Desperate to cling to the physical intensity between us rather than the emotional.
Desperate to think of some way to convince myself that what we were doing was OK.
Desperate to suppress the wellspring of romantic hope beginning to bubble up inside me.
I can’t love him again.
I can’t.
And I won’t.
I just had to keep telling myself that.
When his body had stilled, Nick picked up his head from my shoulder. “Oops.”
I smiled, still grasping the top of the fridge. “Oops.”
“It’s hotter than fuck in here. Is the oven on?”
“Yes. We were supposed to bake a cake, remember?” I let go and held on to his shoulders as he swung around and set me on the island again, the mixing bowl banging into a cupboard when he accidentally kicked it.
“Oh yeah.” He kissed me on the temple. “This was a better idea. Good thinking.”
“It wasn’t my idea, Mr. Let’s Be Friends.”
He pulled back slightly to look at me. “You didn’t want to be friends either, Coco. Admit it.
Friends don’t grab each other’s business the way you did.”
“Can we please not have an argument right now? You’re still inside me, for fuck’s sake.”
One side of his mouth hooked up. “Sorry. Want to call it a draw?”
“I guess we could. Just this once.”
Amazingly enough, somehow getting the whole will-we-or-won’t-we question out of the way made me much more relaxed than I’d been when I’d knocked on his door earlier tonight. Even though I had no idea what this would do to our “friendship,” it felt unbelievably good to quit pretending we weren’t still attracted to each other. It was a relief, really. And as long as we didn’t break rules one and two, I felt certain that I could keep my emotions in check even if I let my sex drive run a bit wild. This weekend was like a little vacation from reality—a trip to the past, that’s all. I could handle it.
Fucking time travel.
How cool was that?
Nick showed me where the downstairs bathroom was, and I cleaned up and washed my hands, observing my red cheeks and mussed hair in the mirror over the vessel sink and waterfall faucet. But I felt no guilt, none at all. After all, we were single, friendly, and familiar with each other. It was like watching my favorite movie again or rereading my favorite book. Pure pleasure—nothing more.
When I was done, I looked for my suitcase by the door, but it was gone. Had Nick taken it upstairs? I went up to the loft, reaching the top of the stairs just as Nick was about to come down.
“Hey.” He’d wet and combed his hair, the vainglorious ass, but he was still bare-chested and flushed in the face.
“Hey.” Now that I wasn’t so distracted, I could better admire all the new ink he’d gotten. His entire right shoulder and arm were covered; the other arm had tattoos on the bicep and forearm; he had my name on the left side of his chest and something on the right side of his rib cage. Most of it was plain black ink except for a few spots of color on the right arm. My heartbeat quickened. “I like all the new tattoos.”
“Thanks. I carried your suitcase up. You can sleep up here tonight. The sheets are clean. I’ll sleep on the bean bag downstairs.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nick, please. Now that we’ve broken the sex rule, I think it’s OK to sleep in the same bed.”
His eyes lit up. “Does that mean we can break it again?”
I eyeballed him through half-mast lids. “I haven’t decided yet. Don’t push your luck. Unzip me please?” Turning around, I lifted my hair off my neck.
“Sure.” He pulled the zipper down slowly, all the way to my tailbone. Then he traced a line with one finger from the base of my neck to my bra strap, sending gooseflesh up my arms. When he stopped there without taking his hand off me, I smiled.
“You can undo it.”
With a deft one-handed motion, he unhooked the strap and I inhaled deeply, my chest expanding. “Thanks.”
His hands slid inside my dress, spreading it open to reveal my shoulder blades. “You covered it.”
“What?”
“My name. Our wedding date.”
“Oh.” Dropping my hair, I turned around to see him looking sadder than he had a right to be. I swallowed. “Yes.”
“Can I see?”
I hesitated. “I guess so. Sure.” Turning around, I gathered my hair over one shoulder and stood still. He opened the back of the dress again, gently pushing the sleeves and the bra straps down my arms. I felt naked, which was silly, since he’d seen me naked for real probably hundreds of times, maybe a thousand. Actually, it wasn’t that I felt naked. I felt judged—and the verdict was guilty.
Nick’s fingers brushed over the two matching swallows, one on each shoulder blade. “They’re beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
He was silent, and for some reason I felt like apologizing. I’m sorry was on the tip of my tongue, as though I owed him permanent real estate on my body. I don’t, I thought, biting my lip. I didn’t then and I don’t now and this moment needs to be over.
“Mind if I slip into something more comfortable?” I shot him a coy look over my shoulder, dismayed to find him looking pensive and a little heartbroken.
“Huh? Oh, no, of course not.” He replaced his forlorn expression with an impish smile. “You can walk around naked if you want to.”