Maybe she didn’t realize her pussy kept rubbing up against my thigh as she semi-dry-humped me, that I could feel her warm softness through the thin fabric of mypants.
Maybe she didn’t feel my raging hard-on when she pressed herself up against me during that last slowsong.
I had no fucking idea. For all I knew, maybe she was justdrunk.
Maybe she really was lonely and none of what happened tonight was even aboutme.
Maybe that was how she danced with every guy these days, and it meant nothing atall.
Worse… maybe she saw me like she’d always seen Dylan—as a platonic male friend, one she could trustnotto feel her up the first chance hegot.
Or maybe she was just trying really, really hard to make amends for the past and rebuild the friendship we’d once had. If that was the case, I was not gonna piss all over her efforts like a fucking idiot by making a move onher.
I’d be lucky to count Elle as afriend.
The last thing I needed was for her to decide she’d made a giant mistake bringing me here because I’d started thinking with my dick. Because there was no way that was what she wanted. I was pretty fucking sure aboutthat.
Though I really wasn’t sure about muchelse.
Sometimes when she looked at me… I couldn’t have guessed what she was thinking to save mylife.
I did not remember her like this. So… guarded. So measured in everything she did. Carefully choosing her words and her facial expressions. The way she held herself, like a woman who was far too accustomed to having the world watch—and judge—her everymove.
When she was younger, she was much more carefree. Like she wastonight.
But then again, maybe I just didn’t remember thingsright.
I could not remember ever being confused about Elle’s intentions back then—about what she thought of me or how she felt aboutme.
I could not remember ever thinking I might have any sort of chance withher.
From the beginning, it had been clear to me I had no chance whatsoever with Elle. Elle Delacroix was off-limits. Zane had told me as much the very day I met him, before he introduced me to the band. That was one of the groundrules.
Number one: Jesse is leadguitar.
Number two: You don’t disrespect Dolly. That was Zane’s grandma, who let the band practice in hergarage.
And number three: No one fucks around withElle.
I didn’t have any problem with those rules, even after I met Elle. It wasn’t as if I was the only one who noticed how pretty she was; everyone seemed to be crushing on her back then. Everyone, oddly, but Jesse. So it hardly seemed to matter. She had a boyfriend when I met her anyway. And she wasn’t interested in me; not that I ever knewof.
So she was off-limits for severalreasons.
Over the years, that list of reasons had only grownlonger.
But tonight… dancing with her at that bar… the limits had seemed toevaporate.
Why?
Because she wanted meseemed like far too much of a stretch of theimagination.
Wishful fuckingthinking.
And yet… I had been wishing it. Thinking aboutit…
Elle, slithering up against me, her hands roaming over my body as we danced… sliding downward… and the crowd dissolving around us, so we were alone. Alone and our bodies pressed together, for the first time,ever.
And my hands, moving over her body… drifting up her slender curves… her bare neck… over her face. Touching hermouth…
