“Not even a little bit.”
“Liar.” She chuckled.
“It’s only a modicum of freaking out. Not a full-fledged meltdown.”
“Is it okay if I have a full-fledged meltdown?” she asked and I looked over to see tears peeking from beneath her lashes.
“Lior?”
“Did we ruin our friendship?” she asked, her voice small, her eyes still closed.
I sighed, relief and something else filling my body. I was glad she was worried about the bond we seemed to be forming too. But was that also disappointment I felt? Was I upset that she hadn’t said she wished we could be more? Surely we’d crossed a friendship boundary somewhere in between her taking me in her mouth and me burying myself between her legs.
“Actually,” I said. “This is how the ancients, way back in olden times, sealed their friendships. I’ve seen videos of the drawings they did on walls of caves.”
She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh. But it didn’t hold.
“You’re dumb,” she said, hauling herself up so that she was sitting and taking the sheet with her.
I sat beside her and took her hand.
“I think our new friendship is still intact,” I said, unable to meet her eyes. “We just went a little off-track. We veered off-course.”
“Just a little bit.”
“Minor veer. More of a smidge.” She laid her head on my shoulder, her dark hair trailing down my arm, and I tried to stay focused. “I think as long as we’re both okay with it?—”
“We can veer off course again?” she asked and I laughed. But just the thought of being inside her again made me hard and she noticed before I was able to sufficiently cover it up.
But this was not to be. While Lior was definitely not a Nadia, she had her own brand of drama swirling around her. And I just couldn’t put myself through that. Not for anyone. It was too hard. Too invasive. Too much.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said, my dick swearing silently at me. “As badly as I want to... As good as it was?— ”
“It was really good,” she said and I smiled.
“You lead a kind of lifestyle too much like one I was part of not that long ago. A lifestyle that brought me a lot of pain and trust issues and anger.”
“And I,” she said. “I can’t see red flags when they’re being waved inches from my face. You seem lovely. Witty and sexy and—” She lifted her head and rested it on the headboard. “But I don’t trust myself to make good decisions. And so here we are.”
“Here we are.”
We were quiet as we sat staring at the rumpled bedding, the depressing thought that not being together was actually the healthy decision hanging between us. Despite all the signs that we could be really good together. But if there were ever two people who should not read into signs – it was the two naked people sitting on Lior’s bed.
“So, what now?” she asked.
“I suppose I should put my pants back on and get back home to Brontë,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Do you still want to meet us for a walk tomorrow?”
“Yes, please.”
I slid from the bed and started to walk to the bathroom where I’d left my clothes nearly two hours ago. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, I turned to look back at Lior who was watching me with something so intense in her eyes I immediately got hard again.
“Graham,” she said, her a whisper.
My name in her mouth was all it took. She let the sheet drop from her breasts and I reached down and yanked it away from her entirely, exposing the length of her body. A guttural sound I’d never heard before rumbled in my throat as she bent her legs, pulling them up, and then spread them for me. Friendship could wait another few minutes.
“So,” I said, when we were once again finished and a tangled mess of sweaty limbs. I kissed her bare shoulder and gave her a grin. “Tomorrow morning then? Same corner?”
“You got it, pal.”
