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I didn’t know this was how I’d react to us touching, though maybe I should have known, given I went fucking wobbly just looking at her from a distance.

“You know, if you wanted to sit on me, you could have just asked,” I said.

“I promise I’m not trying to sit on you,” she said.

“And yet…” But instead of getting her mad enough to get the hell off me, her lips twisted, like she was trying not to laugh again. For a moment, that vision of her in the imaginary hotel room flashed in my mind, her lips parting as she looked at me. She’d been naked in that fantasy.

My pants tightened. Goddammit.

“I’ll help you?” I asked, looking away as if she could see right through me.

“No, I can do it,” she said, pushing off my chest. She shifted, and then her knee connected with my crotch, sending a searing pain shooting through me. I yelped, then nearly smashed faces with her as I bent forward.

“Oh no,” she said.

At least my hard-on was gone. The pain had seen to that. But enough was enough. “I’m going to move you,” I said, still grimacing as the bad kind of lightning shot from my boys. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

I twisted toward her and for a moment her face was in my throat, her breath on my skin. If my dick wasn’t mortally wounded, I’d be turned on.

But it was, and I couldn’t think about that now. Instead, I slipped my arm under her knees and back and lifted her over to her cushion.

She gripped the armrest next to her, staying still for now. “I think I’m safe,” she said, after a moment.

But was I?

“You two all right?” a woman’s voice asked.

I looked up, still melting in the pain that radiated from my crotch.

“Fine,” I squeezed out.

Michelle nodded. “Great! Thank you.”

“Can I get you lovebirds anything to drink?”

“We’re not—” I began, but Michelle cleared her throat, shooting me daggers

“A beer please.”

“And for you?” the waitress asked me.

“Same,” I said, even though suddenly I wanted to leap to my feet—if I could—and bolt.

When she left, Michelle turned to me. “What is your problem?”

“I wasn’t made for this kind of couch. And you kneed me in the crotch.”

“I…” she huffed, and for a moment a look passed over her face that I knew wasn’t frustration. It was defeat. She turned her eyes to the ground. Shit.

There I was, being an ass once again.

“Michelle, I—”

“No,” she said. “This was stupid. I should never have come.”

“No,” I said, my voice hard enough that she looked back up again. “I’m sorry. I’m… Sometimes I’m not great around people I… women…”