He tried to come to his senses, to gain control of the situation, but they must not have been sleeping long because his thoughts were still fuzzy. “Emery?” he said, trying to pull away.
“What?” she murmured, her mouth moving down until he could feel her tongue on his neck.
He struggled to catch his breath—and to resist the urge to slip his hand up her shirt. “Did I start this—or did you?” he managed to ask.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “But you feel—” she bit his neck “—and taste—” she kissed his jawline “—and smell—” she nuzzled her nose up under his ear “—better than anything.”
He felt every muscle tense with the desire to respond in kind. Instead, he swallowed hard and resisted the impulse. “I appreciate that, but you’ve been through a lot. We don’t want to make it any worse.”
She jerked her head up and looked around. “How? There’s not another soul out here. Even if we weren’t alone, it’s so dark someone would have to literally stumble over us to realize we’re here.”
“That isn’t it,” he said. “We’re still drunk. At least I think we must be.” With the sudden injection of so much testosterone, as well as the jolt of the surprise, his thoughts were growing decidedly clearer. Was she sobering up, too?
“That could be true. But it’s been a really horrible month, and I need to feel something good. A second ago, you seemed to want the same thing.”
She hadn’t misread what his body was telling her. He was trying not to be selfish. “I do. It’s just...this is sort of sudden and could possibly ruin our friendship. You might want to reconsider—”
She sat up so abruptly he swallowed the rest of that sentence. He assumed he’d talked some sense into her and what had started so quickly had ended just as fast. Although he’d done the right thing, losing the satisfaction he craved created a sharp pang of disappointment.
But she didn’t stand up to go; she pulled off her shirt.
“Holy shit,” he whispered when she guided his hands to her full, soft breasts. “You’re not making this easy. Will you...will you stop and think for a second? Can we make sure this is going to be all right?”
“I won’t think,” she said. “I refuse.”
“But you might regret this later.”
She was already working on the buttons of his shirt. “Do you have birth control?”
“In my wallet.”
“Then I won’t regret it.”
He caught her wrists. “What about afterward? What about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow I can go back to trying to rebuild my life, and we can pretend this never happened. This is just a...a time-out. A onetime thing. Neither one of us is looking for a relationship, so what can it hurt? We’re both consenting adults, and we don’t have any emotional expectations.”
He had to admit she made a great case.
“Are you in?” she asked.
When he hesitated, she faltered. “Dallas? Are you saying no?”
“I’m definitely not saying no. I’m simply trying to...clarify. Are you sure you won’t be upset with yourself, or me, in the morning? You won’t be embarrassed to see me? You won’t give up your new job, leave Silver Springs and head back to your apartment to spend Christmas alone? Nothing will change?”
“I’m positive.”
She sounded so definite he knew he was going to move forward despite the fact that he probably shouldn’t.
“Then what do we have to lose?” he said, and pulled her back down on top of him before rolling her onto her back. “But I say we start over. If this is only going to happen once, there’s no way I want to race for the finish line.”
Emery had never been one for casual sex. She knew it could create all kinds of problems. Before she started seeing Ethan, she’d been so caught up in her work she hadn’t even gone out very often. She’d put up a profile on a dating site and left it there, but after meeting several of the men who contacted her, she’d grown discouraged and quit logging in or following up. She supposed that was how she fell into a relationship with Ethan—there was no one else in her life, and she got worn down from interacting with him every day.
Considering that abstinence was her typical MO, at least when she wasn’t dating someone, she couldn’t believe she was doing what she was doing with Dallas, and that she’d been the one to encourage it. This was the most sexually aggressive she’d ever been. But she guessed that she was, in part, making a statement. This was her way of flipping Ethan off for wrecking her life, her way of refusing to allow what he did, or the judgments of those who saw the video he’d posted, to stop her from enjoying her sexuality.
It didn’t hurt that Dallas was built as well as he was, that he could kiss better than anyone she’d ever kissed before or that she genuinely liked and trusted him.
They made out for so long she was beginning to wonder if he was still hesitant to go further. But once he turned his attention to the rest of her body, she understood why he’d waited. By then she was so excited, she was especially sensitive to his touch and couldn’t help gasping when his mouth moved to her breast and his fingers slid even lower.
“God, that’s good,” she whispered and let go, allowed him full access without holding back. So when he finally pushed inside her, she thought she might climax immediately. He must’ve been close to climax, too, because he lowered himself to his elbows and kissed her again. Although she enjoyed the kiss, like all the others before it, she also understood he was taking a slight break from focusing on what was going on below the waist, so
