He couldn’t resist.
“Who’s pretending nothing happened now?”
She smiled slightly and sipped her coffee. “Mad I’m stealing your move?”
Actually, he kind of was.
“So. Last night.”
“Last night,” she repeated.
He expected her to go silent again, try to bait him into showing his hand first, but instead she heaved a world-weary sigh and said, matter-of-factly, “I think we just need to fuck and get it over with.”
He couldn’t help it. He started laughing.
“Glad you think it’s so funny,” she muttered, but she smiled, too.
“What do you mean, ‘get it over with’? Should I be offended?”
“I mean…” She idly trailed her fingers over the table, tracingthe intricate pattern of the mosaic tiles. “That’s the only way to defuse the tension. We both want to, but we think we can’t, or we shouldn’t, so weextrawant to. You know?”
“Makes sense.”
Maybe it was true. Maybe his preoccupation with her could simply be chalked up to wanting what he couldn’t have. It was condescending of him to think he needed to stay away from her in order to protect her; infantilizing, even. She was a grown woman, she could make her own decisions. If she wanted to sleep with him, who was he to say no? He’d had plenty of casual sex before. She was right. He was overthinking it. It didn’t have to be a big deal.
She got more animated as she continued, growing more confident in her proposition.
“It’ll eliminate the mystery. The taboo. It might even be terrible. That would be great, actually.”
“Do you think it’ll be terrible?”
The corner of her mouth curled up wickedly. “No. I don’t. If you think about it, you’ve already made me come twice this weekend.”
“If we’re going by that metric, I think I might have you beat.”
She bit her lip and dipped her head a little. “Ethan Atkins, you’re going to make me blush.”
“So when should we do it?” He kept his voice casual, as if they were discussing the weather, instead of planning out the consummation of the fantasy that he’d been obsessing over for the last two months.
She shrugged. “Whenever. The sooner the better, honestly. Right now?”
He scoffed. “You don’t want to do it rightnow.”
“Try me. Whip it out and let’s see.”
He knew she was joking, but that didn’t mean he didn’tconsider it for a split second—and that the thought didn’t make him harder.
“I don’t have any condoms.”
“Well, I guess you just figured out your plans for today.” She glanced at him over the top of her glasses. “How long…I mean…has it been since your divorce, or…?”
He shook his head. “No. And yes. After Nora and I separated, I went a little…I had my fun. Or it was supposed to be fun. But it turns out getting divorced takes fucking forever. By the time it was all official, I was over that phase. I stopped going out, stopped seeing anyone. So…it’s been awhile.”
“Me, too.”
He turned to her, a little surprised. “Since your…the guy from your show?”
She nodded. “Sort of. I had one rebound attempt, but nothing happened…successfully. We were both pretty drunk. So, yeah, I guess it’s been…almost two years? That can’t be right.”
