The Perfect Guy: A Romance Novel Read online

  I had to take a break there and drink some water. The wall in me had broken, and I just couldn’t stop the flood of words that left me now.

  “Everything I know about guys and relationships feels wrong when I’m around you, and I know that it has nothing to do with this program. I question everything because I’m never sure what you will say or do. What freaked me out the most was when you began to change me, and I know you did it unconsciously, but to change me into the person I hate the most, which you knew, it has made me insecure as hell. And still, despite all of this, I can’t stop thinking about you because I still see the guy from that first day that was too good to be true. Now, if you could take all of this and help me make some sense with it, I would definitely appreciate it, because I’ve turned it over in my head a million times without coming close to an answer.”

  When I stopped, I had to inhale deeply. James wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was staring at the wall, and I was guessing that it was because he was processing everything. I hadn’t exactly held anything back.

  When he hadn’t said anything for several minutes, I started to wonder if I had perhaps overwhelmed him with my word vomit.

  “James, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spew it all out like that…”

  He actually smiled at that. “Don’t apologize. I’m just quite amazed how observant you are.” He turned his head toward me. “I’ve known it for some time, but I’ve also underestimated that skill of yours.” His smile fell and he looked seriously at me. “I think it’s time that I stop underestimating you. You deserve better than that, but I’ve been too stubborn. You also deserve the truth.”

  His eyes were so intense that they caused my own eyes to tear up. I had always known that he had hidden something from me and the feeling that he would actually tell me now was just too powerful.

  “I’ve lied quite a lot to you, Jennifer, about most things.”

  Hearing him call me Jennifer again felt strange. He hadn’t called me that since the first day, but I found myself not hating it as much as I did when my mother called me that. It also hurt to hear him confess to me that he had lied. There was one thing to hide something, but to actually lie, that was a different level.

  “What are you saying?” It was such a stupid question, but it came out anyway.

  “I’ve lied about almost everything because I know that you would hate the real me. What you’ve seen has all been an act. I’m not the lost twenty-nine-year old musician from Chicago that you believe I am.” He barely blinked when he said this, and my heart fell into my stomach like a stone. This was what I had been afraid of from the beginning, and I didn’t want to hear anymore, but I couldn’t stop him now.

  “Who I really am is a selfish, greedy, and cruel bastard. If we met during a night on the town, I would be the persistent sleazeball that your friends advised you to stay away from. I’m a very bad man and up until this point I haven’t cared about what others think of me.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest in an unconscious decision to protect myself. “What’s changed?” I asked in a voice that I tried to control in order to sound surer than I was, but the fact was that I was hurting so much, because not thirty minutes earlier, I admitted to myself that I’d fallen for the man in front of me, and now I had to hear that it wasn’t really him.

  James shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. If you’d asked that of me three hours ago, I would have said that nothing’s changed and that everything is as it should be, but a lot has happened in the last three hours that I can’t explain.”

  I don’t know what possessed me to ask, maybe it was my curiosity, but I found myself yearning to see the real him. I wanted to know if he was as bad as he said. “Will you show me?”

  He frowned. “Show you what?”

  “The real you?” He was shaking his head before I had even finished the sentence. “Why not? Don’t you think I deserve it after being played the way that I have? Just let this mask that you have such control over go for a moment.”

  “You don’t want to see,” he replied darkly.

  “And are you the one to decide that?” I challenged him. I knew that I hadn’t acted a lot like myself around James. Because of his “games” he had transformed me into a small insecure girl who didn’t know how to act, but I was digging myself up from the hole I’d buried myself in. I was tired of it all. I wanted answers and I wanted them all now. This talk was not over until I knew everything.

  I don’t think he liked my challenge very much because his face started to twitch close to his eye. I’d noticed that before when he was angry, but the difference this time was that he wasn’t pushing his anger down. I watched his eyes harden and the face of the James that I feared was suddenly in front of me.

  He immediately shifted closer to me, and I couldn’t help but to cower farther into the arm rest behind my back, but it caused him to smile. “You shouldn’t have asked, Jennifer,” he whispered while he came closer still. “Did you think I was lying about this, too? Or that I exaggerated? How I wish that was the truth.”

  He was practically hovering over me now, and I couldn’t cower away any further. I was completely trapped, and even though I feared him, my body still had a very unfit physical reaction to him. His dominance and control practically oozed from his pores, and it unsettled me that I was turned on by it because those were traits I had always hated in men.

  “You don’t seem to like yourself very much,” I stated breathlessly.

  He came even closer—his face was perhaps only three inches from mine—and a humorless laugh erupted from his throat. “On the contrary, Jennifer. In fact, I’m quite fond of myself, but it’s the knowledge that I can never have you because of who I am that makes me wish that this side of me was the lie.”

  He leaned away from me and rose from the couch. His entire posture was different now. He had always stood with a straight back, but his shoulders were lower, and his legs were spread apart slightly.

