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33

SCARLETT

M ellow satisfaction hangs on every limb while I slowly wake up. It’s like I’ve had the best, most restful sleep of my life.

There’s a warm, firm, solid pressure against my back. I don’t know what it is, my brain is still foggy and only just stepped out of sleep, but I don’t care. It feels too good for me to care. Warmth is radiating from whatever it is, enveloping my body with comfort.

There’s something under my shirt. A gentle, supportive pressure right against …

Then the memories flood back, switching my brain fully awake.

It’s Lane’s hand under my shirt, cupping my boob. It’s Lane pressed against my back, making me the little spoon against his massive body.

And his finger was inside me last night, working me to an orgasm that made me see stars.

My eyes snap open.

Lane’s breaths are still shallow and rhythmic. He’s still asleep.

Shit. What the hell was I thinking last night? Shamelessly grinding my ass against his cock and then downright begging him to finger me?

I wasn’t thinking, that’s what happened.

When I woke up in the middle of the night and felt myself pressed against Lane, felt the lines of his hard muscles against my back, felt the pressure of his hard cock against my ass … I lost control. My brain short-circuited, and my better judgment was utterly swamped by the raw, throbbing need between my legs.

What’s Lane going to think when he wakes up? Is he going to take last night as an invitation to enter into some kind of roommates with benefits deal?

I know I couldn’t do that without becoming attached again. And I know attachment isn’t what he wants. I found that out for sure eighteen months ago.

I feel Lane stir to life behind me. His body rustles, and his breathing shrugs out of its even rhythm. He clears his throat, rolls his neck …

And squeezes.

He gives my tit a quick, firm squeeze. Electricity shoots through me, fire curling between my legs. My breath gets trapped in my throat, and for a long moment, I’m frozen.

Then, like he suddenly realizes what he’s doing, he draws back his hand quickly. The lack of his touch is like a sprinkle of cold water, even though I know that Lane Larsen touching my boob is the last thing in the world I need.

It might feel good now, but it’s fatally dangerous for the organ beating behind my chest.

Lane rolls away from me, sitting up. He makes rumbly, throaty groans as he cracks his neck. I’d love to keep lying here and appreciate them, but I think it’s best if we rip this Band-Aid off as soon as possible.

I sit up next to him. He turns to me, and my brain scrambles. His eyes are ringed with a sleepy look, his hair all tousled and matted, a dreamy drowsiness softening the hard angles of his face.

“Morning,” he says. The crooked grin he slants at me has my heart leaping to my throat and weighing down my tongue.

I recover and remember what I just told myself. Band-Aid. Rip. Fast.

“About what happened last night,” I blurt out.

A shadow crosses over Lane’s sleep-clogged eyes, but it’s hard to read.

“It was,” I begin, but then stumble over my words—because it was what ? “It didn’t mean anything. We weren’t thinking straight. Maybe we both had dirty dreams and they made us lose our minds momentarily.” I try to force a laugh, but it sounds shrill and too high. “It didn’t mean anything,” I repeat, wondering who I’m trying to convince. “Let’s not think about it again. It was just a weird one-time thing.”

Lane’s lips tug down. It’s easy to read the disappointment in his eyes. I get it. Maybe he thought we’d regularly hook up from now on. That he’d have a convenient booty call literally next door.

That’s probably exactly what he wants. But a no-strings-attached friends with benefits deal with Lane is never going to work for my heart.

“Weird one-time thing,” Lane repeats my words with a flat inflection.

I nod. “Right. Let’s just forget it happened. I don’t want things to change between us.”

Lane’s silent for a beat, his glare boring into me. Then he shrugs, and something changes in his demeanor like a switch was flipped.

“I’ve forgotten about it already. What were we talking about?”

I force a smile, because that should be exactly what I want to hear, but I only wish I could ignore how damn disappointed I feel.

Maybe I should go on a date.

My life has been nothing but a whirlwind since arriving in Cedar Shade.

Moving into my first place, the flood, seeing Lane again, moving in with him, adjusting to living with a house full of hockey boys while getting used to classes at a highly rigorous college, becoming friends with Harper.

I haven’t had a thought to spare for dating or hooking up or anything like that.

But maybe it’s time.

I mean, who am I kidding? There’s no maybe about it. I’m a twenty-two-year-old college student. Of course I should be dating. The utter lack of it in my life is probably partially why I get wound so tight around Lane.

If I had a boyfriend, or even a regular hook-up partner, I would’ve had a different bed to go to than Lane’s last night, and I wouldn’t have ended up coming all over his fingers and making my heart even more confused.

“Hey, Scarlett, what do you think about a double date?”

My brow leaps at Harper’s question as she sits on the other side of the table from me at Last Word, the café-slash-bookshop downtown.

It’s like she’s read my mind—or maybe fate is giving me a push in the right direction.

“Like, us going on one?” I ask.

Harper nods. “Yeah. There’s this guy I’ve been sort of flirting with in my psychology class. He mentioned a friend of his who broke up with his girlfriend at the end of last semester and is ready to start dating again. Kind of implied that if I had a friend the four of us could go out together.”

An instinctive hesitantly tugs at me, but I push it away. One date is one date, and I need to make the first step. Put one foot in front of the other. Being stagnantly single while I pine hopelessly after my roommate isn’t a healthy situation to trap myself in.

“What the hell?” I say. “Let’s do it.”