“This is crazy,” she whispered, her heart in her throat.
“It’s okay. Trust me.”
“I said I’d get in, but I didn’t say how long. Just in and out, okay? Long enough to complete my dare.”
He snickered. “And Brian says I’m too cautious.”
This wasn’t like him at all. He’d probably bribed someone. It was the only thought she could take any comfort in, and probably the only way she could go through with this.
Her heart nearly pushed the rest of its way into her throat when he started unbuttoning his shirt. She cast a glance around, noticing a couple strolling toward the beach off to their right. They were at least far enough away from the main walkway that no one should even glance in their direction. And it was dark here in the little glass-walled building, where the ceiling shadowed them from the soft yellow glow of the security lights.
“Ugh, we’re gonna get caught,” she whispered, flinging off her blouse in a burst of wildness. She was too worried about someone else seeing her in her bra to be worried about Evan seeing her. Besides, she’d been strutting around in front of him in that floss Lisa had insisted she buy. Her underwear covered more than that thing. “We’re gonna get caught and we’re gonna get kicked out. We’ll be homeless. Homeless in Hawaii.”
“Not if you hurry and get in the damn water.” There was laughter in his hissed words. He was stripping off his pants. Hmm, she’d always wondered whether it was boxers or briefs for him, and…ah, he wore boxer briefs. She chewed her bottom lip. The man had hands down the best ass she’d ever seen, and the sight of it accentuated by the snug material had her hands quivering as she fought with the button on her own pants. His bulge in the front did little to restore her composure; it sent her senses into a tailspin.
His movements all but silent, he eased down into the roiling water and she followed close behind, keeping a safe distance between them as the heat saturated her bones. If he touched her, she was going to embarrass herself. Moments passed while she lost herself to the bliss of the jet blowing against her lower back.
“I wish I’d never introduced you to him.”
The statement was jarring in its suddenness, and weighty, as if it had been a burden bearing down on him for some time now. He avoided her gaze as he went on. “I don’t know why he wanted to come visit me at school in the first place. He never had before, not in four years. I wish I’d tried to talk him out of going to that party where you met him.”
“Evan, for God’s sake, don’t blame yourself. I cast enough blame around, on myself, on Courtney, on him…and we’re all three guilty of something. But not you. If there’s one truly innocent party in all this, I imagine it’s you.”
He shook his head, and she didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so distant and forlorn. “You don’t even know.”
What could he have done? Something told her—and that something was ten years of knowing him—that he would confide in her in his own time, and now wasn’t it. But something was eating away at him. “Well,” she sighed, “we can’t change it now, can we?”
“Would you?” he asked.
It was a question she’d pondered herself, but had never come up with a definite answer. In the end, it didn’t matter. “Some days, yes. Some days, no. On one hand, it showed me what I want and don’t want in a relationship, but on the other…I wish I could have avoided the whole ugly mess by whatever means necessary.”
“I deal with people every day who tell me they never thought anything bad would ever happen to them. But it’s not their fault that it did. You gave it your best shot.”
“Sometimes I think I could have done more.”
“I don’t know what. When I would go over to your house and watch how you were, I was always—I always wished I could find someone like you.”
She had to laugh. “Courtney was nothing like me.”
“Trust me, there isn’t another you.”
It was said lightly but there was an undercurrent of despair in the words. She watched the water bubble and swirl and lifted her feet so it could tickle her toes. Evan’s gaze was on her. It had a familiar weight she could detect even when she wasn’t looking at him.
“So why do you think you can’t come during sex?”
If she’d been drinking something, she’d have spit it through her nose. Her heart was hanging by threads somewhere around her stomach at the intimacy and bluntness—he’d never said anything like that to her in all the years she’d known him. Now she was the one stuttering. Damn him. “I-I…just never…”
“He couldn’t get you hot?”
Oh. My. God. Was he drunk? Was she? What universe was this? And he wouldn’t look away from her. His gaze was inescapable. And burning. Her nerve endings came to life, agitated by the rushing water, the heat of it. Of him, so close to her. Evan Ross made her hotter just by existing than Todd Jacobs had in eight years of sex. All put together. It was horrible to admit.
“Evan…”
“God, Kelsey, you’re looking at me like you used to.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. You haven’t answered my questions.”
“I can’t…”
“Can’t what?”
“Talk about this with…you. I know I started it, back in the bar, but…”
His lids fell over his eyes, hooding them. She didn’t know how she was supposedly looking at him, but he was looking at her as if he wanted to eat her. She couldn’t be mistaking it. “He didn’t take care of you,” he murmured, and her breath stilled as his hand smoothed back a strand of hair plastered to her forehead. “I was afraid he wouldn’t.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this back then?”
“I did. You didn’t listen.”
No, she didn’t. He was right. She’d thought he was being a jerk for never wanting her yet questioning the happiness she’d finally attained with someone else. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t have Evan, yet she couldn’t have anyone else, either? “I needed someone.”
“You didn’t need anyone.”
