AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And suddenly, I feel like I’ve overstepped. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”
He straightens, still not looking at me. “You asking because you want to bring someone back here yourself?”
What? “Me?”
“Yeah,” he laughs. Sort of.
Turning, he matches my posture from the other side of the dishwasher. “I know you said no relationships. But if you’re talking about something… else. Um, of course you can have anyone over you want to.”
I force my mouth to close. But then, “Okay. Well, thanks. It’s not why I was asking though. I really just didn’t want to be the reason you weren’t living your life the way you like to.”
His mouth pulls into a wide grin. “Promise. You’re not.”
7
Ben
Fine.
Physically, I respond to Lara Elliot. I’m resigned to that hot fist of attraction tightening every time I see her. Think about her. Yeah.
It’s not going away. I thought maybe the closer we got as friends, the less I’d notice the stuff friends aren’t supposed to notice. Like how good she smells when she walks by. How her shirt rides up when she gathers her hair into a bun. And how her laugh does something to me I can’t explain but know I like too much.
Turns out, the opposite is true.
The closer we get as friends, the harder it gets not to think about certain things. Especially since game night and those awful three seconds when I thought she was asking about bringing a guy home… and this really fucking unpleasant thing happened in my chest.
Like some long-dormant caveman busted free… and decided to liberate his equally thick-skulled buddy downstairs. Because now? Hell.
Every time she tips her head back and laughs, Big Ben takes notice, wanting a better look for himself. A longer look. Closer.
Told myself it doesn’t mean anything. It’s muscle memory, period.
And talking Big Ben down hasn’t been a problem, until now.
I peer at the tent in my shorts. The one that’s been on the rise since the damn dream I just woke up from. We were back at Belfast Bar. Talking. Laughing. And then it was just the two of us, the place emptying out in a blink. And instead of leaving like normal people, dream me pulled Lara onto my lap. Her breath caught and her eyes startled just a little before going soft, and I could practically feel the air change between us. See echoes of her want from another time and place.
Christ.
And then I blinked again, and my alarm was going off and I was lying in bed thinking about that first night. When we swore it was just going to be the one time and that we’d never, ever cross out of the friend zone again.
Such cute kids. So dumb.
Prom— and I’m talking our private after-party, not that boring-AF dance and dinner —had been a fucking revelation. One night with Lara, hell, one kiss, and it was like my world went from black and white to color.
Kissing my ex— fooling around with her —had felt good, sure. But after having a taste of what it was like to kiss Lara, to touch her… It explained a lot about why waiting had been so easy.
The chemistry between me and my ex had been meh, not strong enough for either of us to get carried away.
But with Lara? Damn, I knew it was different the second my mouth met the soft press of hers. I’d swear she did too, with that startled little gasp and deep searching eyes. The way she drifted back within the span of a single breath, lips parting as she pushed to her toes for more, deeper, longer.
As I cupped her face with one hand and slid the other around the small of her back to hold her closer because holy hell, I couldn’t get close enough.
As our mouths crashed together like we’d been waiting for this forever… without even knowing it.
Shit, shit, shit.
I glare down at my dick— the fucker’s standing tall, shoulders back, all, There’s plenty more where that came from, buddy.
