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Actually, that was a lie. My concentration had been shot long before Chubby Checker started blasting in the break room down the hall.
Ever since I’d left Donal’s apartment Saturday night, I’d been distracted and out of sorts. My stomach was so twisted up in knots, I’d been chugging Maalox like it was Gatorade. No matter how hard I tried to erase the entire episode from my brain, I kept fixating on tiny details: the rough tug of his lips, the desperate, ragged sound of his breathing, the eager, possessive way his hands had moved over my body.
Unfulfilled lust was a hell of a thing.
I’d barely slept the last two nights, although insomnia was hardly a rare occurrence for me. My mind had trouble turning itself off even under the best of circumstances, and I’d gotten used to tossing and turning until my body got tired enough to overrule my brain.
What I wasn’t accustomed to was the relentless and ill-advised longing I’d been feeling the last two nights. I couldn’t remember the last time a little bit of kissing had left me this preoccupied and horny. Although, in my defense, this was Donal we were talking about, the man who’d preoccupied my thoughts to an unhealthy degree since I was twelve years old. And it had been more than just a little bit of kissing. We’d been a few panting breaths away from banging each other’s brains out.
God, what a terrifying thought.
But also? Dangerously tantalizing.
Nope. Nope. Nope.I refused to be ruled by my libido. Falling into bed with Donal was a recipe for disaster. Of that I was certain.
There was an undeniable attraction there—apparently on both sides—but I couldn’t afford to give in to it. It would be too damned easy to fall under Donal’s spell again. I’d always had a weakness where he was concerned. That smile of his, in those moments when it felt like he actually cared, turned my insides to gooey marshmallow fluff.
But if I let myself be taken in by his charms, I’d only wind up getting hurt.
My God, we were both on such a hair trigger around each other, we couldn’t even go an hour without arguing. It would only be a matter of time before things between us went south. Once the orgasm high had worn off, we’d be at each other’s throats—and not in a sexy way, but in an angry, hurtful, destructive way.
That wasn’t something I could allow to happen right now. Not with Erin in the picture. Donal and I needed to maintain civil relations for her sake. He’d been right about that much. Adding sex to the equation would only make everything worse.
This attraction I was feeling to Donal wasn’t real. It was the past spilling over into the present. A combination of nostalgia and old unresolved feelings and an instinctive reaching out for comfort.
I was lonely, that was all. But Donal Larkin wasn’t the solution to my loneliness. He might seem like an appealing option—he was always appealing, that was his superpower—but it would be dangerous to put much faith in him or his feelings for me.
It was good that I’d put an end to it before things went too far to turn back. Assuming they hadn’t already. I’d need to talk to Donal and try to smooth things over. The thought of it made me cringe, but I knew he was unhappy about the way I’d left on Saturday.
I’d had no choice. If I’d stayed even a minute longer, I would have given in to temptation and thrown myself at him, consequences be damned.
A tap on my office door dragged me away from my thoughts, and I looked up to find Marie waving at me through the glass. I beckoned for her to come in, and a blast of Harry Belafonte entered the room with her.
In an attempt to compete with the glut of newer, trendier coworking spaces cropping up around the city, our quiet little co-op had upped its game by adding sponsored “networking” events, most of which seemed to have been planned by a frat house social chair.
The music quieted to a muffled hum as Marie shut the door behind her. “Not quite as soundproof as they advertise, are they?”
“What’s the occasion today?”
“Flavored rum shots.” She flashed a grin as she hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Want me to get you one?”
“At twelve thirty on a weekday? I’ll pass.”
“I’m not interrupting, am I?”
“God no. I wasn’t getting anything done anyway.” I waved at the chairs across from the desk in my tiny solo office. “Welcome back. How was your trip?” She’d been out of town all last week, doing research for a story she was working on.
“Productive. I’ve got piles of notes and interviews to transcribe, which is why I’m prowling the halls in search of a distraction.”
“I hear there’s a limbo contest you could join.”
“Ha! You’re hilarious.” Her expression grew more serious. “So did you have your first meeting with Erin? How did it go? I was thinking about you all last week.”
Since my breakdown in the break room, Marie had been checking in on me regularly. I wasn’t used to sharing so much of my personal life with a colleague. Laughing over online dating escapades was one thing, but I’d never spoken to anyone other than my parents about the baby I’d given up.
Having that panic attack in front of Marie had punched a big fat hole through my privacy barriers, and I’d actually found myself grateful for it. Marie was a good listener, and it had been helpful to have someone to talk to besides Donal, who posed his own set of problems.
I filled Marie in on all the highlights of my first meeting with Erin, telling her what I’d learned about Erin’s childhood and that she was pregnant with her first child. But I refrained from any mention of Donal or the kissing incident that had sent me into a tailspin.
