Panting, I rock my hips, seeking out his touch in an act of sheer desperation. His fingers connect with me in a burst of heat. The fire in me licks higher, burns brighter.
He works me over, stroking my clit, squeezing my ass, then slamming those lips to mine.
I’m hemmed in by desire, by the sweet torment of touch everywhere. Of the way he drives mad pleasure through me, and the way I need it, crave it.
Lust claws at me.
I feel out of control, wild and animalistic.
I feel like I’m losing my mind. Losing my reason, my logic, my inhibitions.
I feel like I never want any of them back.
As he crushes his lips to mine, thrusts his fingers inside me, sweeps his thumb across my clit, and grabs my ass, I nearly die of bliss.
My climax seizes me, taking hold of my body, my mind.
It shakes me to my bones. He breaks the kiss, and I cry out, gasping his name, God’s name, every name.
I don’t even know what I’m saying.
I’m only feeling.
Feeling ecstasy vibrating from my core out through every cell.
At some point, who knows when, we separate, and I am a noodle.
A spent noodle.
I blink up at him, and he stares at me with a new intensity in his dark-blue eyes.
Yes, that was intense.
But it was intense because I trust him. Because he’s discovering me. We’re discovering how we are together.
He swallows roughly, his eyes flickering with passion. “What have you done to me?”
My throat tightens with emotion, with the need to touch him, to be touched. “What have you done to me?”
He shakes his head, maybe in disbelief, then he dips his face near my ear, brushing his cheek against mine. “Need to get close to you right now, sweetheart. Want to be inside you.”
Desire squeezes my chest. “Yes. Please. God, yes.”
He steps out of the shower, grabs a condom, and returns to me.
The water still beats down on us as he slides the condom on his cock, wraps my leg around his hip, and tells me to hold on.
Then he slides into me.
We gasp at the same time.
We stare at each other in the same way.
And when he sinks into me, we’re both feeling it—something else. Something new.
I might not know much about sex.
I might never have been in love.
But I know this much. Somehow I’ve fallen for him. Hard, fast, relentlessly.
I’m pretty sure it’s the same way for him.
That’s how he fucks me in the shower.
Like he wants me, like he needs me, and like he’s as utterly floored by what’s happened in a week as I am.
When he reaches the edge and I follow him there, coming again, coming together, I don’t want to stop.
I don’t want us to stop.
And I don’t want to pretend at all, not one bit.
Maybe he doesn’t either, since he cups my cheeks, presses his forehead to mine, and whispers, “I’m so crazy about you, Nadia.”
My heart flutters wildly. “I’m pretty mad about you, Crosby. And there’s nothing accidental about it.”
He laughs softly, then his laughter fades. “What the hell are we going to do about this?”
I shrug. “Wash my hair, then let’s get some breakfast and figure out what kind of frocktangular mess we’ve made of our friends-with-benefits plan.”
“It’s a fuckerrific mess, that’s for sure.”
27
Crosby
I know three things right now.
These eggs at Helen’s Organic Café around the corner from Nadia’s place are moan-inducing.
The tea is life-giving.
And the woman across from me is quite possibly the reason I’ve picked the wrong women for ages.
Was I waiting for Nadia all along? Had I already met the right woman when we were younger, so I torpedoed everything else with terrible choices?
I’d bet I did. Everything about Nadia feels right.
We laugh. We talk. We connect. We share.
And we smolder.
She’s a friend and a lover.
This thing we’re doing right now? Eating breakfast after making love? After that kind of sex, that kind of soul-deep intimacy?
Hell, I want it. I want it with her—badly.
But something nags at me from the back of my mind.
Several somethings.
The deal I made with her brother. The same one I made with Gabe and the guys too.
It’s the same promise I made to myself. A few weeks ago, I was so fed up with my own poor judgment that I asked my friends to be the rubber band I snap on my wrist to break my bad habit. Because I’m tired of wading through my own relationship wreckage.
I know I don’t make the best choices.
That’s the crux of the issue.
What if this choice—wanting to be with Nadia—is another disastrous decision, only I don’t know it yet? Like I didn’t realize Camille was bad news? Like I didn’t know Daria would be terrible for me?
Here I am untangling from the remnants of girlfriends past, and while Nadia isn’t one bit like my ex-girlfriends, I’m still me. I’m the one who needs fixing, needs a hard reset.
I don’t want whatever this thing is with Nadia to backfire simply because I have a bad track record.
I set down my fork, then drag a hand through my hair. “I don’t know what to do.”
She blinks, as if shifting mental gears, but she asks, “About what?” like she already suspects the answer. Maybe she’s been thinking in the same circles.
“About how the hell we became a we in a week.”
She shrugs a little helplessly. “I know. I came to town to focus on the team. You needed a break from relationships.” She scoffs lightly. “And now look at us.”
I slide my hand across the table, gripping hers. “I don’t know if I should trust myself. A few weeks ago, I was telling your brother how I was radioactive. That I needed to detox. And that’s what scares the shit out of me.”
“Detoxing?” she asks, a little confused.
I shake my head. “No. That I needed to do one thing, but I did the opposite.
