The effect is instantaneous and debilitating. My heart skips into overdrive when he lets out a ragged breath. I stare at his hand covering mine. So alien. So familiar. Wrong and right twisting around each other and into my stomach.
I watch in sick fascination as he rubs his thumb across my knuckles in slow motion. I want to step away, but I’m frozen. I can’t look up at him, afraid of what I’ll do. Or what he’ll do. Even through the thick leather of the jacket I can feel his heart pounding, faster than mine. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and I know that whatever happens in the next few seconds could very well undo the past eight months of cultivated aloofness.
“Cassie … he groans.”
He presses my hands more firmly against his chest, and my resolve fails. I want to pull the jacket open and press my mouth to his skin. Taste the warmth there before moving up to his neck. He seems to want it, too, because he grips my hands and pushes them beneath the fabric. When my palms press into his bare chest, he inhales so sharply, it’s like he’s in pain.
I close my eyes and seek the strength to stop. I have to. I can’t be like this again. Desperate and needy. The obstacles keeping us apart haven’t changed. Especially not him.
I open my eyes to meet his gaze. It’s searing. Dark and intense and way too compelling.
Resolve, where are you when I need you?
This isn’t him wanting me back. It’s just him wanting me. And me wanting him. Pounding hearts and hormones screaming at us.
I move my hands over his chest and feel the fast pulse beneath it, looking for an excuse to let this happen. To allow me to have his body without needing anything more. To relieve the aching sexual frustration that’s haunted me since the day we broke up.
But there’s no excuse. No alternate reality in which this would make things anything but immeasurably worse.
I curl my fingers into his muscles before I snap back to reality. Finding strength I didn’t know I had, I pull away, embarrassed and irritated. I hate that I’m practically boneless with desire. That one fleeting touch from him can still affect me so completely.
I stare at him and try to find my voice.
He stares back, apparently just as shocked.
“What the hell was that?” Adrenaline is storming through my veins, making me hot and shaky.
He blinks and shakes his head. Angry. With himself or me?
“I have no idea.” His jaw flexes, and he drops his head. “That was fucking stupid. I … I shouldn’t have—”
“No, you shouldn’t.”
He snaps his head up to look at me. Definitely angry with me this time. “I didn’t see you stepping back too quickly. You were breathing just as hard as I was.”
“That doesn’t mean you can … that we should—” I rake my fingers through my hair. “Goddammit, Ethan, we’re supposed to be past this by now! I shouldn’t feel this way when—”
“When what?”
“When you’re near me! When you touch me. You can’t just … do that to me.”
“Believe me, I know the feeling.”
I throw my hands up. “I didn’t do anything!”
“You don’t need to. Just fucking existing is enough to completely ruin me.”
The sadness in his tone makes me pause, but it doesn’t make me any less angry.
“Whatever,” I say as I try to unzip my dress. “Forget it.”
He pulls off his jacket and says, “What the fuck do you think I’ve been trying to do all year?”
The bodice of the dress seems to tighten like a python, squeezing me to the point of asphyxiation. “Get this damn thing undone.”
I turn so he can unzip me, and when he does, I stalk into the dressing room. I rip off the dress and pull my bra and shirt back on. Then I gather up my stuff and throw back the curtain. He’s standing there watching me, like he’s about to apologize or something.
I pause. We stare at each other. No apology is forthcoming.
Of course not.
Freaking typical.
“Oh, hey, guys.”
We both turn to see Jack Avery, holding an armful of costumes. “Oh, wow, did I interrupt something? Need some privacy? Or condoms?”
I make a disgusted noise and push past him. “Shut up, Jack.”
As I walk down toward the exit, I hear Avery say, “Dude, are you still pretending she doesn’t have you totally and completely whipped? How fucking deluded are you?”
As I reach the door, Holt says, “For once I agree with Cassie, Avery. Shut the fuck up.”
Hours later, when I get home, I’m still tingling from the memory of my hands on his chest. They crave to feel him again. Want more of him beneath them.
I groan and collapse onto my bed, frustrated beyond belief.
Indifference? Yeah, right.
I have no freaking idea what that word means.
My only consolation is that neither does Ethan.
THIRTEEN
AVOIDANCE
Present Day
New York City, New York
The Apartment of Cassandra Taylor
I snuggle into the warmth beside me.
Hmmm. Boy. Soft skin. Smells good.
Ethan?
An arm wraps around me and I snuggle further, reliving the memory of lips and tongue. It wakes me up from the inside, making me greedy for more.
I put my hand on his stomach. Feel the taut muscles there. So many muscles.
Wait. Too many muscles.