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“Nothing in their relationship goes right.” She keeps talking. Looking at the screen, watching Redford and Fonda argue. “They don’t belong together, and they know it... but they keep trying. They don’t give up.” She looks at me, her face cast in shadows by the soft glow of the lamp on her nightstand. “They stay.”
They stay.
That’s when I get it.
That’s when I understand the full magnitude of that I’m going to do to her. What my being here, in her bed, means.
I’m going to take something from her I can never give back and then I’m going to leave her.
Get the fuck up and leave.
Right now.
Don’t do this to her.
Don’t you fucking do it.
I’ll come clean. About everything. I’ll solve the great mystery of Jaxon Bennett, and then it’ll be over. It’ll be out of my hands because she won’t want me anymore. She’ll realize I’m not the type of guy that a girl like her should be with.
Give herself to.
She’ll tell me to get out and as impossible as it might seem for me to get up and walk away, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll walk away before I do something I can’t take back.
“Claire...” I shake my head, trying to clear it. “I need to—”
She shakes her head at me. “You said whatever I wanted. Whatever I’m ready for.”
I close my eyes, try to work up the will to push myself up and off the bed.
Out of here.
I need to get out of here.
I can’t do this to her.
“I know what I said but—” The bed shifts under me, seconds before I feel her straddle my hips. The press of her knees against my ribcage. The weight of her settling in my lap. My dick goes rock hard so fast the sudden loss of blood flow to my brain makes me dizzy.
“Fuuuck...” The curse comes out on a groan, my hands coming up to settle on her hips, pulling her even closer, gripping the towel tight around her. “Claire…”
I feel the press of her breasts against my chest. Her breath on my face and I open my eyes to find her close, our mouths within an inch of each other.
“I’m not good at this,” she says. “I’m not my sister. I don’t know how to flirt. How to tease.” She rocks her hips against me, a soft, desperate whimper humming in her throat. “But I know how to ask for what I want.” She sits up and loosens the top of the towel, letting it fall so it can pool around her waist. “I’ve decided this is no different.”
She’s perfect.
Fucking perfect.
So perfect, I have to touch her to convince myself that she’s real. Reaching up, I cup a hand around one of her breasts, brushing my thumb against its nipple. It stiffens instantly, and my cock gives a hard jerk into the juncture of her thighs and her breath catches in her chest at the feel of me pressed against her. I block it all out. Decency. Reason. Common sense. I need this.
I need her.
Encouraged by my response, she smiles.
“I want you to kiss me,” she says softly, leaning in to brush her lips against mine. “I want you to touch me like you did earlier.”
“Are you sure?” Jesus, I sound like an animal. Like I’m seconds away from taking her, regardless of her answer. “You need to be sure.”
“Yes.” She pulls one of my hands free, sliding it across the top of her thigh. She kisses me, guiding my fingers along the inside of them until they hit the hot, silky center of her. “I’m sure. And this time, I don’t want you to stop.”