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She came closer.
I didn’t move an inch.
Raising onto her toes, she leaned in until her lips were inches from my own. Seconds passed. Still, I didn’t move, her eyes clinging to mine. When her hand slid up the side of my face, it nearly broke me.
“You’re lying,” she whispered, and my dick went solid. Her lips moved to my ear, her voice scraping my earlobe like a mantra. “I don’t like liars… grew up with one. So when you decide to stop running and tell the truth, you know where I am.” She left two light pats on my cheek before turning toward the stairwell.
When she disappeared, I exhaled a long breath. My heart thundered in my chest, and I looked down to where my hands shook uncontrollably. I clenched them tight, wanting them to stop, but they wouldn’t. I wanted to touch her. Hear her scream my name. Wanted my dick buried in her pussy until her legs gave way.
Just once.
But I couldn’t do it. To me. To her.
Heading upstairs, I stopped outside her bedroom door, staring at it.
Don’t you fucking dare.
Instead, I turned my back on it, opening the door to my room. Ridding myself of everything but my boxers, I climbed into bed, willing the chub of my dick to subside. It didn’t listen. Said ‘fuck you’ and stuck around. I willed myself not to touch it. Begged for chains to claim my hands.
The knock on my door blew my eyes wide open.
Fuck. “Yeah?”
“Are you decent?” Came Red’s voice from the other side of the door.
No, I wasn’t fucking decent. But that could be hidden discreetly.
“Ah yeah.” I sat upright, pulling a knee to my chest under the comforter. “Come in.”
Red opened my door, and my eyes were immediately drawn to thighs I wanted to dig my hands into. As she turned side on to shut the door slightly, her short pajama bottoms exposed the cutest dimples in her ass cheeks, not helping my situation at all.
Swallowing deeply, I wondered why she was in my room.
“Sorry, I just…” She crossed her arms, and the movement caused her chest to rise with it. “I don’t want this to be weird between us.”
“It won’t be. I won’t allow it,” I assured her. I would let nothing ruin our friendship.
She nodded in acknowledgement, and her lips pursed again. Her eyes circled the room, landing on the pack of jocks she’d brought me, which I still hadn’t got around to putting in my drawers. It was just one more thing on my to do list: sort the pile of new clothes on my floor into drawers. Between the bar, insurance, and everything else on my mind, my jocks on top of my drawer were now embarrassing.
It made me feel messy.
Her bare feet stepped closer, and I got the feeling she had something of importance to say. The change in her demeanor confused me.
She wound her hair around her index finger, something I’d never seen her do. Was she nervous? Surely not. She always seemed so confident.
“What I said earlier, about being lied to: My mom hid my father’s gambling problem from me until I was nineteen. She booted him out after he sold my mom’s pool table that my pop left us when he passed away to feed his addiction.”
Shit.
Suddenly, her refusing to play pool back at my apartment made perfect sense. It wasn’t about the game at all. It had been about what it represented.
My chest tightened. “Red.” I rubbed the back of my neck, hating that she’d carried that around alone. “I’m really sorry.”
She shrugged. “I would have rather known,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I could have helped.”
I held her gaze for a long moment. “Maybe.” My voice came quieter than I intended. “Or maybe you’d have spent years trying to save someone who wasn’t ready to save himself.”
She didn’t speak.
