“It’s really okay if you want to sleep in the bed. I don’t mind.”
The bed. Darby’s bed. That fluffy slab of heaven, where I’d spend all night accidentally brushing against her in my sleep. I want it way too much, so I turn it into a joke, something to take my mind off the feel of her lips on mine. To turn the attraction I feel for her into another game.
“Oh, you think you could resist me if I got into that bed with you?” I gesture down my body. “You think you could resistall this?”
“Yes,” she says dryly, although her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip before she bends to paw through her suitcase. She finds a bottle of lotion and takes it to the bed with her, pouring some into her palm and rubbing it onto those legs I can’t stop thinking about.
Her phone’s been shuffling through a Spotify playlist while we’ve been getting ready for bed, and my ears perk up at the song that’s just come on.
“Turn it up, woman.”
She complies, and I start swaying to Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up.”
“This. You think you can resistthis.” I prowl forward, pursing my lips and swiveling my hips like a runway model, and she watches in open-mouthed delight as I do what I hope to God is a passable body roll.
Her soft gasp tells me it’s more than passable, so I do it again, this time whipping my shirt over my head. Her gaze flies to my chest, the lotion bottled clutched in one motionless hand. I dance closer to her and lean over to pluck it from her limp fingers. She doesn’t object, so I squeeze a line of the lotion diagonally across my chest, continuing to undulate to the music. Then I climb onto the bed and crawl toward her in nothing but my flannel pants. When I’m close enough, I sit up on my knees to do another body roll.
“Help me rub this in?” I slide a finger through the streak of cherry blossom-scented moisturizer and swirl it in a circle around my nipple. Her eyes track my motion, and when she kneels to face me, I realize how badly I’ve miscalculated things. I took my shirt off earlier to make things super fucking weird with her parents, but now that it’s just the two of us, it’s not weird at all. Nothing about the tension crackling in the air feels like a joke anymore.
She reaches for me, and when her fingers brush my skin, I inhale hard. Her sly little smile tells me she noticed my reaction, and she only hesitates for a beat before she presses her palm hard against the line of moisturizer, rubbing it into my chest in one firm downward motion. The movement brings her so close that our chests are practically touching, the thin fabric of her T-shirt the only thing separating us when she draws a deep breath.
“You smell like me now,” she murmurs.
“Mmm.” I press my nose to her neck, inhaling. She smells like cherries, the same as I do, and I dig my fingers into her hips. For the second time tonight, I’m hard as iron and aching for her, but this time I want her to know it. Even though we’re not going to do anything about it, even though everything that happens outside of this room is an act, I suddenly want her to know that what’s happening right now is real.
The song winds to a close, and a Taylor Swift ballad pours from her phone speaker, breaking the spell.
“That’s probably enough heart attacks to give my parents for one night,” she says with a shaky laugh, pulling away to turn the music down.
Shit. She thought this was another game. I practically vault off the bed now that she’s made it clear that playtime’s over, and once I’ve got two feet on the ground again, it takes a few seconds to resume normal brain functions.
“It was close, but you passed the test,” I say as lightly as I can. “I guess youcanresist me.”
Barely. Her nipples are stiff points against her shirt, so if I had to guess, shebarelyresisted me. There’s another good argument for me to avoid her bed. Any more encounters like that will make it hard to remember what I’m really doing here.
“I’m going to turn in,” I say abruptly. It’s going to be a long time before I calm down enough to go to sleep. Rubbing one out would probably help, but I’m six feet away from the object of my desire, so that’s a no-go.
As I settle into my makeshift sleeping pallet, I hear shifting on the bed and wonder if Darby’s feeling the same level of frustration. She turns out the bedside light, plunging us into darkness, and Taylor warbles in the background until Darby silences her phone.
“So I was thinking.”
Her voice is a little hoarse, and my body jumps to attention. “Yeah?”
“Maybe tomorrow we could watch that movie. The one that’s better thanDie Hard.”
It takes a few seconds for me to remember what movies are, and then a few more to connect it to the conversation during our drive. “The Long Kiss Goodnight?”
“Yeah.” She yawns. “Maybe it’ll keep my dad awake.”
“Maybe so,” I say, needing the reminder about who this weekend’s for. It’s for Darby and her parents, her brother and sister. Not me. “Night, Darby.”
“Night, Gabe.”
CHAPTERTEN
Darby
Gabe’s not in my room when I wake up.
