“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting? A one-night stand?”
Maeve licks her lips. I adjust my cock under the table. Sighing, she says, “You can’t do casual, and I can’t do serious. I hate to bring a child into this, but if I’m going to keep seeing Turner as my patient, and by proxy, you, multiple times a week, this needs to go away and I think there’s only one way to put it to bed.” Her smile is soft. “Trust me, it’s not what I want either, but sometimes you have to do things for the greater good.”
Because of the insane attraction between us, it isn’t a horrible idea. A man would be shocked anytime a woman suggested something so… meaningless, though. It goes against nature, or what I’ve experienced of the opposite sex, in every way. “You think that whatever attraction we have for each other is going to go away if we fuck one time? Dr. Ahern, I didn’t take you for a fool.” I grin.
“I’m offering the lowest possible solution.” Maeve is watching my lips through narrowed eyes.
My next breath lodges in my throat. “Maeve,” I say her name, and it comes out like a plea. “There’s something else you should know.”
For the first time since we sat down, her face belies something other than lust or sympathy. “This is where you tell me something really horrible. The first story was just a cover for what comes next, huh?”
I peer around the room to make sure no one is tuned into our conversation. “I’m celibate.” Clearing my throat, I steel my nerves to look at her.
Maeve is tapping one finger against the wooden table as she examines me, but she doesn’t respond.
“Say something,” I prod.
She smiles. “I’m trying to figure out how to ask what that means. Specifics-wise, I mean. Obviously I know what it means in Merriam-Webster.”
“You just asked.” I grin, nodding. “Specifically, it means I haven’t been with a woman in any capacity since… Turner’s mom.”
Now I have her attention, her eyes widen in shock. “That has to be it. That’s the draw. You truly are an impossibility. Now in more ways than one.” Maeve shakes her head. “You’re Pandora’s Box. Midas. The candy dangling in front of a baby.”
I scrub my fingers over the scruff on my jaw. “Are you the baby?”
“How?” She ignores my rhetorical question in favor of exploring her shock.
I can’t blame her. Men like me aren’t celibate. And I don’t just mean Navy SEALs with all the means to snag any chick we want, I mean single men my age in general.
“How is that possible?”
My chest tightens. “Figured it would be best.”
“That’s why you said you don’t date,” she says, face pointed at the table in front of her. Her head whips up to me. “So, what is this?” Maeve motions between us again.
“Something too potent to deny, Maeve. Wouldn’t you agree?”
She looks away. “I can’t be the downfall of a streak that long, Lincoln.” She amends, “Assuming you’d want to have sex with me in the first place, that is.”
I scoff. “You’re kidding, right?” I lower my voice. “I want to have sex with you. More than want.”
“It’s just on principle, and not some born again virgin thing? I need more information.”
I sigh. “Definitely on principle, and because it simplified an area of my life I didn’t have time for. I have a lot going on, and dating wasn’t something I had energy for. The things that happen after dating and sex? Definitely didn’t have time for that.” I make a rash decision and lay my hand on top of hers. “But I also never had a reason to want to either.”
Maeve jerks from my touch, but doesn’t make a move to pull away.
“I asked you out because I couldn’t stop myself.” Swallowing down my nerves, I might as well tell her. “You’re a game-changer, Maeve.”
After a beat or two, she asks, “Can we do casual without sex, but with commitment?”
I widen my eyes. “That’s a peculiar question. Isn’t it usually casual with sex and without commitment?”
She shrugs and pulls her hand from mine. I see her rubbing her palm in her lap. “It is, but this situation between us doesn’t leave much to negotiate, does it?” She closes her eyes for a second or two. “I won’t be the reason you break your streak, and you can’t be the reason I fall for a man again. So that leaves us with the in-between.”
“I need more information,” I counter, using her phrase. Interesting that she says she doesn’t want to fall for a man again. At all. That’s pretty black and white, and… negative.
“I’m not seeing anyone else and from what I can tell, neither are you. There’s the commitment. As for this insane attraction between us, we get creative and… everything but sex.” Maeve chews her bottom lip. “Unless ‘everything but’ would still break your celibacy?”
“It wouldn’t,” I cut in quickly. Mostly because I’d take anything this woman is offering, but it seems she’s devised a plan we can both live with and I won’t say anything against it. Thinking about kissing her is enough to make me fuck air in anticipation. I won’t tell her that everything but sex probably won’t be everything but when we’re in the heat of the moment. “It wouldn’t be breaking anything. I agree. Let’s do it. Yes. Please.”
“That was fast,” she says, grinning, but it slides into a frown. “Lincoln.” After she says my name, she draws in a breath. “This isn’t because you’re like Rexy. I need you to know that I’m not starting anything with you because you remind me of him. I thought it might have been why, but now I know for a fact that it has nothing to do with the lure of my past.” It’s sad she
