stepping back and letting her do what she wanted while he suffered.
And now that he had tasted her he knew that for sure. That what he wanted more than anything was her, whether or not he had tricked himself all these years into believing he was standing by holding sentry while engaging in some kind of courtly love.
There was nothing pure about what he felt.
Nothing like love about it, either.
Was he that basic that all this time he had never really been able to squash the lust that he felt for his best friend?
That in the end, it was stronger than wanting her to have the kind of happiness that she was after?
He feared that it was.
And if he were a martyr, he would have taken a step back right then. Let himself be consumed by his desire rather than seeking to satisfy it. But he didn’t. Because everybody might think that he was like that, but he knew that he wasn’t. Not in this. Not now.
So there. A victory, even if it was a hollow one. He would take what he can get.
Her blue eyes met his, and there was a strange glint in them that he couldn’t read. Sammy was often enigmatic; it was part of her charm. And he knew it was somewhat intentional. He had to wonder if she was being intentional in it this evening.
“And how was your day?” she asked.
He felt like she was deliberately lobbing that question into the center of the room and not at him specifically. And the test was whether or not he would respond. But he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to.
“Great,” Rose said happily, taking the pressure off him in terms of who was meant to answer first.
“Just fine,” he responded.
When her eyes connected with his there was a crack of electricity that hit hard and low in his stomach and then skittered outward. Downward.
If there hadn’t been the faintest color in Sammy’s cheeks he wouldn’t have thought she was affected at all.
“Wonderful,” she said. “I picked blackberries, so there will be a pie tonight.”
She was all sweetness and light, sugary smiles and promises of dessert. He didn’t trust it.
He knew that no one else thought it was weird at all, because they only ever saw this sunny side of her, so they didn’t sense the false note there. But he saw the sharp side of her often enough that he could tell when it was lurking beneath the surface. He deserved it, quite frankly. But he wanted to know what manner of storm was coming. Because he knew there was one.
That distraction was enough to take his mind off the intimacy that had passed between them. For a moment. Not for very long.
But hey, he was a man after all. So of course he was going to think about what it had been like last night. It had been a long time since he was with a woman. A long time since he had tasted one like that.
And you’re going to pretend that’s all this is? You fixating because you’re a man and she’s a woman and you did dirty things with her?
Not because it was your friend, and it was the culmination of years of suppressed fantasies.
All right. He couldn’t pretend that. Of course it was about Sammy. Of course it would always be about who she was. It couldn’t not be.
Sex for him was a pretty low-stakes game. He went out of town; he found women he had no obligation to. He made sure that nobody got hurt. He was safe; he was respectful. It wasn’t intense. It didn’t need to be. It was nice. A release.
But this had not been a release, and it wasn’t just because he hadn’t come. This wasn’t a release because it had built up more uncertainty between them than it would ever let go.
Because it had caused him to violate some of the very basic tenets of his existence, and it was difficult to bring himself to even regret it.
Sammy took her position at the table next to him, her arm brushing against his. And she looked at him, out of the corner of her eye, and that was the only indication that he had that she even remembered what had happened between them last night. Because it was far too intentional. All of this was.
“How did you sleep?” he asked, looking at her with intent.
“Well,” she responded, looking a little bit surprised that he had come at