“I didn’t need anyone, but I wanted someone. And he was a good guy, for the most part. He shouldn’t have done what he did, but I stopped making him happy.”
He sighed. “How long ago did he stop making you happy?”
The question caused her to freeze. He went on. “Todd and I grew up together, lived on the same street, played baseball all through school together… I probably know him better than anyone, better than you, better than even his parents. I’ve known him practically my whole life, and I’d seen him do some shady stuff before. I never thought he was quite good enough for you, but I never thought he would betray either of us like he did. Kelsey, truth be known, I don’t think there’s a guy walking this planet I would trust with you. So you can’t really listen to me, I don’t guess.”
Now she could feel her blood heating and it had nothing to do with the water or his proximity. She wasn’t going to condemn herself to a life of loneliness and remain a slave to this infatuation, just so Evan Ross could know she wasn’t with some guy who was neglecting her needs. It made no sense. It was pissing her off.
She made a move to stand, though she had no idea where she might go. The suite keycard was in his pants—probably the only thing she would ever get out of that particular article of clothing, and that was damn fine with her at the moment—but if she ran back there he would only follow.
“Kelsey.” His hand caught her arm, keeping her seated. “Don’t get upset. We don’t have to talk about any of this, if you don’t want. But maybe it’s not such a good idea to keep it bottled up.”
“Then why don’t you talk about Courtney? You haven’t mentioned her at all.”
Even in the darkness, she saw his expression tighten. “I have nothing to say about her.”
“I think it hurt you more than you let on.”
“Kelsey, you have to let it go. Courtney is what she is and she’s not for me. Good enough? I think you need to face what happened
and move on.”
“Oh, I did face it, Evan Ross. I faced it head on. When I faced it, she was on top of my husband. You didn’t have to see it. I did.”
Kelsey sensed his demeanor change—he stiffened as if she’d doused him with ice water. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you are blaming me for not being able to hold on to my woman.” His voice had taken on a dangerous edge she’d never heard before.
She licked her lips, the urge to challenge him rising up in nearly undeniable waves. Despite her earlier words to the contrary, the thought had crossed her mind. Not lately, of course…but back when her heart had been lying in bloody shards along with her life, after having to move out of the house she loved so much into a closet-sized apartment—putting most of her stuff into storage because it wouldn’t fit there and spending Christmas in Lisa and Daniel’s empty house rather than facing the pity in her family’s eyes—she had wondered why Evan hadn’t kept Courtney happy enough to keep her hands off Todd.
But she’d been thinking irrationally. She’d made some mistakes, but she’d done everything she knew how to make her marriage work. There was no reason to believe Evan hadn’t done the same with his relationship. “No, that isn’t what I’m saying at all. If it were, it would go for me, too, not being able to hold on to him.”
He relaxed a bit, taking his hand from her arm, but the darkness still shadowed his expression. She didn’t like it there. She wanted to wipe it away. From him, from her. God, why did this have to happen to them? Adding another layer of complication over the catastrophe of their friendship?
She might as well add yet another.
“No.”
A vertical line formed between his dark brows. “No what?”
“He really couldn’t get me that hot. For most of our relationship, I overlooked it.”
One corner of his mouth tugged upward, showing a flash of white teeth in the darkness. “Why?”
She shrugged, dropping her gaze from his. She put a hand in front of one of the water jets, letting the pressure tickle her palm. “Why did I overlook it? Because I loved him.”
“Then what was missing?”
It was a good question. “I really don’t know. But there was an emptiness there. Even if he got me off some other way, something was just…lacking. I never felt it as strongly as I did after we had sex.”
She wasn’t looking at him—she couldn’t—so she tried to tune in to him in other ways, gauging the sound of his breathing, the tension in his limbs that were somehow brushing against hers now. He seemed to be holding himself perfectly still. She dared the briefest glance upward to find his gaze riveted on her. It made her suck in a breath. It trapped her.
“Am I completely crazy?” she asked.
“Not at all.”
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”
“I’m glad you are. I get to be the one to assure you that you’re not the problem.”
She laughed, though the insinuation had her heart brimming with hope she probably had no right to feel. “How can you be so sure?”
“Look at you. Beautiful, sweet. I remember how whenever I touched you your muscles would pull tight, your breath would catch. It still does. I see how you’re looking at me. There’s no reason a woman as sensitive and loving as you should feel empty after a man makes love to her. If there’s a problem, it’s not with you, and I get the feeling he tried to tell you it was.”
Kelsey was trying to control her breathing and her pulse. Both threatened to spiral out of control at his words. Jesus Christ, he knew, he always had. And he was moving closer to her. Her eyes closed, purely an involuntary action. Her senses were overloading and one of them had to go. “Not in so many words…but, yes.”
“Kelsey,” he whispered, his voice tinged with sweetness and reassurance……but not pity. She couldn’t stand that, and he knew it. His fingers whispered across her shoulder. True to his words, her entire body pulled taut. “Come here.”
