“Probably?” She choked out a laugh. “I almost married your brother, Dylan.”
“And yet somehow that doesn’t seem to bother me anymore.”
“Right. Somehow.” She snorted. “It’s easy to overlook the reasons you shouldn’t do something when you want it badly enough.”
“And you don’t?”
“I don’t what?”
“Want it.” His lips quirked. “Because you’ve been giving off come-hither signals since the second you saw that box of condoms.”
“Again with the come-hither signals? You really like saying the words come-hither, huh?”
“And you’re deflecting. Answer the question. Do you want to have sex with me?”
His frankness was oddly thrilling. So was the way he slid closer, eliminating the distance between them. He moved the box of provisions out of the way, then scooted even closer, and Claire’s heart began to race. Their thighs were touching, his covered by sweatpants, hers bare thanks to her short-shorts, and the heat of his body sizzled her flesh, eliciting a rush of excitement that rippled through her blood.
“Yes, no, maybe?” he prompted.
It was in that moment that Claire realized how honesty might be considered a weakness rather than a strength, because the word “Yes” slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it.
But damn it, she did want this. Dylan had set her entire body on fire from that one measly kiss—she could only imagine what he was capable of doing to her if they were naked.
Maybe it made her a mega slut and a terrible person, but she really, really wanted to find out.
As his mouth curved in a satisfied smile, Dylan brought his hand to her face and stroked her cheek with his thumb.
“You’re always blushing.” He cocked his head pensively. “Is that blush limited to your cheeks, though? Or do other parts of you get nice and rosy too? Maybe here, you think?”
He glided his fingers along the curve of her neck and down to her collarbone.
As if on cue, heat suffused her chest.
“Oh, that’s nice.” His green eyes were focused intently on the flush rising just above the neckline of her tank top.
The pads of his fingers were rough, callused, creating a gentle scrape over her skin as he caressed the upper swell of her breasts.
“This is crazy,” she murmured.
“Probably.”
“Definitely.”
He withdrew his hand. “I’ll stop then.”
Disappointment spiraled through her, and God help her, but her lips formed a squeaky protest. Yes, this was crazy. Yes, sleeping with Chris’s brother would be highly inappropriate. But she wanted it to happen. She needed it to happen.
“Claire?” His expression was expectant.
“You know the night I caught you kissing Aidan?” she heard herself blurting out.
“How can I forget?” he said dryly.
“That night…what I saw…” She tried to articulate her jumbled thoughts. “The two of you were completely wrapped up in each other, oblivious to the world around you. It was passionate and intense and it made me kind of sad because I’d never experienced anything that even came close to that.” She swallowed. “And I was so turned on afterwards.”
He looked incredibly intrigued. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
His voice lowered to a husky pitch. “Did you make yourself come when you went back to your room?”
“Yes.”
A groan rumbled out of his chest. “Aw, fuck, Claire, that’s hot. You were fingering yourself while I was in the living room twenty feet away?”
“Yes.”
She should have been mortified confessing all this to him, yet it was impossible to feel embarrassed when Dylan was looking at her with such unadulterated lust. When her gaze lowered to his groin, she made out the unmistakable ridge of his erection, and a resulting rush of moisture soaked her panties.
“Did you come hard?” he rasped. “Was it good?”
She met his sultry gaze. “It was the best orgasm I’ve ever had.”
“Hmmm. Challenge accepted.”
“Of course you’d see that as a challenge,” she said with shaky laugh. “But yeah…watching the two of you like that…it showed me what I was lacking in my own life.”
“Where are you going with this?”
She inhaled a deep breath. “I guess what I’m saying is that I want to experience…well, passion.” A wry note entered her voice. “And since we’re trapped in here for the next couple of hours, I guess having sex wouldn’t be a totally preposterous idea.”
“Are you trying to convince me, or yourself? Because I was on board from the second you pulled out those condoms.”
The grin he flashed her was contagious. “That’s because you’re a man. Women need some time to rationalize before they jump into things.”
“So are you done rationalizing?”
She pondered that. “I think so.”
“Good. Now come here and kiss me.”