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I laughed and replayed the night from her perspective. I’d always come back to wave napkins in his face. To show off the new number added to my phone. We’d been teasing each other all night. I was currently lounging in his lap like I belonged there. And, yeah, I was pretty drunk, but this was just who Gavin and I were. We’d always been like this. But apparently, even from a stranger, it looked like more.
“No need to apologize,” Gavin said. “Easy mistake.”
“We certainly don’t look like normal friends,” I said. I ran my hand up through his hair and jerked on it lightly to make him look at me. He was drunk, too, but with that one motion, I could feel … well, fuck, I could feel him stiffen under me. “Do we, baby?”
“I suppose we do not,” he allowed.
“Well, if you’re looking for a third,” Patricia said, suddenly shy, “count me in.”
Then, she headed back to the bar to clean up her space. As if to give us space to figure out what we wanted.
“There you go,” I said playfully. “We have a third. Which I think gives me fourteen and you?”
“I lost count,” he said with a shrug. “You win.”
“Of course I do.”
He hadn’t moved away. In fact, his grip on me only tightened. He was hard under my ass. I could shift just a little to feel the entire length of him pressed against me. I heated up at the thought. I could handle my liquor, so even after this much alcohol, I was still cognizant enough to know that this might change everything. That it might even be a bad idea.
I had thirteen phone numbers. Fourteen offers. And somehow, the one I wanted was right in front of my face.
“And what do I win?” I asked, the words coming out breathier than I’d intended.
His eyes dipped to my lips and back up. “What do you want?”
That was as much of an invitation as I’d ever heard.
Our eyes were locked. Emerald green on my hazel. Something passed between us. This was our line. We could cross it with so little effort. All I had to do was shift on his cock. To run my hand through his hair. To claim his soft, pouty lips. He didn’t even need to run a hand under my skirt to discover my arousal. I was sure he could sense it as I held perfectly still and lingered on the outline of his lips. On the cusp of the opportunity that presented itself.
He didn’t say anything as the choice lay at my feet. Just watched and waited.
I’d taken Gavin’s behavior at face value. He was flirtatious. Obviously, he found me attractive, but he’d never made it seem like he was interested in me. Our personalities were too similar. Too friendly and joking and over the top. He took what he wanted from models and celebrities and socialites on the scene back home. He’d never acted like he was going to take anything from me.
Now, I looked at the past year from that outside perspective Patricia had given me. I hadn’t wanted to screw up what was here. Maybe Gavin hadn’t either.
And the question was, if I said yes, would it fuck everything up?
I was the queen of compartmentalizing my life. Sex was sex was sex. It didn’t have to mean anything. It certainly didn’t have to include feelings.
But it was complicated with friends. And friends with benefits never worked. No matter how anyone else said it would be fine, someone always caught feels, and someone always got hurt.
“Is this going to ruin everything?” I asked, putting the truth out in front of us.
His hand slipped through my light-brown hair, brushing a strand of it behind my ear. I shivered at the touch. “No.”
“How can you know?”
He cupped the back of my neck. Then, he pulled me forward until our lips nearly touched. I shivered all over.
“Whitley, what do you want?”
“This,” I gasped.
Because when he commanded it out of me, I could deny him nothing.
And in that moment, he knew. Just as I knew. I wanted this to happen. This was happening.
His lips crushed to mine, and the entire nightclub disappeared in a haze. He tasted like a mix of tequila and lime. Underneath it all was that pure male taste of him. Just Gavin. Our tongues brushed together, a clash, a sigh, a reprieve. As if every second before this had been the buildup to this collision.
In that moment, I was lost.
One cruel kiss had sundered me.
7
WHITLEY
We crashed into Gavin’s villa like a tornado. Hands grasping, lips crushed together, bodies hot and needy.
Gavin kicked the door closed behind him. It made a reverberating noise from the violent shove he’d given it. He reached for me. All five feet of me as he bent forward to get to my lips again.
