“Me neither,” she responded, arching her back into him. She was surprised she had the wherewithal to answer. It was hard to think when she was hoisted up against a wall with Elliot between her thighs.
“I had a dream like this once,” he breathed. “Well, dreams.” The word, rough and needy, somersaulted through her body.
“Of this?” she asked. Her fingers leisurely mapped the lines of his chest as his mouth meandered down her neck. “Against the raccoon piss cabin?”
“No.” His laugh vibrated against her throat. “Of this. On the kitchen counter. In my truck. In my bed…”
With each word, his hands traveled. Elliot was taking this heat between them as seriously as he took everything else. It made her want to take it seriously, too. She wanted to memorize the way he moaned into her skin. She wanted to make him do it over and over until she could recall it, years from now, withperfect clarity. She wanted to learn what made him come apart and the sounds he made as she watched it happen.
“Should we really be doing this?” he asked, but he hadn’t stopped kissing her. Thank god he hadn’t stopped kissing her. “This isn’t some kind of psychological warfare, is it?”
He smiled against her lips, but she couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t feel anything anymore.
She turned her head away, suddenly claustrophobic. “Put me down,” she demanded curtly.
He blinked. “Sure,” he said, guiding her to the ground. “Did I do something?”
She braved a look at him. His face was sweet and messy. She almost liked this version of him more than any of the others. And she quite liked the others.
But Elliot’s words still bit at Lainey’s insides. “ ‘Psychological warfare’? Was that supposed to be a joke?”
“Of course it was a joke. Mostly,” he explained, fixing his glasses on his face. “Since that night at my hotel, I’ve been operating under the assumption that we were never going to cross this line, so I’d be stupid not to wonder—”
“Oh my god.” Her cheeks burned. “Well, this is humiliating. I’m glad to know where we stand.”
“Lainey. Stop,” he said, clasping her hand before she could make a break for it. “I shouldn’t have said that. My second thoughts weren’t even about you; they were about me.” He straightened to his full height, creating even more distance between them. “If I’d known something happening between us was a possibility—”
“What? You wouldn’t have married me?” she asked, dropping his hand.
“No. I don’t know,” he said, his voice cracking. With the back of his neck cradled in his hands, Elliot worked to control his breath. She placed a palm on her chest, attempting to do the same. “I definitely would’ve approached this whole thing differently, if I knew you’d want something more serious.”
She gathered her arms over her chest. “I never said I wanted that.”
“We’re married, Lainey. I think the ship has sailed on ‘friends with benefits,’ and even if it hadn’t, it’s not worth risking everything over some casual—”
“It was just a kiss, okay?” Lainey cupped her hands to her cheeks, trying to bring her core body temperature down seven degrees by sheer force of will. She thought back to the way she’d so confidently teased and tormented Elliot the night he proposed. How sure she’d been that she’d never feel anything beyond an uncomplicated fleeting attraction for him. Now, she was straightening her shirt next to a raccoon den and attempting to recollect the basics of color theory to determine whether her green shirt was making her face appear more or less like a tomato. “It was an accident. Not, like, a play for something more or some kind of manipulative tactic.”
“I never should’ve said that. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” His brow furrowed, then smoothed again, as if rejecting one thought for another. “But it’s probably a good thing I did, because it wouldn’t be smart for us to take this beyond friendship anyway.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
He didn’t nod or shake his head. He simply grabbed his neck and stared down at their dusty boots in torment. It was confirmed. Whatever was happening between them simply wasn’t worth it.
“We should clean up these boxes,” he said, as though moments ago he hadn’t had her pinned up against a wall with her bottom lip between his teeth.
So she did what anyone else would do and cleaned up their project in sexually tense silence.
Chapter 13
Never Go to the Back Room with a Dog Adoption Coordinator
71 Days until the Longest Day of the Year
Elliot and Laineyshould not have kissed.
Technically it had been an accident—at least at first—but based on her inability to make eye contact with her “friend,” her libido was not concerned with technicalities.
She’d done her best to avoid him, and it helped that Elliot was exceedingly militant when it came to his morning running schedule. Each day at seven, without fail, he was out the door in his running shoes and tiny shorts for exactly forty-seven minutes. (She’d timed it.) As far as she was concerned, they’d tacitly agreed that these forty-seven minutes were her time to shower and laze about the house in privacy, the way she had before her days as a “married” woman.
