And now his thumb is rubbing circles in my palm, and it would be easy—soeasy—to get carried away with him right now. To be with someone who sees me in a way no one else ever has, to let him remind me what anticipation and passion and desire canfeellike.
My body hums, and I think he feels it—the live tuning fork he’s sharing a mattress with. His hand tenses. His flinty-eyed gaze flits between my eyes and my mouth like a compass on the fritz—up and down, up and down. His body doesn’t make a move. He’s waiting for me to decide.
But I don’t want to decide. I don’t want to be the one responsible for what does or doesn’t happen next. I want his mouth to fall onto my skin like cool snow in this hot van. He’ll justhappento me—every part of me—and it won’t have tochange anything in the morning. The sun will rise, the snow won’t stick, and I won’t have to risk the piece of my friend that’s always been mine.
And that’s when it overwhelms me. The years of loneliness. The searing pain of being this close to someone who understands me, after being married to someone I’m not sure ever knew me. The piece of me that’s always wondered whether my best friend tastes as sweet as he smells. But with each breath, the possibility of something more between us slips further away, and I don’t think I can risk another second of indecision.
So I press my hand against his jaw and tilt his face to mine.
And then I’mkissingEthan Powell.
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. This should be awkward. This should beweird. We should be staring regretfully into the whites of each other’s eyeballs, wondering where our hands should go. But this feels…good. Right. Maybe because I keep my lips soft at first, testing the boundaries of what this is. But then his hands are in my hair, tense and grasping with a wildness I didn’t know I liked until exactly this moment. All of my hesitancy falls away, and suddenly, my teeth are tugging at his bottom lip and his tongue is urging my lips to let him in. And so I do.Of courseI do.
Because whateverthisis, it isn’t what kissing usually feels like. Kissing is supposed to be a clumsy precursor to sex, but Ethan’s lips on my lips—and on my jaw and on my neck and along my collarbone—is downrightindecent. He’s kissing me like the world outside is ending, and I’m rising to meet him like I don’t care if it does. How could I care about anything else when Ethan Powell is grabbing my hips so desperately that I hope it leaves a mark?
He’s growling into my skin and following each of my tiny whimpers like a road map, and I’m greedy for more ofthis.
More earth-shattering touches that feel more intimate than sex with the man I married ever did.
More of being wanted and desired by someone who doesn’t have to remind himself in the morning that he loves me.
But as Ethan’s always had a way of reading my mind, he pulls his mouth back at that exact moment. “Who am I right now?” he asks through heaving breaths. He presses his forehead to my cheek and something about the familiar sweetness of it steals air from my lungs. “Am I…me? Or am I…not Rich?”
I twist away for air and stare up at the ceiling, my chest rising and falling so violently it might demand medical attention.
“I’m sorry.” The apology might as well be an admission of guilt. “I…got carried away.”
Even though the kiss wasn’t entirely about my ex-husband—part of me is wondering (panicking about) whether this kiss was a decade in the making—it wasn’tnotabout my ex-husband. And for that, I feel sick.
He sucks air between his teeth.
“Can you forgive me?” The plea slips from my mouth.
I’m not the kind of person who lets emotions get the better of them, but right now, we’re on a detour of a detour. This rescue mission was already a deviation from my real life. Maybe that’s all this is: a much-needed vacation from my rational self.
“Of course. Could never be me,” he says to himself with a laugh, but the utter truth of it sinks into my chest like a rock.
“I know what you mean.”
I shift away from him two inches, settling into a more comfortable position, even though I want more than anything for him to hold me. I want his finger drawing slow circles on my pelvic bone until I can no longer bear the rivulets of need beneath my skin, touching me in ways he’d never touch his best friend Chuck.
Iwantto torpedo my life. For a second. If only to finally know what it would be like to feel out of control with him. But my friend who is always interested in trying just about anything has never seemed much interested in tryingthis.
“It was just a one-time slipup. I won’t do it again,” I promise.
My chest rises and falls while I hang on each of his deep breaths, in and out. “You will. It was never going to be just one time.” He pauses, and I wonder if he’s…professing something, if this simple kiss is the first domino in a collision of words and touches that’ll lead to the two of us, side by side, in matching Adirondack chairs, watching our thirty-seven grandkids playing in the yard. My stomach swoops and spins like I’m at the top of a roller coaster, and I can’t identify whether the resulting feeling is excitement or terror.
“I don’t mean to brag,” he continues, voice gravelly and too serious, as my heart darts around my chest. “But I have…skills…”
I pause. Silent. Stunned.
And then a spitty laugh explodes from my mouth and showers his face. I should be utterly mortified that I just threw myself at my best friend, but I can’t bring myself to care, because the sentence that just fell from his lips is ten times more embarrassingfor himthan anything I could ever dream to say. I’m certain no one has ever experienced this level of relief froma man displaying such delusional levels of sexual bravado. “You’re such an idiot.”
“I’m just saying, I know what I’m doing.” His smile is ridiculous and confident and so magnificently beautiful.
“Is that so?”
He puffs his chest out. “I’ve had a lot of…positive testimonials.”
