“Do you want to talk about it?” She sits up, pushing her pillows against the wrought-iron headboard.
“Do you want to hear it?” I counter.
She doesn’t answer right away, and when I look at her I can see the hesitation on her sun-kissed features. “Yeah. Some sick part of me does want to know why your ex is spending her vacation hunting you down. So sit down and tell me.”
So I open my mouth and word-vomit everything. “Liz came all this way to try and win me back. She didn’t even try and hide it. Of course, she was drunk. She and her friend had been drinking Bloody Marys or something, trying to get up the liquid courage to come see me, and then she ran into me on the beach. She says that’s fate’s way of telling us we need to give it another try.”
“So you spent the afternoon with her?” she prompts, lifting her knees up under the blanket and wrapping her arms around them. “Giving it another try?”
“No. But I didn’t want her to join the barbeque and everyone, so I took her and her friend here. I was worried she’d make a scene at the beach.” Steph frowns. I know what she’s thinking, so I say it aloud. “I was worried about how it would look. How very Avery of me. Gotta protect the image. God, even I fucking hate me right now.”
I watch her expression soften and then she pats the space beside her on the bed. “Come here. Sit down and relax. I’m not judging you, Avery.”
I stare at her hand on the side of the bed. I’ve sat on her bed before. Tons of times. In fact, just last week, I stretched out on it and told her about our recent road trip while she put on makeup in the bathroom and got ready to go to the movies with me. But I can’t sit there now. Not with the way everything is currently raging inside my body.
“I can’t sit there. On that bed. With you,” I tell her in a low, warning rumble that makes her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Lizzie’s been hitting on me all night, even though I’ve made it clear we’re not getting back together. She tried to kiss me anyway. I didn’t let her, but it made me realize it’s been a long time since I kissed someone, Steph.”
I stop and take a breath, but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t do anything. She’s as still as a statue and so I panic and keep blabbering. “I have to go on long bouts of celibacy because I can’t just fuck around and have fun like the other guys. I don’t know who to trust, so I play it safe and trust hardly anyone. The guys think I have willpower or control or whatever, but the truth is I’m always so fucking horny I could explode. And my ex is in my place right now, drunk and offering me sex.”
“And you…want sex…”
Somewhere in the back of my drunken brain I realize that this is what verbal diarrhea is, yet I don’t stop talking. “Yes. I want sex. But not with Lizzie. I want sex with you and only you. So, no, I can’t go near that bed with you in it because I will crawl on top of you and tear Rue’s fucking sweatshirt and all your other clothes from your body and fuck you like you have never been fucked before in your life.”
“You wouldn’t.” She almost gasps it.
“Yeah, I would.” I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. “And I wouldn’t regret it for a second.”
We stare at each other. I try to take a deep breath, but it catches in my throat.
“Still want me on that bed?” I whisper. My whole body is wound so tight waiting for her response.
“Yes.”
Chapter 10
Stephanie
The doorbell rings.
I blink, breaking the eye contact with Avery, and glance at my closed bedroom door. He looks over his shoulder too. “Who the fuck?”
I hear footsteps on the creaky wood floorboards in the hall downstairs. Ty swears, and then I hear him stomping up the stairs. My bedroom door swings open, and he’s standing there in his underwear with his hand over his eyes. “Sorry if I’m interrupting. Liz is at the door!” he says in a loud whisper.
“Dude, uncover your eyes,” Avery says, and looks down. “And put on some pants.”
I follow Avery’s eyes to the half-hard bulge in the front of Ty’s boxer briefs, and then I cover my eyes and groan. Ty laughs sheepishly. “Well, thanks to all this late-night drama, I’m going to get blue balls. Fucking unbelievable.”
He storms out. I uncover my eyes and get out of bed. Avery and I stare at each other again but that intense, suffocating sexual tension is gone. “You should go down there and deal with her.”
“Fuck her.”
“Please don’t,” I whisper as I grab his hand and lead him into the hall. I stop near the top of the stairs and see her standing in our doorway. She’s short, busty, and on the verge of tears. Maddie glances up at me while she guides Liz toward the kitchen, and I hear Liz say, “He said he needed to talk to one of you and he would be right back. But that was half an hour ago.”
“Oh my God, why is my life a nightmare?” Avery whispers.
I tug him quietly down the stairs. We reach the front hall. I can hear Liz and Maddie talking in the kitchen. Liz apologizes for showing up so late. Maddie tells her it’s okay. I push him toward the kitchen. “Go.”
“Kiss me good-bye,” he demands, and as I stare up at his beautiful face and his sexy lips it takes everything in me not to do it. But I can’t. Not right now.
