I changed into sweats, towel-dried my hair, and let my gaze drift to her. She had asked to sleep in one of my shirts tonight.
My eyes skirted up her entire body.
My shirt’s hem barely brushed the tops of her thighs. Bare legs. Bare feet. Leaning against the bathroom door with a toothbrush in her mouth, her hair damp and messy. She probably thought she looked casual. That this was a normal conversation between best friends.
But damn, did she look fuckable. My dick was twitching in my pants, and I had to hold the towel in front of me so she didn’t notice.
I considered telling her to put on shorts. But why the hell would I give her the chance to cover herself up? She felt comfortable with me, and I didn’t want that to change.
“You, okay?” I asked, my voice low enough to make her look up.
She nodded quickly. “Yeah, just tired.”
She was such a liar.
I stepped closer.
“Mackenzie.”
Her eyes snapped to mine, startled. I hardly ever used her real name.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” I said, “but you don’t get to pretend I don’t notice what’s happening between us.”
Her throat worked. “What’s happening between us?”
“It’s fine,” I said, even though it wasn’t. “You panicked. I got too close. I get it.”
“I didn’t panic,” she shot back. Then, quieter, “Okay… yeah, I did.”
“I’m not mad,” I told her, because I wasn’t. Frustrated? Sure. Did I want to pin her against the wall until she said what she really wanted? Absolutely.
“I’m not here to pressure you,” I said, which was half-true. “I told you I’d let you lead, and I didn’t. That’s on me. I went too far.”
Her head shook immediately. “No. You didn’t go too far.”
My jaw flexed. “Then stop acting like I did.”
She didn’t answer. She just crossed her arms, eyes fixed somewhere past my shoulder, like she was bracing herself against something invisible.
“I told you I can’t fake,” I said.
“Yeah, well… you’re good enough at it that I can’t tell what’s real right now,” she said quietly. “I shouldn’t have asked you to play along. We’re too close.”
She stopped and bit her lip. For a fraction of a second, I saw something like contentment flicker across her face. She wanted me to work for it, for her.
She was such a fucking tease.
She started to walk away, and I grabbed her hand. She stopped, not turning her head completely, but she didn’t move her hand out of my grip. I started inching my grip up her arm, little by little, catching her elbow and gently pulling her into me. When her shoulder touched my chest, I turned her body so that we were looking straight into each other’s eyes.
Everything else faded. Our hearts beat in sync as we stared at each other. Then I bent my head down so that my lips brushed against her ear.
“You like teasing me?”
Her breath stalled, and I could feel her pulse skyrocketing against my lips as I brushed them down her neck.
“You’re blurring the lines again,” she whispered back. But she wasn’t pushing me away.
“I think you want me to blur them a little,” I said, pulling my shirt down a bit off her shoulder and kissing the bare skin there.
