“Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles,” she repeats, slaughtering most of the words, but giving it her best effort. “I like it. Say something else.”
I should probably confess that I know only a few French phrases, and that most of what I know I learned from a colleague with a fondness for foul language.
But the way her fingertips graze my thigh sends me thumbing through my mental rolodex again. “Péter plus haut que son cul.”
The words roll off my tongue, sounding a lot sexier than they ought to, and Sarah licks her lips. “What’s that?”
“Uh, literally—someone is trying to fart higher than his own ass.”
She snort-laughs so hard she falls into me, and I can’t believe how good she feels up against my chest. I’m half tempted to pull up a French website on my phone and just start rattling off random phrases. Anything to keep her touching me like this.
“It’s like saying someone thinks he’s too good for something,” I explain. “That he has a high opinion of himself. Too big for his britches, I guess might be the English equivalent?”
“It sounds way cooler in French,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. “Now I’m regretting that I learned Spanish instead of French.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask what else she regrets. If there’s anything else that happened or didn’t happen over the last ten years that she wishes had gone differently.
But I stop myself and stick to the present topic of conversation instead of seizing my urge to steal another glimpse down the front of that tank top. “Let’s see…did you ever see Death Cab for Cutie in concert?”
“Three times. How about you?”
“Nope. But that was your goal, not mine.”
“Hmmm.” She scoots her bare toes under my thigh, something she did in college. A friendly gesture, one between two best buddies, but the touch leaves me reeling now just like it did back then. I curl my fingers into the arch of her foot and give a squeeze.
“Oh, that feels good.”
My breath hitches as I order myself not to get turned on. It’s a foot rub, for crying out loud, not foreplay.
I stroke my thumb over her arch again, pretending it’s a casual gesture and that her soft moans aren’t getting to me.
“Let’s see,” she says, shifting so I’ve got better access to the ball of her foot. “Okay, I’ve got one.”
That’s right, we’re still playing catch-up. “Did you sleep with that girl—the one from art history class?”
“Annabelle?” I trace a finger in a slow circle around the happy face on her knee. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
She quirks an eyebrow at me. “You used to. We used to tell each other everything.”
Not everything. Jesus, definitely not everything.
“How about you?” I say. “Remember that threesome fantasy you told me about?”
“God.” Sarah covers her face with her hands and laughs. “I can’t believe I told you that. I was drunk on fuzzy navels that night, for the record.”
“And yet, not an answer to my question.”
She pulls her hands off her face and looks me in the eye. “Would you respect me less if I said yes?”
My dick lunges at my fly, and it’s all I can do to keep from pouncing on her. “I’d respect you either way,” I say. “For going after what you want, or for deciding that wasn’t what you wanted after all.”
“Good.” Sarah licks her lips. “Because there’s something I want right now.”
“Oh?” My heart revs like a jump-started engine, and I can’t quite read the heat in her eyes. “What’s that?”
I hold my breath, listening to the thud of my pulse hammering in my eardrums.
“This,” Sarah says and leans up to kiss me.
