“Well,” I grumbled to myself. “I guess I've been told.”
I stood up, grabbed my clothes, and pulled them on. On reflex, I glanced around for a condom wrapper to pick up and throw away, but with a jolt, I remembered that this had been for a purpose. I just mounted and bred her like a prized stallion, and now she had no use for me.
Fuck, that hurt. Why did it feel that way? Why did it make my chest burn? My throat tightened. She just expected me to bang her and leave. No fucking way.
Instead of heading home, I went into her kitchen and checked the time, which read 10:45pm. Clara needed me to show her I was in this. That I wasn’t just gonna cut and run. So I got out some milk and a bag of chocolate chips from the pantry. Then I turned on some music, low and soft, and set the scene.
I poured the milk into a saucepan and turned on the burner, my gaze catching on the glow of the flame, blue and orange twisted together. As the music filled the room, I began singing along when I knew the words, moving my hips and letting myself relax into the plan forming in my brain.
There was no fucking way Clara could deny what had happened between us. She felt it too. I knew it as clear as I knew my own name. I saw it in her eyes—the future we could have, the love we already did have, even if it started as friends.
I just had to make her see. Make her realize that being vulnerable with me didn't mean losing everything. It meant gaining so much more. Of course there was always the chance that she would completely reject me and leave me gutted. But the risk was worth it. I had to take it.
I wouldn’t be my father. The man who never took a risk. The man who never ever let his guard down or put his heart on the line. Not after Sandy Ryker had crushed him. I recognized myself repeating his mistakes, my own heart still caged in the hurt doled out by my ex. An ex I never talked about, but she'd done me dirty, and I hadn't been the same since. Until now. Until Clara.
“I thought I told you you could leave,” Clara said as she came into the kitchen, wrapped in a robe with her hair on top of her head in a towel.
She was fresh and clean, her cheeks still pink from the heat of the water.
“Well, it's late, and I thought maybe you'd like to have some hot cocoa and watch a movie.”
She pursed her lips, smirking slightly. “Oh, did you?”
“Yeah, that's what we usually do.”
Taking a breath, she opened her mouth as though she was going to protest and instead said, “That smells good.”
“Do you want marshmallow fluff or whipped cream?” I smiled. “I think I'll go with some whipped cream. How about you?”
“Fluff. It's always the fluff for me.”
“All right, you want to grab it?”
“Sure.”
She snagged what we needed as I kept stirring until the mixture of chocolate and milk and a little bit of vanilla all came together into a perfect, delicious, creamy concoction.
“Mav, I just want to say, I don't think that we should let things get so intense next time.”
“Intense?” I asked, playing dumb because fuck, it had been intense.
“It was earth-shatteringly intense with the eye contact and shared orgasms and so much touching.” I loved the way her voice went all breathy and tight. Like even talking about it, she was getting turned on.
“Oh, you don't like orgasms?”
Her cheeks went even more pink. “I do like orgasms. I just think that if we're going to keep this friendly, we probably need to stop pretending it's more than it is.”
“Are you pretending?”
“Aren't you?”
“Not that it wasn’t something special. It was real and fucking amazing.”
“Yeah, I mean, it was . . . it was . . . wow. But it just—it’ll make things so much more complicated.” The way her hands worried at the sash of her robe proved to me how hard she was trying to stick to her guns, even though they were aimed in the completely wrong direction.
I stepped closer to her. Her eyes locked on mine, and fuck me, she bit that lower lip. I was so tempted to just lean down and kiss her.
“You’re so goddamn pretty.” It was the barest whisper as I forced my body to stay in control.
How was it I had gone two years with her near me almost every single day and not let myself see her? Not really.
Oh, I noticed her. The first day I met her, I knew she was beautiful. But when she was introduced as our veterinarian, I backed away and walled my heart up. I said no thank you and categorized her as off-limits.
But what if all this time we were friends, I was falling in love with her, and I didn't even know it?
I wished I had someone I could talk to about this. I wished my mama was around and not off gallivanting with some guy she barely knew. Or I at least had a dad who was knowledgeable about shit like this, who wasn't fucking dead.
I didn't have any of that. I could call my granddad. But honestly, all that would serve to do is make me feel guilty that I wasn't there to help.
“Hey,” she whispered, reaching up and brushing her thumb over my cheekbone before cupping my face. “Are you okay? You look lost.”
I am fucking lost, I wanted to say. I'm gone. I don't know where I am, and it's all because of you.
Instead, I took a deep breath that I tried to keep from shuddering through me. Because this woman had just reduced me to a bag of bones and emotion. “I just . . . there's a lot to think about.”
“Yeah, you're right. But maybe we did what we were supposed to do the first time, and we don't have to do it again, and the lines won't have to blur anymore. We can go back to being us.”
Fucking hell, I wanted to tell her that we were us, no matter what. She was mine. She was my friend. She was my everything now. God, I had fucked this up. The first go-round, and I was already fucking up everything.
“You know what?” I asked. “I think you're wrong.”
“What?”
I reached past her and opened the cupboard, pulling out two mugs for each of us. And then I leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss to her forehead.
“I said I think you're wrong. No matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that we can do it, we won't be able to go back from this. Not now that I know what your pussy tastes like. Now that I know what your moans sound like when you come, or what your nipples feel like under my hands, in my mouth. I won't be able to go back.”
“But we agreed.”
“Fuck that. It's a stupid arrangement when the two of us feel the way we do.”
I knew I was getting too intense. I was pushing the issue, but this was my only chance to make this ship sail right. I had to lay it out for her here and now. Make sure she knew I wanted a chance.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don't want to stop this. I don't want to change the way it's going. I want to keep on having you in your bed, in mine, fuck, on the couch, on the counter, on the fucking table, in the shower. I want you. Whether we're trying to get you pregnant or not. I want you.”
“You don't want a baby,” she said.
“I could.”
Fear hit me hard right in my chest. Because until that moment, I didn't want a baby. I wanted to give her a baby. I wanted to fuck her until she was carrying my child, and I was giving her everything she wanted in this world. But I didn't want it to be mine until right now.