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The fire burned down to embers and I stayed there until my back hurt from leaning on a hope chest. Then I picked her up and carried her to bed. And while she was cradled in my arms, she muttered something about teleporting.

Chapter 33

Briana

The door was open.

I woke up sprawled half on top of Jacob with a headache, the driest mouth I’d ever had, and a rock-hard boner under my thigh.

Oh my God. I bolted up and scrambled out of the bed.

Jacob sat up, only half awake. “What happened?”

“Nothing. The door’s open. Plan worked,” I said, grabbing my clothes without looking at him. Then I realized that every time I bent down, my ass peeked out from the shirt he’d loaned me. I tugged the back down with one hand and fled the room clutching my clothes and what was left of my dignity with the other.

I couldn’t remember half of last night. My memory got foggy somewhere after shot number three. I think I told him about the glitter. Ugh.

I took the longest shower of my life, chugged some water and Motrin, and came down to face the firing squad. Alexis immediately cornered me in the kitchen, but I had no gossip for her other than I got blackout drunk and woke up with a hard-on under my leg.

Jacob kept looking at me over the table at breakfast.

I’d glance up and he’d be sort of silently gazing at me. I usually knew what he was thinking when he was quiet, but I couldn’t read him this time, which made me certain I told him about the glitter and now he was probably wrestling with the fact that his fake girlfriend was also likely a serial killer.

He must have carried me to bed. No way I’d gotten myself there. I’d been passed out and flat on the floor and he’d probably had to dead-lift me.

Jacob was so soft and gentle I never really gave him credit for how physically strong he was. He reminded me of those sweet, docile draft horses they use for riding lessons for children. You forget that they weigh a couple thousand pounds and could pull a loaded wagon.

I wished I’d been coherent enough to remember him carrying me. The whole thing was probably very sexy.

After breakfast, Jacob and I drove home in our separate cars.

On the way home I thought about the penis. I thought about the penis a lot.

I knew there was going to be a peen encounter. I just knew it.

I knew clinically that his erection didn’t mean anything. He’d been sleeping. It was just a sign of a properly functioning blood and nervous system, nothing to get excited about. Only I also knew that the next time I picked up my vibrator, that was one hundred percent what I’d be thinking about. Jacob, warm and sleepy in the bed with me. Me, waking up to him hard. Only in my fantasy scenario I didn’t run from the room. I slipped a hand under the waistband of his underwear to wake him up instead…

What if we just did it?

Hooked up for the duration of this arrangement. Two grown adults with needs and an understanding, that’s it. Friends with benefits.

As if that’s all he’d be…

And that was the biggest reason of all why I couldn’t cross this line. Because I didn’t think I could separate the sex from the feelings I was having.

No. I knew I couldn’t.

And I couldn’t let myself fall more in love with a man who was in love with someone else. I couldn’t be his second choice. I couldn’t be his fall-back plan.

But God, I wished I could.

I’d let this man turn me inside out. Grind me into dust. Flip me like a pancake. I wanted him to do things to me that I hadn’t done with anyone. He had me worked up in a way that was making me creative. I’d eat a Pop-Tart naked off his bare chest.

I didn’t know how it was possible to love someone this much and be just as attracted to them at the same time. How you could absolutely adore someone and want to take care of them and put Band-Aids on their boo-boos and simultaneously want them to pile-drive you into a headboard. I wanted him to whisper sweet things to me after bending me like a pretzel in every sexual way possible, and then I wanted to watch him sleep and stare at his face with heart-eye emojis.

These two things had never existed for me side by side before. Not like this.

I’d been attracted to my husband. I’d been in love with my husband. But not the way it was with Jacob. Not even close. And I had to wonder if this is how Nick had felt about Kelly.