Fling: Fake Relationships, Real Secrets, Happy Endings

By Jaylen Florian

I can travel the world for free. All I have to do is pretend…

 

Jasper wants his ex back, and the business titan plans to do it with the oldest method in the book: jealousy. That's where I come in. He'll pay for a once in a lifetime, round the world dream vacation, and all I need to do is pretend that I'm his boyfriend.

 

Sign me up!

 

Posing for Insta worthy pics is simple enough, but there's something Jasper doesn't know. I'm crazy about him. Jasper doesn't see me as anything more than the mayor's son — an athletic and earnest guy a dozen years younger than him. Now is my chance to prove he doesn't need his ex, he needs me.

 

Jasper didn't get to the top without a few secrets of his own. When it all comes out I don't know how we'll handle the truth. Can we make this fake relationship real? Or will we drown in our own lies?

 

"Fling" is a gay romance by Jaylen Florian, author of "Thirst" and "Bravado."  Read now to see how this fake relationship will lead to true love!  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jaylen Florian
• Release date: Jul 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9798201335069

Book preview

Chapter 1

Four simple words changed the dynamics of the fight.

"I belong to you."

Uttered with an aching voice, the man's words hung in the humid night air, instantly changing the mood of the forest.

Hearing this declaration, I knew I wouldn't have to step in between the two men and intrude into their argument.

I was quite relieved.  I wanted to remain hidden in the dark, partially concealed by a ridge on a shallow incline, to continue watching the two bearded men.

My original intention had not been to spy on them.  I'd heard anguished voices, too angry to whisper, and crept out of my tent and slithered through the trees toward them—ready to interrupt, if necessary.

I was the tour guide in charge of the group.  That was my job—leading canoe camping trips down the Douglas River.  While my primary duties were to direct and guide the customers' travels, my responsibilities branched out in myriad directions, often as host and chaperone, as particular circumstances required. 

Frequently, this put me in the role of a pseudo referee.  It wasn't squabbling in the canoes that was the problem on most trips.  It was the late night hours, like tonight, after rounds of drinking and reminiscing around campfires.  Time and again I'd noticed a general pattern.  Long after the flames were extinguished, the campfires had a way of burning on.  It would begin with a wry comment, an audacious glance, a mean joke, a hypothetical question, a brazen flirt, or a subtle challenge to someone's masculinity or femininity—and then metastasize from there. 

Yes, there was something about being on an adventurous vacation, in the woods miles away from civilization, and imbibing alcohol, that acutely stirred up the passions.  Envy and jealousy gushed, breakups were initiated, and long suppressed grievances burst out into the open.

So the nights were the worst part of my role as a tour guide.  More than once I'd had to break up a fistfight, play mediator when significant others hurled accusations at each other in the dark, and retrieve drunken customers who'd strolled too far from their tents when relieving themselves in the woods in the wee hours of the night.

Then, you can imagine, it was with substantial relief that the two bearded men I was observing down the incline from the ridge had appeared to turn the corner on their argument.  The one who'd made the declaration—"I belong to you"—had disarmed his partner, seemingly by exposing vulnerability instead of expressing more rage or pain.

I hadn't been able to determine what the two men were even arguing about.  Whatever it was, the battle was over.  Seconds after the declaration, the men embraced.  I watched their silhouettes merge. 

The moonlight was muted by streaking clouds.  There was no illumination from flashlights or any other sources of artificial light.  My eyes adjusted to the darkness well enough to make out their limbs and postures, and bearded profiles, but not their precise facial features.  Without a doubt, however, they were part of the group of seven men assigned to me for the Douglas River canoe trip, four of whom wore beards.  Even though at twenty-eight I was younger than all of them by a decade or so, I was still akin to being their chaperone when out here on the river.

I couldn't return to my own tent just yet.  The post-fight embrace by the two men transitioned into impassioned kissing.  They pawed at each other—unbuttoning shirts, sliding pants down to their knees—and I sensed their heavy breathing with such vivid clarity that I might as well have been right beside them.  My heart began pounding out of my chest.  I knelt lower to the ground to reduce the chances they would somehow sense my presence up behind the ridge.

The taller of the two men poised himself upright by reaching for the tree limb directly above his head.  He was stretched upward and standing sideways to me.  The silhouetted outline of his erection strained dramatically upward in a crescent-like arch.

The smaller man plopped down on his knees, bent forward, and took half of his partner's shaft in his mouth.  The licking and sucking was spirited to the point of being worship.  The standing man thrust his hips forward, urging his partner to take him as far down his throat as he could, until he gagged, gasped for a breath of air, and inhaled the bent pole again.

Slurping and grunting sounds enveloped me, as if including me in their encounter.  I went from massaging my crotch to unzipping my pants, pulling my briefs down my hips, and freeing my own cock into the night.  Bolder now, I edged upward so I could more comfortably stroke myself while being immersed in their intimacy.

The taller man dropped his hands from the tree limb and his arms fell to his sides.  He then turned around and crouched down on the forest floor on all fours, curving his back to protrude his bare rump toward his partner.  The shorter man stood over him and stared down at his hungry ass, then mounted him from behind.  Awkward gyrations soon eased into a rhythm and the humping accelerated in pace.

I'd never felt so hard before.  My dick was like a bolt of steel, heavy in my hand, pleading for release.  I let go of myself several times to withhold a climax, preferring to continue riding along with the bearded men.

