me tell you—groupies were a thing. They weren’t just for rock stars. They were for everyone with a bit of money and media star, and I’d come across more than a few of them who were interested in me for what I was, not who I was.
I hadn’t lied when I’d told Poppy that.
When she’d waltzed into my life at that bar, she’d been a breath of fresh air. I’d be lying if I said that hadn’t been attractive to me. It had been. It was a rarity and something I’d relished.
Not that I’d ever expected to find her at the end of my bed, staring at me the next morning. And I sure as hell hadn’t expected her to explain that she needed a date for this wedding.
But she had, and I was here, and I was starting to get uncomfortable.
Not because of her stern mother. Not because everyone here knew who I was when she hadn’t. Not because of the crazy grandfather I had yet to meet.
But because I knew one thing to be very fucking true.
Poppy Dunn, with her red hair and her brown eyes and her smartass mouth, was someone I could see myself falling for.
“So. What are you not telling me?” she asked.
“Not telling you?”
“Earlier. When you spoke about the media. There was something you never said to me.” She raised one arm above her head, bending it at the elbow, calm as you fuckin’ please.
Dropping my head back, I said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure, you don’t. I’ll believe that when, oh, that’s right. I won’t.”
“You’ve got such a mouth on you.”
“Don’t get into the discussion of my mouth again. We’ve already had this conversation once, and if you need a reminder, then you don’t deserve to know what my mouth can do.”
I didn’t need a reminder. I could well imagine it. Not that I was in a position to be imagining it while lying on the beach in a pair of shorts, but there I was, imagining it.
Wondering what it’d feel like to have her kneeling between my legs, her hand wrapped around the base of my cock while she played with the top with her mouth.
I adjusted my shorts, shifting uncomfortably on the sand. Poppy’s head turned the slightest amount, so she’d caught my movement. If the turn of her head wasn’t enough, the curve of her pouty, bright pink lips gave it away.