it feel real.” He kisses me one last time. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I shower quickly, keeping my hair pinned up so it won’t get wet, and after some consideration, put on one of Grayson’s knit sweaters and nothing else. I walk out of the bathroom to find that he’s changed the bedding and is now reading propped up against the headboard. I hold out my arms. “What do you think?”
“Perfect.” He tosses my e-reader onto the foot of the bed. “I’m turning in early, baby. Why don’t you go read out in the living room until you get tired enough to join me?”
So we’re starting now. Even knowing this is playing out a fantasy, it feels so real. How many times over the years have we had a variation of this same conversation? Countless. I often stay up late reading, especially on weekends and vacation. Even vacations where we have Derek accompanying us.
I scoop up the device and come around to give him a quick kiss. “Sleep well, Grayson. I’ll be quiet when I come back in.”
“Don’t worry about it. You know how heavy I sleep.” He smiles against my lips. “Take your time.”
I half expect to find Derek in the living room already, but it’s as empty as it would normally be if this was any other night. I throw another log on the fire and cuddle up on the couch, though it’s impossible to focus on my dirty book when I was just fucking on this couch. But I try, and when Derek doesn’t appear in the next few minutes, I take a deep breath and start to read.
Despite myself, I get caught up in the story. It’s just so good. Sexy and angsty and full of my kind of reading crack.
“Good book?”
I jump and nearly startle off the couch. “Derek! You surprised me.”
He walks into the kitchen and pulls a glass out of the cabinet. “Sorry. I couldn’t sleep.” He motions to the glass. “Want a drink?”
“Sure.” I watch him pour two glasses of whiskey and arch my brows. “That’ll make you sleep.”
“Maybe.” He walks over and sits on the couch next to me. Every other time, he’d have put himself on another chair, or kept a cushion between us. Not this time. He’s in the middle, the weight of his body dragging down my cushion and sliding my body toward his. “Here.”
I take the glass and sip it while I consider resisting the pull of him. How long am I supposed to hold out? Considering I’m fighting not to climb into his lap, I don’t know where the line is.
“How many times have we done this?”
I take another sip of whiskey. “I don’t know. A few.” He doesn’t sleep as soundly as Grayson, so occasionally I’d see him during my late night reading sessions. We’ve even shared a drink a few times and talked, though never like this. As if we were all too aware that sitting on the same couch and adding alcohol to the mix would be edging into a mistake neither of us wanted to make.
“I’m going to ask you a question, and I’d like you to answer it honestly.”
I carefully set the glass on the table and give him my full attention. “Sure.”
Derek takes me in slowly, his gaze traveling from my face to my body covered with Grayson’s sweater, to my bare legs. “Did you wear that hoping I’d come out here?”
My face heats, but I make myself hold his gaze. As if tonight were the night I’d truly decided to cross that line. “Um.” I lick my lips, achingly aware of how he follows the movement. “Maybe.” When he doesn’t move, doesn’t seem to breathe, I continue. “You, uh, you were looking at me today. You’re always looking at me.”
“I want you.” He states it as fact, as if he’s not crossing a thousand different lines by putting it to voice. “I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you, all done up in white and marrying my best friend.”
Chapter 7
Derek’s big hand carefully lands on my leg, a few inches above my knee, high enough that there’s no mistaking its intention. “I’ve seen the way you watch me, too.”
“You never wear a shirt. You’re a handsome man, Derek. Of course I watch you.” I shift my legs up to drape them over his lap. Just two friends lounging on a couch, except his hand coasts another inch up my thigh, and my new position has the