Liar. What a little freakin’ liar. Fine, I’ll prove it to him.
My fingers trail lightly down his forearm, feeling the tension coiled there. He doesn’t move, doesn’t stop me—just watches me, jaw clenched like he’s waiting for something inevitable.
“Interesting.” I reach up—just slightly—and fix the collar of his shirt, my knuckles grazing his throat.
His breath catches.
Oh.
Oh, this is fun.
“Completely unaffected, huh?” I murmur.
His eyes darken.
“Tara.”
I lean in, just enough to watch his pulse jump.
“Say it again.”
His hand grips my waist.
Hard.
He doesn’t say it again.
For a moment, we just breathe.
Then, just as fast as he let himself slip, Alfie steps back. The loss of warmth is almost jarring. His eyes flick to mine, stormy, unreadable.
“We’re done here,” he mutters.
He turns before I can say anything else.
And for the first time, I think I just won.
19
ALFIE
“Absolutely not.” I don’t look up from my laptop which is propped up on the kitchen counter, where Europa’s surface formations blur after six straight hours of analysis. “Ask someone else.”
I stare at my lab data but can’t focus. Keep thinking about how Tara looked the other morning. How for a moment, I’d wanted to crawl back into bed with her. Not for sex - just to hold her, to watch her wake up slowly, to be...real.
That thoughtfuckingterrifies me.
I’ve never thought about sex with anybody more than five minutes after it’s been over. Yet, for the past four days I’ve been replaying the way Tara’s face looked when I made her cum.
I rub my eyes, trying to erase the image. This is exactly what I can’t do. Can’t let myself want more. Can’t drag her into my shit.
Better to keep this simple. Clean. Fake. And what Ethan is asking will only make that harder.
We’ve only got three more days left of my family being here, we don’t need to add in anything else.
“Who else?” Ethan drops into the chair opposite me, disrupting my carefully arranged papers. “Alex is in California living her best coastal life, Freddie’s useless without her, and Troy is away. I have no other friends.”
He pouts.
