Page 71 of I Choose You

He smirked at me.

“Seriously? Mercedes?”

He flipped me the finger and walked away.

24

BROOKE

Waking up for hot yoga the next morning wasn’t an easy feat. It wasn’t a repeat of two weekends ago, when I ignored the fact I was a lightweight and drank too much. I wasn’t hungover on alcohol when I yawned and silenced my alarm. But I felt different. Hungover from sex, maybe.

Before I lost my mind and lunged at Kaden in the garden, it had been a while. All right, a long while. It was one of the worst side effects of workaholism.

We’d only had sex the one time. On the grass at his dad’s house when many guests were nearby.

“I can’t believe we did that.”

I couldn’t speak for him. Maybe he brought women out there all the time. I wasn’t that kind of a risk-taker, though.

Until him.

As I lay in bed, procrastinating in getting up, I recalled how taboo and forbidden it all felt.

The cool air on my boob when it hung out of my dress. With the wetness of his tongue and lips on it, it had felt so shockingly cold. Goosebumps spread over my flesh in reaction to the memory.

He’d picked me up like it was nothing, carrying me like a damn caveman to lower me to the grass. I appreciated that little gesture. The small things mattered. His consideration to lay his jacket on the grass was sweet. It had been ruined, which had caused us to laugh. Wrinkled, both of our orgasms, and grass stains. He’d solved that issue with aplomb, hooking the jacket over his shoulder, dangling it from one finger until he tossed it on the chair at the table I’d run from.

We’d missed dinner, so we had stopped for take-out and had a drive-through dinner.

We had gone from fake dating, to fucking, to eating greasy food in a parking lot like we were old friends.

“And now what am I going to do?” I muttered as I got up.

I went to yoga and told Rena all the juicy details. This week’s instructor wasn’t the same hardass we’d had last week. He was chill, not even glancing at us as we whispered to each other.

She wasn’t shocked, which should have concerned me. I didn’t sleep around, after all. I was cautious about who I extended a sexual invitation to.

“I saw it coming a mile away,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Does that mean I’m easy or something?”

She shook her head and changed her pose. “No. Just that some brands of sexual chemistry are bound to implode no matter what you tell yourself.”

And I had been telling myself that it wasn’t real. I’d gone there as a fake date, but every second of his big cock pounding into me was oh so very real. And hot. And addicting. Because as we showered in the locker room, I gasped at the evidence of his love bites on my breasts.

Rena was almost ready to leave for her trip, so I was glad we had the day to share. After yoga and a quick brunch, we’d check off all the beauty essentials on her list. And all the while, I could glean whatever sound advice that I could from her.

She didn’t judge, and she was always fun to share raunchy details with.

Haircuts were first. I loved my long locks, so as she got her hair trimmed and styled, I sat in the vacant chair next to hers and chatted.

Mani and pedis came next, and when the girl who was doing my toes had to take a few minutes of a scheduled break to go pump breastmilk for her baby, I almost dozed in the gently swirling hot water.

“I hate those shoes,” I muttered. My arches still hurt.

“No, you don’t,” Rena argued. I’d sent her a picture—per her request—before I left home last night. She knew exactly which shoes I’d worn with the impressionable green dress.

“I do.” I relaxed into the massage chair. “This feels like heaven.”