  He was quiet again, but I wasn’t having any of that. For the first time since I met the guy, I was getting the truth from him, and I knew there was more.

  I shifted my weight so that I sat more comfortably on the couch again, and then I looked up at him. “Will you tell me exactly what you’ve been lying about?”

  That humorless laugh escaped him again, and it caused me to feel slightly nauseous. He sounded so evil when he laughed like that. “Do you really want the specifics? Let’s just say everything. It’s easier that way.”

  His dismissal of my question caused me to lose it. “Yes, I want specifics! Or do you want me to believe that your name is not James Anthony Masen? That you’re not from Chicago? That you’re not twenty-fucking-nine years old? I need to know in order to not question my own sanity!”

  It had been a long time since I lost my temper that way, and it felt good. It was relieving to scream at him. It was something I’d wanted to do so many times over the months that had passed.

  “There’s that temper again,” he said with a smile that was everything but earnest. “I haven’t seen it in a while now, but I’ve missed it. If you only knew what your anger does to me.”

  My nausea came back. “You’re sick!”

  “That’s nothing new.” While he was still standing, he leaned forward and trapped me between his arms when he took support on the back rest. I believe he was a fan of invading my personal space. “Do you still want to hear the specifics?”

  I nodded without hesitating.

  He stared straight into my eyes while he talked. “My name is James Anthony Masen, I am from Chicago, and my age is twenty-nine, but that’s all you actually know about me. I like music, but I’ve never touched an instrument in my entire life. I know squat about flowers, but I know women like them, so I researched before our first date. I’ve had almost every job that there is, but I haven’t found what I want to do yet, and lastly, I never had a sister.”

  I gasped at the last part, and my hand flew up to my mouth.

  “I’
m an excellent actor, Jennifer, and an expert on human nature. Normally, I can predict what a person will do before he’s considered it himself, but I was never able to do that with you, and it has infuriated me to no end.”

  Slowly, he lifted a lock of my hair closer to his face and studied it. “I can make most people do exactly what I want, but you were different. Stronger than the others.”

  I was almost too afraid to ask, but I had to. “Others?”

  His gaze snapped from my hair to my eyes. I thought he would answer me, but he changed the subject instead. “The thing that has been a huge thorn in my side, though, isn’t that I’ve lied or played you. It’s that I was never able to become emotionally detached from you. There was something about you that made it impossible, and even though I’ve tried to fool myself, it’s no use anymore.”

  He leaned away again, but I followed him this time. I rose from my seat and stood right behind him when he turned his back to me. I wanted to hit him, both with my hands and possibly the vase on the coffee table, but I wasn’t going to do that…not yet at least.

  “What does all of this mean? Why did you try to change me if not for a sister? Who are the others? Why have you been in this program before?” I asked in a whisper. I couldn’t muster my voice to talk any louder.

  “I’m afraid that you are not ready to hear those answers yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Lots of reasons, but mainly because I don’t want to give them to you.” He turned around to face me. “I know that as soon as you become aware of the complete truth, you will pack your bags and leave this place. I also know that you will stay until you have all the answers.”

  “Damn right I will! But why can’t you let me leave? If the truth is so horrible, what’s the use of keeping it from me? Won’t it hurt more the longer you wait?”

  “It will hurt more, but I’m doing it for selfish reasons.” Suddenly, he brought his hands up and placed them on my cheeks. “I know that you know how much I want you. I heard you before when you came out of your bedroom the first time, and I know you saw my predicament. I can’t let you leave until I get a taste.”

  I did not have any time to react.

  His mouth crashed down on mine, and I froze. My limbs refused to move, and I had no idea what I was going to do.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE CRASH

  I couldn’t help but to kiss him back. I had fantasized about it too much not to, but even though my lips moved together with his in the most toe-curling kiss I’d ever experienced, the rest of my body was immobile.

  James’s hands were still on my face, but he moved them down over my body slowly until he let them settle on my hips. He was also pressing his tongue in between my lips, and when I couldn’t refuse him, he groaned deeply.

  However, it was obvious that it frustrated him that I wasn’t more into the kiss, and I understood that he was trying to get a reaction out of me when he hooked his long fingers into the belt loops of my jeans and pulled me closer to him until our lower bodies were in contact with each other. I immediately felt his erection press against my hip.

  He got a reaction from me, but I doubt he expected the one he got.

  The hard feeling of him against me gave me back control over my limbs, and I took a step back from him. Our mouths had barely separated before my open palm connected with his cheek with a loud smack.

  It caused the side of his face to redden, but his expression made it seem as if it had not hurt that much. Angered by that fact, I brushed past him on my way toward the door, which I intended to shove him out through.

  Yes, I was attracted to him, on the verge of falling in love, but that did not mean I was going to accept him treating me this way. He could not tell me he’d lied to me the entire time and then kiss me!

