He’s already unbuttoning his plaid shirt, revealing a white T-shirt beneath, a smattering of dark chest hair visible at the neck, and it occurs to me that I’m about to see him naked and that’s way, way more than I’d bargained for when I agreed to this.
“You, um, you shouldn’t,” I tell him, indicating the shirt.
He looks down, then back up, those eyes burning dark. “You want me to just unzip and pull out my dick like the other times? Glory hole style?” He casts a glance around my room. “You want thathere?” And then. “After what just happened out there?”
“I…” I blink, stunned by his crass honesty and a little lost at the sight of his arms, the skin covered in layers and layers of ink. “It’s against the rules.”
He snorts, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You actually want…” He lets out a frustrated grunt.
“Want what?”
“Shittysex?”
It’s all I can do to keep my jaw from dropping.Shitty?There was nothing shitty about what we did in that hotel, no matter how hard I tried. I’ve thought about him—this—every minute of every day since the first time we did it. Actually, since he first mentioned the prospect. Since then, it’s only gotten worse.
“Was it…was itbadfor you?” I whisper, against every ounce of good judgment I have. My mouth is dry suddenly and my head’s sort of light and weird like the one time I passed out in my twenties. Shaken, I take two stumbling steps over to my bed and sit, let my head fall into my hands. “I…I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention.”
I should have known, though. Clark was obviously so unsatisfied with me that he had to go and get a younger model.
“Hey.” His weight sinks onto the bed beside me, forcing me to lean into him. When he pulls me in against his side, I can’t help the way my entire body loosens at the contact. The smell. The warmth and physical closeness. “Come here.”
His other arm wraps around me and he drags me up onto his lap sideways. After a second’s resistance, my head drops to his chest, and he tightens his hold and it feels amazing.
More than amazing. This closeness feels somehow necessary, like air or water.
Oh, god, I’ve missed it so much.
Hugging. That’s all we’re doing. I think I might cry.
Oh, dammit, here it comes. My eyes are leaking and this isn’t what this is supposed to be about. None of it. Not the closeness, not the sexiness, the attraction.
Thehumanity.
I want a turkey baster, dammit. A Petri dish. I want black and white images on a screen and lab coats, not this warm, close feeling of being with a person. Of needing.Belonging.
The fact that it’s a farce—him and me and any semblance of belonging, just makes the tears prickle more painfully in my sinuses, press harder to the backs of my eyes.
“Hey. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.” He tightens his hold and I burrow deeper and it’s so freaking wonderful to feel this way, if only for a few moments, that I give in and let it wash over me. “It was so fucking good, Kit.” The words may be whispered, but that doesn’t lessen their effect. You can cover your ears against a shout, but a whisper? It slides in, sinuous and silent, through pores, up spines, along nerves. It’s a million times more undeniable than screaming.
I’m compelled to hear his words, the way I had to accept his quiet destruction of me in my hallway.
He’s a master of whispered words and small movements. His Trojan horse ways get him inside my shellshocked walls before he obliterates everything with the battering ram trifecta of dirty talk and orgasms and telling me what a good girl I am.
His head drops to the top of mine. He hums against me and that’s more comforting than any sound I’ve heard in ages. We sit here and breathe. I pull back a little and feel the heat of his exhalations against my cheek, my ear. I really, really want him to kiss me.
But I can’t go back on that. Kissing is the one thing that would break me open right now. Turn me inside out. And, honestly, my insides aren’t something I need to give anyone a close look at.
Then again, look at me. Already broken. Already wishing I’d said no and wishing I weren’t doing this at all and also, if I’m being fully honest, a tiny itty bitty bit of me wishes that this were something else. Something it’s absolutely not and truly shouldn’t be. Not with who he is and who I am and—hell, he’s not just my brother’s long-time friend, he’s my employee, for goodness’ sake.
For now, but still.
I draw in a last, shaky breath and force myself to look up at him. What I see makes me want to hide my face again. Instead, I make myself absorb it.
His expression is worried, possibly, but that’s not the thing that bowls me over. It’s the intensity of it. The…the…thecravingI see there.
Unless I’m misinterpreting.
I probably am.
