I type out a response.
@ropesandchainsexciteme:
Call me Chance. Maybe we’ll have a chance to meet.
I feel like an idiot as soon as I send it. I’ve never had to flirt to get a woman. Keely and I dated all through high school. I know a few girls named Kenzie from our school, and I know one of them became a hairstylist after graduation. She was a sweet person, and I think a cheerleader. But if it’s the Kenzie I’m thinking of, she’s also Keely’s second cousin.
Dating in a town this small and remote is a nightmare. There’s almost zero chance these matches aren’t women I already know.
Fuck. What if one of them is Keely?
The prospect of being alone in this house forever looms over me as I watch Dolly sleeping peacefully. Since she’s been staying here, I haven’t had to get shit-faced in order to get some sleep.
I stand and walk over to her, pocketing my phone before reaching underneath her tiny frame and lifting her up in my arms. Her sweet wildflower scent hits me, and I wonder if it’s her shampoo or if it oozes out of her pores.
Her body heat seeps into me as I carefully walk up the stairs with her, watching her head as I go through the door to herroom. She doesn’t stir when I lay her down and pull the covers up to her chin.
Her pink lips are full and inviting. I lean forward, brushing my thumb over the bottom one.
“Sweet dreams, Dollface.”
She moans, and it’s an addictive sound. My pulse sputters when her lips part, and she makes another sexual noise, like she’s having a very good dream.
“Sam,” she breathes.
Fuck.
13
DOLLY
Agentle rocking motion rouses me. I’m still half asleep, but I don’t want to leave the dream. Imaginary Sam is playing with his rope and tying knots over and over. It’s an odd setting because I’m somehow watching him from the claw-foot bathtub in my room. He doesn’t know I’m watching. My fingers slip underneath the water between my legs to touch myself while my eyes focus on the movement of his fingers.
It’s an unusual thing to find arousing, but a man with rough hands who can effortlessly tie knots makes my skin heat. I sigh, my nipples puckering as they lift above the water.
Suddenly, his T-shirt disappears, and sweat drips down the center of his bare, muscled chest. I’m on the verge of coming to a conjuring of my subconscious, which might be more embarrassing than coming on his lap on a rocking boat.
“Sam …” I groan, wishing he’d come toward me and use the ropes on me.
A noise startles me awake with a jolt. I blink in the darkness, gasping when I see a big shadow of a man looming in the doorway. Sam turns, and I sigh in relief.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” he says, his voice an octave lower than usual.
I nod, licking my suddenly dry lips. “I was … dreaming. Did you just … did you carry me to bed?”
He nods, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. The jolt into reality from a dirty dream is making my head swim.
His hand moves up to press against the doorjamb, highlighting his shoulder muscle in the light from the hallway. “You were talking in your sleep.”
My face drains of color. “Oh.”
I can still feel the damp spot of arousal between my legs. The painfully obvious reality that he knows how badly I want him makes me want to crawl under the covers and never come back out. He looks over my frame once more with a dark expression before turning to leave without another word.
As his footsteps retreat down the hall, a choked sob tears out of the back of my throat. I have to stop this. I can’t keep fantasizing about Sam, wishing he’d finally return my ridiculous crush and make a move on me.
We don’t get a happily ever after. He’s not the one for me. I have such raging trust issues with men after what happened with Cain that I’ve been terrified to really put myself out there to meet guys, but enough is enough. In a perfect world, my brother’s best friend would fall for me, and I’d know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was reliable and safe and good.
But maybe that’s not what I need. Maybe I need to push my own boundaries and start getting serious about dating. I can’t read romantasy werewolf novels and use my vibrator forever.