She exhaled shakily and went into his arms. His chest was sleek and wet beneath her cheek, but even so, she could smell the spice of his cologne, the scent that was distinctly his. His chin settled on top of her hair. She didn’t embrace him back, just curled up there in the protective circle of his comfort and tried to rest. Her mind still roiled with the agony of this nearness she couldn’t do a damn thing with.
There wouldn’t be any emptiness with him. She knew it. Todd might have convinced her she was the problem, but that was before she felt this. Even her feelings for Evan ten years ago had been immature compared to the soul-burning lust that had filled her in the past few days.
Her breasts were flattened against his chest and her nipples peaked against him, the only barrier between their flesh the thin silk of her bra. One of his hands was resting low on her back, his fingers stroking her with feathery caresses. She could swear that hand was inching downward. So slowly as to hope she wouldn’t notice…or simply wouldn’t say anything.
A moment later, she was certain of it. Yes. Oh, God. Yes. Her pussy clenched so hard she sank her teeth into her lip and cuddled closer into Evan’s embrace. It was all she could do to bite down on the moan gathering in her throat. Her mouth ran dry. His breath was dragging through his chest, the rise and fall beneath her cheek becoming more pronounced.
Lifting her head, she looked up into his eyes, pouring all the invitation into her gaze that she knew how. Please, please.
He froze, too, staring down at her. His perfectly shaped lips parted as his gaze dropped to her mouth, and when his fingers kneaded her flesh almost imperceptibly, she sighed.
It seemed all the encouragement he needed. There in the darkness, with the only sounds the distant whisper of waves and the water lapping gently against their bodies, his lips sought hers, capturing them in the warm, soft trap of his own.
She closed her eyes, a whimper escaping her as her arms stole around his neck. He paused as if savoring that first touch, and she absorbed the shudder that went through him. He slanted his mouth over hers as the water temp rose twenty more degrees and seemed to drain all strength from her limbs.
It seemed an eternity before his hand finally cupped the curve of her ass and she was incinerated utterly, the ache that had been pooling between her legs ever since the bar flaring into a four-alarm emergency. She wanted that hand in other places. She was one ounce of self-control away from shifting to try to coax it where she needed it most.
His fingertips drew back a few inches and slid just beneath the leg of her panties. She pressed closer and opened her mouth against his, inviting the invasion of his tongue. When it slipped past her lips into her mouth, her spinning senses overloaded again and she pulled back.
“I don’t know if… I mean is this…” her lips were trembling so hard she could barely move them, “…okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he whispered, sounding dark, fierce.
Because we’ll never be the same. I’ll never be the same. Helplessly, she raised her gaze to his. She felt torn in two, dying to have him and afraid she would die if she did. She’d been a married woman for almost five years and he made her feel like a blushing virgin. “We’re friends.”
“So we are.” He dipped down, skimming her lips with his. “Tell me you’ve never thought about this before. Say you don’t want me, don’t want this, and I’ll stop.”
She went boneless, knowing she couldn’t lie to him. She didn’t want to, not about this. The words burst out on their own. “I do. I want you. But—”
Evan barely let that note of pleading leave her before he claimed her mouth fully, putting to rest all further protests.
Oh, God. She’d hugged him countless times, planted plenty of kisses on his cheek, all chaste. There was nothing chaste now about the slow burn of his lips across hers, nothing platonic about the erotic fervor that had her breath rasping through her lungs and her thighs shaking with the need throbbing at their apex. She wanted to cry out in frustration when he moved his hand from her bottom, on
ly to sigh when he brushed her right breast with the back of his knuckles. Her nipple tightened further, pushing against the silk barring it from his long-awaited touch. His other hand moved up into her hair, cupping her nape as his kiss turned ravenous.
He moved in front of her and the motion pressed her back into the rough concrete edge of the hot tub. She couldn’t be bothered to complain. Her bra strap slipped from her shoulder with a slow slide of his fingers, baring one breast, and his kiss was tearing her heart out. He was between her legs, and his erection pressed hard against her mound.
God help her, she wanted to cover herself when he pulled back to look at her, until she heard the sound he made as his gaze caressed the skin he’d revealed. It was half moan, half growl, and it lit her blood as he filled his palms with the weight of her breasts. His cock rubbed against her clit until she thought she would launch into the stars right there. A couple of oh-so-easy adjustments and he could be inside her. Finally inside her. This was getting out of control. She was.
“Evan,” she whispered against him, “not here.”
“I know,” he murmured, and he pulled away, licking his lips as if to collect the taste of her from them.
She expected him to stand, to lead her out of the tub. She was surprised when he put his hands on her waist and maneuvered behind her, turning her until she faced away from him. “What are you…?”
“Giving you no more time to think,” he murmured with wicked mischief, his lips grazing her ear. His hand slid down her wet thigh to her knee, lifting it out of the water and placing her foot on the seat of the hot tub. “Just a few more minutes.” Her heart nearly leapt out of her throat as the water gushing from one of the jets swirled right over her clit. A full body shudder went through her and she sobbed.