Her lips part, and, as if determined to prove my words, I kiss her. I kiss her hard. I kiss her to shock her. I kiss her to show her how much I fucking want her.
Beth moans, and it vibrates down my throat and lower. Fuck, I need to be inside her.
I pull back again and stare down at her. “What the fuck are we doing, Bea?” I ask desperately.
She blinks up at me, and for the first time I see how completely helpless she is. That she is just as much a slave to whatever the fuck this attraction is between us as I am.
“If you tell me to stop, I will,” I promise her.
But she doesn’t. She was the one who suggested friends with benefits, after all, and she doesn’t say a damned thing. But her eyes—they’re practically fucking screaming for me to do the exact opposite of stop.
“Please tell me to stop.” It’s a plea. Because I already know if someone is going to end this insanity, it isn’t going to be me. My palm slides up her rib cage, edging along the underside of her breast, fingers shaking like a fucking junkie with the need to touch her everywhere. “Tell me to stop, Bea.”
Her pulse races under my touch, her chest rising and falling faster and faster as her lips part either to give me what I’m asking for, or to give me what I want. “I…I can’t.”
Fuck. My mouth consumes hers, wishing more than anything I could truly show her just how much I want her. But Beth and me—even if we could have the friends with benefits arrangement she hinted at—we’d never be just the two of us. Cap will always be there, between us. And I wouldn’t want to come between them anymore than I could bear to lose either of them.
What the hell am I doing?
I pull back again, and take a deep breath. Because our reality hasn’t changed, and neither has mine. I don’t want a girlfriend. I’m not looking for a relationship. And I don’t know how to do casual with a girl who’s as close as family, even if she happens to be the sexiest, most beautiful creature I’ve ever come across.
“Bea…” I wait for her to blink herself out of her daze. God I wish her lips weren’t so red and swollen right now. I wish I didn’t know I made them that way. I wish it didn’t feel so fucking satisfying to leave my mark on her.
I blow out a shaky exhale. “We can’t do this. You know that, right?”
Beth frowns, and it scrapes at something inside my chest.
I shake my head. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t want to—obviously that ship has sailed. But you’ve been through enough with guys, Bea, and that whole friends-with-benefits thing always ends up being more complicated—”
“You think I couldn’t handle it?”
I shove my hand through my hair in exasperation. The last thing I need is for her to see this as a challenge. Because I’ll cave. I’m already close to caving.
“Because I’m not the one who left a note on the kitchen counter and then went into fucking hiding.”
Touché.
Beth glowers at me. “And you really presume a lot, David, you know that? You think because I fucked you, that suddenly I want to get married or something?” She lets out a soft, humorless laugh. “The last thing I need is a damned boyfriend.” She says the last word with such distaste. “I’ve been there and done that, and I have no intention of putting anyone’s needs above my own right now. In fact, aren’t you the one who’s been telling me my whole life to do what I want to do?”
That does sound like me. But she’s forgetting one major factor. “It’s more complicated than that, Bea. You know it is. Cap—”
“Is my brother.” She cuts me right off. “And he has nothing whatsoever to do with my sex life. It’s none of his fucking business, David. And frankly, it isn’t yours, either.”
The fuck it isn’t! My jaw clenches tight to keep the words locked in. Because rationally I know I have no right to them. I glare at her—at her heated stare, her harsh breaths, her full, parted lips. I picture the way she looked beneath me, moaning and writhing against me, her perfectly tight pussy squeezing my dick like it was created for me and me alone. I want her so much that even as I articulate the reasons I can’t have her, it’s hard to remember why they take priority over the chance at experiencing that all over again.
“But despite how you see me, I’m not a little girl, and I have my own needs. And if you want to let my brother dictate your sex life, that’s your problem. But then you need to stay out of my way, David. Stop freaking out every time I talk to my ex, or dance with a guy at a club, and stop fucking kissing me!”
I lean in even closer, my hand cupping her jaw. “I think I’ve more than proven I don’t see you as a little girl,” I say meaningfully. Her stern glare falters, but only for a moment. “You want Falco?” I ask with exponentially less confidence. Déjà vu unsettles my stomach, and vaguely I can’t believe I’m back in this same fucking situation all these years later. Or maybe I’ve just been here all along, and how fucking depressing is that?
Beth swallows anxiously, clearly still affected by me. “No, David,” she breathes. “I told you. I don’t want a relationship at all. I just want to enjoy college and have a good time. And like I said, what happened the other night…I liked it. But if you can’t handle it with—”
“Liked it, huh?” I cut her off. Because she can downplay it all she wants, but I was there, and I have more than enough experience to know that that was not adequate sex. That was fucking mind-blowing.
Beth’s blush deepens and my jeans feel so tight it’s painful.
“Is that why you screamed my name so loud you probably woke the neighbors? Huh, Bea? Or why I still have marks on my back shaped suspiciously like your nails?”
Beth pouts, but her eyes are smiling. “You do not,” she mutters—too goddamned adorable.
