A light breeze swept across the lawn, and the ends of her dress swayed to reveal a hint of her thighs and the freckles that trailed up her legs. What would it be like to just slide his hands from her heels, up her calves, then just up, up, up...
“Dash?” Sophie’s voice cut through his thoughts. He swallowed his desire and looked up, only to realize she’d been watching him, too.
The problem was that absolutely ridiculous red floral minidress she’d worn for their road trip. Ridiculous because it was short enough to highlight her curvy legs, and the sweetheart neckline was doing an excellent job of emphasizing her breasts. He could almost see the faint buds through the fabric...
“I’ll come over when the speech is done, and we can run through it, okay?” She clearly wanted to leave, and he was the one who had a problem now.
He had no one to blame but himself, seeing as how he’d firmly planted the just friends stake in the ground. So he nodded a reply. But as she turned to walk up the steps to her place, he found he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. The truth bubbled out of him like lava: hot, thick, and unstoppable.
“I don’t know that I can be friends with you,” he called out to her.
She turned back and her mouth hung open, maybe in surprise. “What?”
Exactly. What was he thinking? Well, he wasn’t thinking was the problem. He was just letting his feelings do the talking, which he never normally did but he found he couldn’t stop them from gushing out now that he’d opened the hose. “I don’t know how this is going to work. I mean, look at you.”
She looked down at her dress, then back up at him. “I looked,” she said. “What are you saying here, Dash?”
Ugh, and the way she said his damn name, like the mention of him tasted sweet on her tongue. Why had he thought, even for a minute, that he’d be able to turn off his attraction and just go on like nothing had happened between them?
He couldn’t. Maybe he’d been single and sexless for too long, or he wanted more of the adrenaline he’d felt from kissing her, but he couldn’t just be around her and not touch her.
“How can we be friends when I know what you taste like?” He was more than a little amazed by his own bluntness, but her mouth was sweet citrus, and he wanted a little bit of that for himself.
She swallowed, tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then looked up at him. A kind of steady flame had settled in her eyes, so when she spoke, heat came out with her words. “You don’t know what I taste like. Not really.”
His eyes instinctively darted down her ridiculously short dress. No, he didn’t know what she tasted like everywhere, but his dick really wanted him to find out.
“You’re right, maybe we can’t be friends. But maybe we can be friends who...” She licked her lips as her gaze traveled up his body, lingered slightly at his chest, then eventually met his eyes.
His breath caught. He wanted nothing more than to get on his knees, pull down her panties, and explore her with his tongue, but he couldn’t let himself get close to her that way...not unless she wanted him.
“We’re both adults and clearly attracted to each other.” She smoothed her hands down her dress. “We can just get this out of our systems so it’s not a big thing. We don’t need a full-blown relationship. No one has to know about it. No commitments, just sex.”
Dash’s jaw had maybe completely unhinged itself and he must’ve stared at her with a dumbfounded expression, because she started talking again.
“Or I’ve just totally humiliated myself, and I’ll ask you to forget the conversation entirely. I’ll walk back to my place, and we can return to not talking to each other.” She ran a hand through her hair, which was in a messy bun, and her fingers got caught at the hair tie and then she had to awkwardly extract them. She let out an exasperated sigh.
He couldn’t help but laugh. Did she seriously think he didn’t want the exact same thing?
“Dash, it’s not funny!” Her fingers furiously tried to fix her hair as she spoke.
“Do you actually think that I could even—for a second—not want to touch you?” He took a step toward her. Her head shot up, and she eyed him.
Part of him knew he should go home and leave her alone, but he couldn’t just forget her. Sophie had been the first person he’d felt genuinely attracted to since getting sober. She’d gotten him out of his routine and given him space to see what life could be like if he let other people in, and he had those pesky feelings for her.
Maybe they could stay friends, with the bonus of sex. If he cut Sophie off now, he wasn’t sure how he’d react, but if he kept her in his orbit, he could continue to let whatever this was run its course safely.
So when he moved to her and took her face in his hands, he asked hopefully, “Are you sure about this?”
She nodded, and he brought her mouth to his. There was nothing soft about his approach this time—no more tentative kisses to gauge how eager she was. He knew she wanted this just as much as he did. And he needed more of her. She wrapped her arms around his neck to pull them closer, and a little moan escaped her lips as the needy centers of them met.
His mouth traveled across her chin and to her neck, where he lightly traced his tongue down the length of her collarbone and in between her cleavage. He traced a finger across the scar on her chest before lightly kissing the spot. “Will you tell me about this someday?”
“Yes, but right now I just need you to take my clothes off,” she breathed out.
Then he pulled at the sleeves of her dress, and she helped him maneuver her arms out of it, letting the fabric fall and rest at her waist.
“You wore this just to mess with me, didn’t you?” he asked as he trailed his fingertips lightly across her shoulder.
She shivered under his touch as she said, “Yes, yes, I absolutely did.”
“You’ll pay for that.”
“Prove it,” she said.
And so he would. He pulled at the fabric of her lace bra, took her breast in his hand, and gently licked the nub of her nipple. Then he tugged, and she let out a small, “Oh, God,” as he sucked her into his mouth.
“You taste so good.” She was soft but perky for him, and his fingers claimed her flesh greedily. She grabbed a fistful of his hair as he brought the bud to his mouth again.
He glanced around the property, which was surrounded by hedges. His space was private, even though they were in the middle of the city. Plus, he didn’t see the point of going inside, not when the sun had turned her skin golden and warm.
He carefully knelt in the grass in front of her, pushed her dress up, and saw the most absurd pair of panties he’d ever laid eyes on.
“Little pink hearts?” He looked up, and she grinned wickedly back.
“Look closer. They have smiley faces, too.” Her hand found his hair, and she pulled at the ends.
He hooked his thumbs under the top edge of those panties and pulled them off slowly.