She turns to the side, toward me, and my gaze drops to her chest. All that exposed skin. Her nipples beaded little points beneath the thin white fabric of her dress. My mouth waters at the idea of seeing her exposed tits, and I’m about to reach for her waist when she takes a step backwards, as if she knows exactly what I was going to do next.
The disappointment that crashes through me is undeniable.
“We have chemistry.” Her voice is low. Sexy. I lean in closer so I can hear her better. “I can feel it. I know you can feel it too. For one, you can’t stop staring at my chest.”
Busted. I lift my gaze to hers to see her eyes are full of amusement. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I can’t stop staring at you either. You’re extremely good looking,” she admits.
I stand a little taller, pleased by her words, and nearly hit myself on the plastic roof. “You’re fucking gorgeous.”
“Thank you,” she says with a laugh, shaking her head. “But I think it’s best if we remain friends only.”
What the hell? “Why?”
“I like you too much. I think this could be a great friendship. And sex only gets in the way.” She turns to look at the view once more, but I’m too stuck on staring at her, absorbing her words.
“What do you mean, sex only gets in the way?” I sound like a dumbass, but maybe my brain is too clouded over with lust and I can’t really focus on the friend part.
“It’ll ruin everything. Mess with our heads, trick us into thinking we’re capable of having a casual thing, when, deep down, we know our feelings will eventually take over everything else. We’ll fall in love, we’ll be the golden couple on campus, and then we’ll slowly but surely start to resent each other. Until eventually, it’ll turn into a giant nightmare and we’ll get into horrific screaming matches in public. Our friends will secretly place bets on when we’ll end things, and some of them will beg us to do it because they’re so sick of our shit. It’ll turn into this monotonous pattern of fighting and fucking, until eventually, we break up.”
I gape at her, struck dumb by her explanation, her vision. All of it. What she says sounds kind of hot, but also really messed up. “How much exactly did you have to drink tonight?”
She laughs and laughs. “Not a drop. You’re just shocked by what I said because, deep down, you know that’s a fairly accurate assessment of what could happen.”
“I have no idea what would happen between us. I can’t see into the future.”
“I can. I don’t even need a crystal ball.” She sends me an amused look.
“Look, I had zero plans to take this beyond a casual hookup.” Unable to stop myself, I reach out, drifting my fingers down her arm. Goosebumps rise at my touch, pleasing me. Look at how responsive she is, and I’m barely touching her. “Possibly turning into friends with benefits.”
“Is that offer supposed to flatter me?”
I drop my hand from her arm. “I don’t know. Did I offend you?”
“Not really, but that’s not how it’s going to work for us, Sorrento. Like I said, I like you too much. We like each other too much.”
“I barely know you,” I practically scoff.
“You want to know more.”
She’s not wrong, damn it. “I can keep this casual.”
“Really?” She arches a brow and takes a step back, reaching for the tie at her waist. “So if I were to strip down right now, drop to my knees and give you a blow job, you’d let me walk away after I let you come in my mouth?”
Jesus fucking Christ, hell yes, is what I’m dying to say.
Instead, something else comes out of my mouth.
“I’d worry about you. How would you get home?”
“That’s my problem. We’re strictly casual, remember?” Hayden slowly undoes the tie, her top loosening, offering me a glimpse of the swell of her breasts. “What if I told you I’m a big girl and I don’t need a man to help me get home?”
I scrub a hand over my face, trying to sort through my suddenly chaotic thoughts. The top of her dress is completely loose now, that V neck open wide, the edges literally catching on her nipples. It’s a complete tease of a view, showing me something, but not everything. “You’d be all alone on a Saturday night in an unfamiliar neighborhood. That’s dangerous.”
“Like I am right now? All alone with you? In an unfamiliar neighborhood? Are you dangerous, Tony?” She reaches beneath her skirt, hands going to her hips before she starts to tug downward. Next thing I know, her panties have fallen to her knees and she holds onto the blue wall, carefully stepping out of them, until they’re nothing more but a crush of sheer nude lace crumpled in her hand. “You could take total advantage of me right now, if you wanted to. I could scream and scream, and no one would hear me. Even if they did, they’d brush it off. Believe someone else would call the cops, because no one ever wants to get involved. You could have your way with me all night out here, and I couldn’t do a thing to stop you.”
My body goes stiff, and not in the good way. I’m both turned on and disgusted by what she just said. “I would never do that to you.”
“See? You’re proving my point.” She shifts closer, smacking her hand against my chest, her panties pressed against my shirt. She removes her hand, leaving the panties to fall and I catch them, clutching them in my palm. “If this was casual between us, you would readily agree to all of that. You wouldn’t care what I thought about you, and you definitely wouldn’t worry about me getting hurt either. You’d be too focused on the fact that my tits are practically hanging out, and I just took off my thong, and I offered to give you a free blowjob. That’s all that would matter.”
I blink at her, hating that she’s right. I barely know her, yet I don’t want to treat her like that. I respect her too damn much.
I respect women in general too damn much.
“Shit,” I moan, hanging my head back, and she laughs some more. My agony must really crack her up.
“Don’t feel so bad. You’re one of the good guys. I knew it the moment I met you.”
“Really?”
She nods, smug as hell with her confidence. “Definitely. So while I’m sure it would be amazing between us, and I’d probably rock your world, we can never go there. You wouldn’t be able to walk away from me.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “You really think so?”
“Oh, I know so. I can see it in your big brown eyes, which are very beautiful, I might add. Everything that makes up your face is worthy of a magazine cover. Or a romance book cover. Do you read romances, Tony?”
“Fuck no,” I immediately say.
“You should. You might learn a thing or two. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, I know. You’re a good guy, and you’re attracted to me, and I can admit I’m attracted to you, but it would never work, because we share the same views when it comes to relationships, and it’s that relationships suck. So we’re just going to have to be friends. That’s it. End of story.” She looks toward the view one more time, her hands going to the fabric belt at the front of her dress, redoing it so the fabric covers her breasts once more. “You weren’t even tempted when I had my tits out.”