By the time the lovemaking erupted into wild bucking, I was in harmony with their motions.  As the man on top plunged inside his partner and uttered a primal groan upon laying his seed, I pulsed out massive blasts of my own—shooting into the dark, my sperm lost to the night—and I stifled crying out and giving myself away.

My voyeuristic act was over, but I was too stiff to zip my pants back up.  While scurrying back to my tent as the men dressed, I used both hands to hold up the waistband of my pants, reducing my grace of movement into clumsy staggering, making more noise than intended.

My tent was barely visible up ahead in a clearing not far from the riverbank.  I heard rustling leaves and tree branches to my immediate right, opposite from the direction where the two men had just finished their make up sex.  I strained my eyes to see who or what it could be—confident it couldn't possibly be either of the two lovers—and all I could make out were the faint outlines of dark, cluttered trees.

I felt more shame than fear during those final moments on the run.  Not only was my dick sticking out of my pants, I realized someone might've spotted me spying on customers.  So, instead of investigating further and risking a confrontation, I darted inside my tent, zipped it closed, and sealed myself off from worrying about the episode any further.

Morning light, however, revealed a new element of intrigue. 

Chapter 2

Early dawn created a soft glow inside my nylon tent.  It was my private cocoon.  My peaceful place.

I yawned, stretched, and ran the palm of my hand over the stubble on my jaw and chin.  I didn't shave on these overnight camping trips and liked developing the five o'clock shadow look to roughen up my babyface features.

Stiff morning wood reminded me of the previous night's voyeurism in the forest and I considered starting the day by giving myself another round of relief.  But that's when I heard scraping noises outside of my tent.  I unzipped the front flap low enough to peek out.  One of the customers—a man named Jasper Carbury—sat on a nearby log, chipping away at a piece of driftwood with a pocketknife.

Obviously, he was waiting for me to wake up.  Was this about what'd happened last night? 

Jasper is what some of my friends would call a silver fox—a very handsome man with early grey hair.  He carried off a stylish salt and pepper beard, groomed to perfection, and his silver hair was short on the sides and wavy on top, combed upward and to the left, with a modern and masculine pompadour.  Jasper was about forty years of age and the type who is naturally brawny without the sort of muscles developed at gyms.  His forehead and the skin around his eyes were mostly free of wrinkles and he was blessed with full lips accentuating an expressive mouth.

I didn't personally know any of the men on this trip I was guiding.  I didn't know anything but their names and some health and dietary information that'd been filled out on their tour applications for Appointment with Destiny, which was the name of the company I worked for.  But two things were immediately apparent from the moment I first met this group of men.  One, they were all friends.  Two, there was something unspoken in their body language that made it clear to me that Jasper Carbury was either their leader or somehow otherwise in possession of their utmost respect.  When I had posed options to the group, regarding the placement of the men in the canoes or which river routes they wanted to traverse, the men usually deferred to Jasper.  And once Jasper had made his choice, none of the others contradicted or challenged him.

I slipped into a pair of jeans and an athletic shirt, then carried my hiking boots out of the tent and sat on the log beside Jasper.  He didn't glance at me as I put on my scuffed up old boots.  His focus was on the lion's face he was carving into the wood.  With rapid, angular movements of his knife he chipped away and fleshed out an elaborate mane, enhancing the cat's leonine majesty, then snapped his knife closed.  He flashed me a quick smile as he put his knife back in his pant pocket and I was struck by the sophistication in his hazel eyes, which were framed under dense eyebrows.

Done, Jasper said, turning his carved piece around to inspect it from all sides.

You made that entirely this morning? I asked.

Jasper handed me the lion and took a deep breath.  I'm disappointed about last night.

I froze.  He must've been the tall man I'd seen in the woods with his partner the night before and I'd been busted spying on them.  I tried to conjure up an explanation to have ready in case he demanded one from me.

Why didn't you join us? Jasper asked.

It was your private moment.  I almost coughed my answer out.  His directness was intimidating.

Nah, you were welcome to be with us.  We would've liked the chance to get to know you better, Lennox.

Jasper had remembered my name and I liked the way it rolled off his tongue.  But I needed to assure him that my spying was unintentional.  If he ended up complaining to the company about my behavior, I'd probably be canned in a heartbeat.

I'm very sorry if I disturbed the two of you, I said.

The two of us?  Jasper's head slightly tilted and he gazed at me with amusement.  All seven of us stayed up late telling stories around the campfire.

Oh, the campfire . . .

Your presence was missed.

I don't interfere with groups, especially when everyone's friends, as with your group, I said.  Our company policy is for the tour guides to withdraw and be alone after dinner and let customers socialize as they wish, with privacy.

Jasper further relaxed his posture, clasped his hands together, and rested his elbows down on his knees.  Have any of my friends made you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome?

No, everyone's been kind.

Good.  This is a great bunch of guys.  Down-to-earth fellas.  That's why I like to hang around them when I've got time for camping.

I wanted Jasper's reassurance that he was pleased with me, too.  I still wasn't sure of why he'd been outside my tent carving driftwood at the crack of dawn.  I asked him, Are you satisfied with my services on this trip so far?

Yes, certainly.  Jasper smiled, and added, Except for you skipping out on us after dinner, that is.  We missed an opportunity to include you in the group.

I couldn't withhold a self-deprecating laugh.  Jasper and his friends were established and professional.  They had their shit together.  I was younger and in great shape, and considered attractive by some, sure, but I would've stuck out like a sore thumb if I'd hung around the campfire into