Page 125 of Learn Your Lesson

The three-word warning echoed in my mind like a police siren, the warning clear.

But I couldn’t leave her.

I just…couldn’t.

Wordlessly, I stripped out of my pajamas, tossing them on the floor before I slowly turned the water faucetsoff. Then, I moved to stand behind Chloe, sweeping her damp hair off her neck in a silent request for permission to join.

She sat up just enough to let me slide in behind her, the massive tub fitting us easily as I lowered myself down. The water rose dangerously close to the top, but I didn’t care if it poured out and onto the floor. I wanted to be there with her — connected, touching, feeling.

Once I was settled, I pulled her flush against me.

And we both sighed.

It was like coming home, the way we melted into one another. No words were needed. Just being there together was enough.

Again, fear prickled the back of my neck, but I ignored it.

I couldn’t help the fact that I was already hard just at the sight of her, let alone the feeling of her slick body nestled up against mine. But I didn’t act on my impulse. Instead, I helped her relax into me, finding her shoulders with my hands and rubbing the tense muscles as she sighed and sank deeper into the water.

“That feels nice,” she whispered, a little moan escaping her when my thumbs worked into her rhomboids.

I kissed her hair, had a moment of panic for how easily that gesture came to me, and cleared my throat. “Rough night?”

“No, actually,” she said. “It was lovely. We played cards and had cake for Mom’s birthday.”

“But?”

She sighed. “But… yeah, I guess it was a rough night, in some ways.”

I swallowed, a moment of silence passing between us while I worked her shoulders and watched what I could see of her expression from this angle.

“Want to talk about it?”

It was something I shouldn’t have asked. While we clearly had crossed many of the original boundaries I’d made that first night in this very pool house, we had still been careful. Any time conversations ran a little too deep, one of us would change the subject or mount the other to turn our attention elsewhere.

Just like the no kissing rule, there was a reason I set the guideline that we couldn’t be friends.

Because friendship and fucking often felt a lot like a relationship. Sometimes, it felt a lot like love.

I knew from experience.

My heart thumped hard in my chest as I realized I asked because Iwantedto, because whether I liked to admit it or not, Chloe was already my friend.

She was more than that.

God, she was so much more than that.

She was…

“No,” she answered, saving me from my spiral, from the panic gripping me hard by the throat.

She covered her hands with mine, moving them lower, beneath the water, until one was cupping her breast, and the other was slipping between her thighs.

“I wantthis.”

I groaned as she moved my hands the way she wanted, rubbing herself with me as her pawn.

I knew exactly what she needed — it was what I needed, too. Not words. Not therapy.