Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,69

thought he was in the beginning, and I’d never thought of him as the kind of asshole who’d leverage someone into bed. That wasn’t him. I just couldn’t quite stop that question from tugging at the back of my mind: could I really say no?

Yes, I could. I was sure I could. That stupid voice just wouldn’t shut up about it.

The other nagging question was what happened when this was all over? How much of this newfound closeness was going to carry over into whatever came next? How was I going to feel when the scientists gave the green light, the restrictions were lifted, and Casey reactivated his Tinder profile?

My heart sank even deeper. I was letting myself get way more into Casey than I should, and if I wanted to avoid getting hurt when the pandemic was over, I needed to start easing away from him.

This had gone from a marriage of convenience to a friend-slash-fuck-buddy fling of convenience. It was no different than combat—you didn’t have to like the guy next to you during downtime, but you were damn sure BFFs when the mortars started flying. That was how people stayed alive.

And no matter how much I wanted to believe there was something really happening between Casey and me, the fact was, this wasn’t love. It was trench warfare.

Closing my eyes, I exhaled. I wanted him so fucking bad. I was hooked on the sex, but I’d also finally gotten a look at who Casey was when he didn’t have walls up and wasn’t speaking through clenched teeth. While I’d worked for him, I’d mused a few times to myself that it was no wonder he only did hookups, because I couldn’t imagine anyone would want to be this guy’s boyfriend.

Oh, but I could imagine it now. Wanting him to be happy. Living for anything that could make him smile or laugh. Melting a little every time I saw him cuddling our cat. Getting goose bumps every time he gave me a look or a touch that said I’d be sweating and out of breath before too much longer. Needing to do something for him when he was upset so he’d be happy again.

What wasn’t to love about this, aside from the circumstances that had shoved us together—and kept us together—in the first place?

And that niggling voice still had to chime in and make me question if, under the circumstances, I could say no to Casey. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but could I?

I sighed into the stillness and rubbed my eyes as I reminded myself again that of course I could. Casey wasn’t going to hold his military benefits over my head if I didn’t put out. That wasn’t like him, and he especially wouldn’t do it during a pandemic. I was just overthinking things. Again.

Beside me, he murmured something in his sleep and rolled over. His back was to me now, and I couldn’t resist—I slid closer and molded myself to him.

I should roll away. In fact, I should go sleep in my own bed.

The heat of his body felt good, and his familiar scent was soothing, but goddamn, this hurt too. I wasn’t worried about leading him on since I already knew where I stood with him—sex during lockdown was all this would ever be—but that wasn’t stopping me from leading myself on.

So what the hell was I supposed to do? If I put a stop to it, then I’d lose the only closeness and human contact I had for the foreseeable future. Plus things would get a lot weirder between us than they’d been before we’d started chipping away at the ice and, eventually, screwing.

But if I let it continue, then I was just going to get in deeper and get way more attached to Casey than I already was. And God help me, I was already way more attached to him than I had any business being.

Fact was, if we kept doing this, I was going to fall for him. Hard.

If we stopped, then I’d have no human contact at all until the pandemic was over, and I’d lose everything that had grown between us lately—the banter, the downtime, the sex, the quiet company.

And it would hurt like hell.

Because fuck me, I’d already fallen for him.

Chapter 19

Casey

“Ugh.” I put the two-liter of Pepsi back in the fridge. “I know we’re short on money, but even with going to the beach or out to eat sometimes, this cabin fever is