Page 65 of On the Breakaway

“I glanced downward.”

“Directly at my chest.”

“Only because your shirt is so low-cut,” he fires back before looking irritated with himself for saying it out loud.

A victorious grin pulls at my mouth. “So you admit it.”

He drags a hand down his face. “Can you please explain what the hell is happening right now?”

“We don’t like each other, but we clearly…” I trail off, gesturing at him again because saying the word attraction out loud again feels horrifying. “Have whatever this is.”

His eyes flick down my body before returning to my face, causing that slow heat to bloom low in my stomach all over again.

“And your solution,” he says carefully, “is sex.”

I stick my tongue into my cheek. “You’re being condescending.”

“I’m trying to understand why you’re talking about this like you’re proposing a hostile corporate merger.”

Despite myself, a laugh almost escapes me, but I bite it back. “This is exactly why I almost didn’t say anything.”

“You caught me a little off guard here.” His voice drops, gentler now.

“Well, stop being so weird about it.”

“You walked into a bar and told me we need to have sex.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds worse.”

His eyebrows lift. “It is worse.”

I groan and tip my head back against the edge of the bar.

“Okay,” he says after a beat, shifting closer to me. “Start over.”

I blink at him, my body tingling with awareness of how close we’re standing. “What?”

“You clearly have some other reason for this conversation.” He crosses his arms. “So explain it to me.”

Well shit.

Now he’s looking at me with that steady, patient attention again, and this whole thing feels far more exposing than just asking for sex.

I blow out a breath and stare down at the bar top before speaking.

“I haven’t really…” I grimace. “Had sex with anyone since my last relationship ended.”

His expression shifts, just slightly, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“At first it was a choice,” I continue, picking at the edge of my nail, “because the breakup sucked and men are exhausting and I just didn’t want to deal with it. But now it’s been long enough that it’s turned into this thing in my head, like pressure, which makes it harder to actually do anything about it.”

One corner of his mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smile.

I shoot him a look. “Bottom line, if I don’t orgasm at the hands of another person soon, I’m going to lose my mind.”

He chokes on nothing. Then, after he pulls it together, he says, “And your solution is me?”

“I’ve seen you look at me,” I admit. “And you’re objectively attractive, so I figured it could be… mutually beneficial.”