on this. None of this. I just . . .” Lowering her hand, she stared at him. “I felt empty inside and I . . . I wanted to not feel empty. So these ideas . . . they kind of came to me. The tattoo. The thing with Roger.”
Slowly, Zach pushed up into a sitting position, his eyes narrowing on her face. Drawing his knees upright, he braced his elbows on them and continued to watch her. “The photographers . . . not worrying. All of that sounds fine. What’s to get mad about?”
“I also planned on having an affair.”
A muscle jerked in his jaw and something dark moved through his eyes. But to her surprise, it wasn’t anger that she got from him. “Abby, you’re thirty years old . . . that’s plenty old enough for an affair.”
“Except I can’t think about anybody else anymore,” she snapped, glaring at him. “The past few weeks all I can think about is you. And I can’t have a damned affair with you. You’re my best friend. I love you and I can’t—”
He rolled off the bed and the words lodged in her throat as he came prowling across the carpet toward her.
When he reached out and caught her arms in his hands, the book fell from numb hands to bounce onto the carpet. Abigale barely even noticed. “Why not?” he murmured, stroking his thumb along the skin of her arm.
Who in the hell would ever have believed such a simple touch could be so amazing? But it was . . . it was like he was stroking her everywhere else, all at once. “Why not what?” she asked, dazed.
“Why not have an affair with me?” His hair fell around them as he lowered his head and caught her mouth. Right before he kissed her, he muttered, “I think I’ve made it pretty damn clear that I want you like hell.”
“But . . .”
He stole the breath from her with a kiss. “But what?”
“We’re friends, Zach.”
“Yes.” He eased her closer and the feel of him against her was nothing she could even describe. One hand slid around to press against her back, his fingers splayed wide and she shuddered at the feel of it.
“I . . .” She shook her head and said, “I don’t want some friends with benefits thing with you. You’re my best friend and I . . .” Her voice trailed off because she just didn’t know what else to say.
“Friends with benefits . . .” He laughed, hooking his other arm around her neck. “Sugar . . . friends with benefits is too casual for the kind of friendship we have. The kind we’ve always had. But I still want you.”
He boosted her up into his arms and reflexively, she wrapped her legs around him, groaning at the feel of him between her thighs.
Staring down at him as he carried her back over to the bed, she tried to let her brain catch up to everything that was happening, but it just didn’t seem possible. He lay her down and bent over her, watching her with a stark, hungry look on his face as he started to drive his hips against hers.
Heat streaked through her and she gasped, reaching up and catching onto his arms, her fingers digging into the swell of muscle there. “Zach!”
He drove his hips against hers again and again and she was so damned wet, she could feel the fabric of her skirt sliding back and forth over her slick flesh. It was so damned erotic, it sent every last nerve ending aflame.
“Do you feel that, sugar?” he demanded, hunkering down over her and catching her chin in his hand. “Nothing casual . . . not in what we have friendship-wise, and not what I want from you. You want to live? You want to have an affair? Do it with me, Abby. I’ll make love to you and leave myself branded on your skin and when you’re ready, if you want to walk, you can walk. But nothing will change our friendship or what I feel for you.”
* * *
Her eyes were glassy as she stared up at him. Slowing down to a stop, Zach cradled her face in his hands and brushed his thumb over the curve of her lower lip. “Abby . . .”
“Zach.” Her lids fluttered down and for a long moment, she lay there, her breath coming in hot little pants, her breasts heaving under his chest.