  But I had barely started to reach for the door handle before I felt his fingers wrap around my wrist, and with a tug, he made me turn around and face him again.

  I expected to see anger in his green eyes. I had slapped him pretty hard, and even though he felt he was too much of a man to show it, it must have hurt. The last thing I expected to see was raw, primal lust.

  Still, he scared me half to death when his free hand came up and snaked its way around my throat.

  I wanted to believe that he would never hurt me like that, but then I reminded myself of the fact that I did not know this man.

  Was this what he had meant with that I didn’t want to see the real him? Was he turned on by the prospect of hurting me?

  James began to push me backwards until my back met the wall; his hand still around my throat. The grip wasn’t tight or uncomfortable, but it still scared me.

  When he had me completely up against the wall, he wasn’t slow to attach his mouth onto mine again. The kiss was more violent this time. His tongue demanded its entrance, and the movements of his lips weren’t as calm and controlled anymore.

  The hand that he’d used to grip my wrist released its hold and travelled up my arm before he placed it on my waist.

  I felt so torn—at complete war with myself—when he pressed the entire length of his body against mine, and I wanted him closer, still, but at the same time, I felt the urge to bite his lip in order to get him off me.

  Just like everything else with the man, his advances, although made me unbelievably aroused, left me feeling torn and confused, but this time it had nothing to do with my insecurity for his sincerity.

  I gasped, both out of shock, and out of the electrical, pulsating pleasure that radiated from the place his hand hooked around my knee so that he could hitch it over his hip.

  I felt the corners of his mouth lift up into a smile while still kissing me, and it irritated me to no end because I knew what that smile meant. He was pleased with himself for having succeeded with luring a consenting response from me even though I’d already said no through my slap to his face.

  I couldn’t stand that thought and I ended up doing exactly what I’d contemplated before. I bit down on his lower lips hard enough to almost draw blood, and James immediately jumped back and away from me.

  He touched his lip to check the damage and then he looked at me.

  I stared back at him angrily. “Get out,” I said lowly. When he didn’t react, I snapped. “I said get the fuck out! Get out! Get out! Get out!” I started to pound on him with my fists until he began to move toward the door.

  Before he closed it behind himself, he gave me one last look, but I couldn’t interpret it correctly as the furious tears that had flooded my eyes made my vision blurry.

  They fell down my cheeks when the door closed with an almost inaudible click.

  I felt drained of all energy as I slid down the door until I sat on the floor and hugged my knees to my chest.

  I flinched when I heard the sound of the handle being turned on the door behind me, and I didn’t have time to move before it was shoved into my back.

  “Oh my god, Jenn! I’m so sorry! What the hell were you doing by the door anyway?”

  I shook my head at Jessica and got up from the floor. I was not in the mood to explain it all to her.

  She and Leah were the ones who warned me when James tried to change me. They saw something in him that I failed to see, and it was a thorn in my side.

  Peter had thrown suspicious glances in James’s direction on occasion, too. If everyone else had seen that something was not right with the guy, what had been different with me? I was usually a perceptive person, and I had been suspicious of James from the start, but something had made me give lame explanations for everything he did.

  “I’m going to bed,” I told Jessica and steered my way toward the bedroom.

  “Are you okay?” she asked with worry coloring her tone.

  I looked at her over my shoulder. “Yeah, of course,” I lied. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because it’s four ‘o’clock in the afternoon.” She raised an eyebrow my way, but I shrugged it off.

  “The class drained me. I just want to
sleep.”

  Suddenly, Jessica’s face split into a grin. “James worked you up pretty badly, huh?”

  “What?”

  She winked. “We all saw what he did to you, and damn, had you two been alone in that room, one of you would have jumped the other! You probably would’ve done it on the front desk.” She threw herself down on the couch. “Did you bring him up here to finish it? Is that why you’re so tired?”

  I gaped at her. “Jessica! What do you think of me? I barely know the guy.”

  She frowned. “How can you not know him better? He’s been your ‘boyfriend’ for the last four months.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her that the bastard had lied to me the entire time, but I stopped myself. It was between me and James, and I didn’t want to be the woman who whined to the first person she encountered.

  Jessica didn’t need me to answer, though. “I’d totally go to bed with that man anyway. He scared me a bit a few weeks ago when he changed you, but now he’s just…I don’t know, there’s something about him. He seems more mature than he says he is.”

  I shook my head at her with an amused smile. “Just stay away from him, Jessica. He’s not worth it.” I said it out of care for her. I didn’t know what James’s agenda was yet, but I did not want to put Jessica through it. She was too sweet and quirky and didn’t deserve it.

  “Oh, so he’s no good in the sack?” She sighed. “I guess you can’t get everything. You have money, looks, or skill; never all three.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at her. She brought my mood up when I really needed it.

  “Weren’t you going to bed?” she asked.

  “I’m not tired anymore,” I replied, and she instantly straightened up on the couch.