“This changes things,” Mandy said, tapping her wineglass thoughtfully.
“How so?” Emma asked.
“Because now this is much more than a casual hookup between two people who happen to be friends,” Mandy said.
“She’s right,” Carly said. “You’ve been fantasizing about him since high school? That’s a long time. You’re probably already halfway in love with him, aren’t you?”
“What? No!” Somehow she managed to dump her glass of wine in her lap. “Crap.”
They were all staring at her.
“Seriously, I am not in love with Ryan. Not even close.” She stood to go change out of her wine-stained skirt just as the doorbell rang. “That’s the pizza.”
“I’ve got it,” Mandy said, waving her off.
Emma hurried into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Smokey lay curled in the middle of her bed, eyeing her cautiously, as if she feared Emma might invite these intruders into her inner sanctum. Emma walked to the closet and pulled out a jersey dress, tossing her wine-stained clothes into the laundry basket.
She wasn’t in love with Ryan. She’d always been pretty honest with herself about her emotions. So she could admit—to herself at least—that she had real feelings for him, feelings that went far beyond a casual hookup, but it wasn’t love. Not yet. It definitely could be, if she stayed with him for too long. So she’d have to be careful not to let that happen because she was pretty sure the whole point of “friends with benefits” was to keep messy feelings out of the equation. And if she got into the program at the University of Georgia, she’d be leaving Haven in a few months anyway.
She walked back out to find the girls gathered in the kitchen, filling plates with pizza.
“So you were telling us about how you’re not in love with Ryan?” Mandy said with a grin.
“I’m really not. This is just a fling, an adventure before I leave town.”
“Mm-hmm,” Mandy said. “I have a feeling in a few months, we’ll be saying, ‘We told you so.’”
* * *
Ryan paced the aisles of the grocery store after work on Monday. This afternoon he’d remembered something Emma had said to him a few weeks ago at Off-the-Grid, about how she wanted to have the kind of sex she’d only read about in romance novels. He had no friggin’ clue what kind of sex people had in those books, and he sure as hell couldn’t ask anyone about it so he was just going to have to wing it. Because he wanted to be the man who gave Emma the kind of mind-blowing sex she’d only read about.
Yeah, he’d lost his mind.
And that was why he found himself at the grocery store after he’d left Off-the-Grid, shopping for “accessories” for his evening with Emma. If Ethan or Mark saw him now, he’d never hear the end of it. He paid for his purchases and left quickly, tucking the bag into one of the saddlebags on his bike before heading toward Emma’s apartment.
He was feeling all sorts of things as he rode toward her building. Desire. Excitement. And a small amount of trepidation that things wouldn’t be the same here on their own home turf. That he’d violated some kind of bro code by sleeping with his best friend’s little sister, the same sister Derek had warned him to keep his hands off of.
All of that faded away when he pulled into her driveway and saw her standing there in the doorway, wearing a white tank top and a striped skirt that sat low enough on her hips to show off her new tattoo.
His.She was his, and she was perfect.
He walked to her and pulled her into his arms. “Hey.”
“Hi.” She twined her hands around his neck, smiling up at him. “What’s in the bag?”
“A few, uh, things.”
“I’m intrigued,” she said, peeking down at the plastic grocery bag in his right hand.
He stepped her backward through her front door and closed it behind them. “That’s better.”
Then he set the bag down and flattened her against him as he lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips parted, inviting him inside, and damn, he was lost. He kissed her until all the chaos in his brain had stilled, replaced by the fire Emma had ignited inside him.This woman.Would he ever get enough?
“Okay, I’m curious,” Emma said when they’d come up for air. She bent down to pick up the bag, poking through it with a big smile on her face. “Whipped cream. Chocolate syrup. And champagne. Well, well, what did you have in mind tonight, Hot Stuff?”
What he might have gained in intent, he definitely lost in presentation. Dropping a plastic shopping bag of sex foods in her foyer wasdefinitelynot how the guys in her romance novels did it. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Um—”
“For the record,” she said as she walked toward the kitchen with the bottle of champagne in her hands, “whatever it is, I am definitely interested.”
