“Goodnight, Billie,” I managed. My voice sounded disconnected from my body’s, like someone else’s.
She walked away, her steps slow and measured. When she reached the bottom of the steps, she stopped, backlit by the soft glow from the porch light. For a second I thought she’d keep going. But she turned around. She looked at me with those storm-green eyes, and I felt every regret I’d ever had gather in my throat.
“Are we ever going to talk about it?” she asked.
“Talk about what?” My voice was gravelly with arousal.
“The fact that we had sex,” she stated bluntly.
The words echoed, bouncing off the tiled entry and the empty rooms filled with the years of things we hadn’t said. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. I gripped the edge of the countertop, holding myself in place, because if I let go, I’d be across to her in a second.
I felt as if my heart was about to explode from my chest. Not because Billie had caught me off guard—though, fuck, the way she’d pivoted at the threshold and put me on trial nearly knocked my knees out—but because I’d wanted this conversation and dreaded it in equal measure. I wanted to grab her, to make her understand all the things I couldn’t say without screwing them up, and to do it in such an embarrassing, undignified way that I’d leave her no choice but to walk away from our friendship.
She stood there, her left hand curled around the banister, knuckles white, cheeks flushed. She was so damn beautiful that I had to bite the inside of my cheek just to remember howbreathing worked. I looked down at the ground and tried my best to compose myself.
“Do you really not have anything to say? Did it mean that little to you?” she asked, and there wasn’t any venom in her voice, just this raw, vulnerable curiosity that sounded like hope and terror all at once.
I made myself meet her gaze, and when I did, I could feel the tension in me coiling tighter, not releasing.
“Yeah, it means so little—” I pressed my palms to the counter, like if I didn’t anchor myself to the granite, I’d go floating right through the roof. “—that I haven’t stopped thinking about it, not for one second of the day. Having you here has driven me crazy. I’ve spent every day telling myself it didn’t matter, that I had to forget it happened so I didn’t say something or do something that would—” I stopped myself.
Her chest was rising and falling in short breaths. “That would what?”
The way she was looking at me told me that I wasn’t the only one feeling the things I was feeling, but I knew that in the morning she’d regret it, just like last time when we got back to the house and she regretted it. She didn’t speak to me for two weeks after we had sex. I didn’t want this to jeopardize our friendship, or become a habit she regretted. “It doesn’t matter. Just go to bed.”
“No. Tell me.”
My jaw ticked. “I’m not saying anything because I’m scared I’ll say the wrong thing.”
“The wrong thing?” she repeated.
“Yes, I’ll say the wrong thing and you’ll leave, or I’ll say the right thing and you’ll stay, and then ten years from now you’ll leave, and either way, the result is the same. I lose you.”
“Ten years…leave…what are you talking about?” She shook her head. “We slept together, I just want to know what you think about it. You’re not going to lose me.”
I stared at her, not sure why she was playing this game. She had to know, had to know how I felt.
“What?” she asked defensively.
“Youreallydon’t know?”
“Don’t knowwhat?”
“How bad I want you? How much I’ve wanted you since…forever. How you being here has driven me crazy. How it’s taken every ounce of self-control I have not to strip you out of your clothes and touch and kiss and lick every single inch of your body, to bury myself inside of you,especiallysince you became my wife. I know it’s not real. I know it’s just on paper, but fuck, itfeelsdifferent. You feel different to me.” I took a breath, my chest constricting. “So, did it mean that little to me? It meanteverythingto me. You mean everything to me.”
She stared at me, not speaking. My heart was pounding so hard I couldn’t hear anything else. Maybe I’d gone too far.
“Billie, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have?—”
She cut me off by closing the distance between us and kissing me. The world shrank down to just the space between our mouths. Her lips were soft, but the kiss was urgent, like we were making up for all the years we wasted pretending we were nothing but friends, nothing but people who circled around each other without ever giving in. She tasted like lime and salt from the margaritas she’d had at the wedding, and I was sure I tasted like desperation. Her hands curled up to my jaw, fingers trailing over the scruff, and I almost lost it when she pressed her body against mine, heat rolling off her in waves.
I pulled her closer, one hand at her waist, the other sliding up her spine. The satin of her dress was slick beneath my palms, but I wanted to feel her, not fabric. I found the zipper and worked itdown, slowly, giving her time to stop me if this wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t stop me. She didn’t even hesitate. She moved in, tilting her head, deepening the kiss, her tongue teasing mine.
She made an impatient sound in the back of her throat, and she nipped my bottom lip with her teeth, sending a surge of arousal straight to my groin.
A shudder ran through my body as I gritted out against her mouth, “You’re killing me.”
She pulled back just long enough to drag her gaze over me, from my face to my chest to the part of my body that was already straining against my pants. “I’m returning the favor.”
