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“Ziggy.” I set a hand on her thigh, stopping her.
She freezes, propped on her elbow, peering down at me. “What is it?”
Slowly, I ease upright, and she sits up with me. Bringing a hand to her face, I trace my fingers across her freckles, then sink them into her gloriously disheveled braid. “I’m okay.”
She peers down at my lap, where I am, by all evidence, very not okay. “What?”
“I…” Blowing out a breath, I stroke her flushed pink cheek with my knuckles again, then press a gentle kiss right to one of my favorite freckles, nestled in her dimple. “I’m okay.”
Her head tips in that way she has, as she pulls back, not harshly, just curious, her eyes searching mine. “But you were really good to me—”
“Not good enough.”
“Sebastian.” She arches an eyebrow. “I’m the one who just orgasmed so intensely, I saw outer space. I get to tell you if it wasn’t good enough, and I’m telling you it was.”
“I’m glad.” I lean in and press a soft, slow kiss to her cheek, breathing her in. “Then it was good enough for me, too. That’s all I need.”
She scowls as I spring up and stand, though not as gracefully as I’d like, given the pounding pulse in my cock. She thinks she saw outer space? I was about two hip nudges away from going off like a rocket. Calling to mind the last time I ate a calzone and literally thought I was dying, I was in so much pain, I find myself able to stand fully upright now, and offer her my hand.
Ziggy takes it, a little hesitant at first, before she lets me yank her upright. She lands with a bounce, tugging down her adorable dark-green T-shirt that rode halfway up her torso during our little session on the floor. When she settles it back down on the waistline of the jean shorts I cut for her, I see it again, the clever seventies-throwback smiley face doctored up with Shakespeare’s iconic hairdo and goatee. Beneath Smiley Shakespeare it says, “Have a nice play.”
She stares at me for a second, our hands lingering together, fingers tangled. Her brow is furrowed, her gaze searching me, like an X-ray, running diagnostics.
I smile, because I can’t help it. I used to be terrified of that stare. Now I think I just might crave it. Because it means she’s trying to understand me. It means Ziggy might not like what I’m doing or get it, but she’s willing to stay with me anyway.
Slowly, she turns toward the books scattered across the floor and bends. As she reaches for the first book, baring her ass in all its glory inside those jean shorts, she lets out a satisfied sound, low and smoky in her throat.
I crouch and start to pick up books, too, perhaps staring at her butt so much, I drop a few books that I try to pick up. I come very, very close to begging her to tear off those shorts, shove me onto my back, and sit on my face, but somehow I stay strong, cleaning up our mess beside her.
“Well,” Ziggy sighs. She turns, bearing a towering stack in her arms. “Guess it’s time to browse some books.”
“So.” Ziggy crunches down on one of the fucking incredible chocolate cookies she gave me, brushing away crumbs as they fall onto the book cradled in her lap.
I peer up from the book I’ve been leafing through, one of her favorite fantasy romances. We swapped genres. Ziggy handed me this “romantasy” as she called it; I gave her one of my favorite dystopian sci-fi novels. “So?”
“Why did you give your part to Gabe halfway through Act Three tonight?”
I set aside the book and angle myself toward her, brushing her leg with mine where we sit on the floor, leaning against opposite bookshelves. “It seemed like the considerate thing to do. I was supposed to be there on time to read Benedick, and I got there late, interrupted him with my entrance.”
She smiles. “And a very dramatic entrance it was.”
I make a theatrical bow. “But Gabe was on time, ready to read Benedick, and I know Shakespeare Club is a big deal to Ren’s theater buddies. I figured it would be fair to split the part, given that.”
Ziggy tips her head and pops the last of the cookie in her mouth. “Gotcha. Well, that’s nice of you.”
It’s also not the whole truth. The whole truth is, I know that play. I know it very well. And I know Beatrice and Benedick have a damn good love confession in Act Four and Act Five too, for that matter. I couldn’t… I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look at Ziggy, even though we’d be playing roles, and tell her I love her. I couldn’t say that to her and have it mean nothing.
Not…that I plan on saying those words to Ziggy in the future and meaning them. But still, she’s someone who means so much to me after just a few short weeks in my life. She’s someone I want to cherish and be good to and enjoy the hell out of. She’s my friend.
Your friend, huh? Who you just made out with and dry humped right to the edge of a body-shaking orgasm?
Yes, well. This is true. But Ziggy and I made a promise. We enjoyed each other like this, and now nothing will change. As she said, there’s such a thing as friends with benefits. And while I’d originally hoped to keep my hands off her entirely, that’s been blown to shit since the night on my deck, when I felt her up thoroughly, when she kissed me so damn well, my legs gave out.
I have managed, however—and I plan to continue doing so—to keep this new level of physicality one-sided. I can give her whatever she needs, when she shows me she needs it, make her feel incredible, without taking anything for myself.
I can be good to her. That’s all I want to be—so damn good to her.
But maybe not so good as to let her eat all my gluten-free chocolate cookies.
