And why was I just lying there, letting him do it?
And why couldn’t I breathe?
Or drag my eyes off him?
Or stop my heart from racing?
Or figure out why my hands were shaking?
It had to stop.
“Get off me!” I snapped.
His head popped up, confusion etched in his beautiful face.
“We can’t do this,” rushed from my mouth. The lie burned my throat.
I scrambled out from under him.
“Liv,” he called in warning—one I did not heed.
I jumped to my feet, and he quickly followed, not even pulling up his shorts before grabbing my arm to stop my getaway.
Although I wasn’t really going anywhere. We lived together. We worked together. He was my best friend. Our lives were braided together in every possible way. Where else would I go when the only place I ever wanted to be was with him?
“Talk,” Quarry gritted out.
I snatched my arm from his grip and then righted my dress. “We shouldn’t have done that.”
Straightening his shorts, he barked a laugh. “Bullshit. We should have done that months ago.”
That stung.
Months ago. What a joke.
I kept that to myself.
“Whatever the hell this is…it has to stop.”
He closed in on me, gripping my hips and lighting my betraying body. His lips dipped to mine, where he whispered, “Stop freaking out. We’re not stopping anything. This is the beginning of me and you.”
I wanted to believe him. The idea of a me and Quarry was almost enough to drown out the voice in my head shrieking that it was never going to happen. I wanted to melt into his arms and steal the safety and comfort that only existed when I was with him. I wanted to let him hold me while we talked things out and somehow let him convince me that we were as right as it had felt only minutes before.
But it wasn’t. No matter how it had felt wrapped in his arms with his mouth pressed to mine. He wasn’t mine to keep. He never had been.
“This is so wrong,” I squeaked. “You’re… Mia’s.”
His arms spasmed around me. “Excuse me?”
“I swore this would never happen. No matter how much I wanted to.” My anxiety grew with every word spoken. My chest constricted, and my hands began to tremble. “She was my best friend. You…you were hers.”
He rocked back on his heels and glided his hands up to frame my face. Tipping my head back, he rested his forehead on mine and very calmly said, “This has nothing to do with Mia. This is about you and me. And us finally starting something that it sounds like we’ve both been fighting for a long time.” He kissed me again.
But, no matter what he said and no matter how much I wanted to spend a lifetime feeling his lips pressed to mine, it could never happen.
I twisted from him before he even had a chance to react or my body had a chance to change my mind. I only made it halfway through the ropes before he was dragging me back into the ring.
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere!” I screamed at him. “Nowhere, Quarry. I’m not going any-fucking-where. I can’t walk away from you no matter how many times I should have. Which is exactly why I’m still standing here right now, your cum all but dripping down my legs. It’s the biggest slap in the face I could have ever issued Mia, alive or dead.” I threw my hands out to my sides. “And, worse, I know that and still can’t seem to just walk the fuck away!”
“Christ,” he mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Gnawing on my thumbnail, I paced a circle around him and continued. “Honestly, I can’t see how you think there could ever be an us. She wanted to kill me when we were sixteen when she even thought I wanted you. God, if she only knew the half of it! Are you insane enough to think she would ever approve of me and you together?”
“What I think right now is that you’re currently having some kind of orgasm-induced nervous breakdown.”
I stopped and glared at him. “You think this is funny?”
“Not at all. But I’m going to let you rant and rave for a little while to get all that shit you’re spouting out of your system before I wade into the quicksand in your head and pull you out.”
“You can’t pull me out! It’s the truth.”
His body went ridged, and he cracked his neck menacingly. “You done yet?”
“Stop acting like I’m freaking out for no reason. This is wrong and you know it!”
And that’s when he moved. Fast.
Charging forward, he forced us both into the corner.
“We are not wrong! We could never be wrong,” he snarled inches from my face.
“But that doesn’t mean we’re right, either.”
“She’s gone, Liv. Mia doesn’t get to approve of anything. Stop acting like she’s sitting at home while we screw around behind her back.”
“But that’s just it. If she were at home, we wouldn’t be standing here at all. Would we?”