Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dallas
This was a fucking disaster.
“Let me know how it goes,” Madi said. She leaned up on her tip toes and kissed me hard on the mouth. Hard enough, that for a split second, I forgot all my worries. But then, she was gone. “Good luck.”
She winked. Then slid past June, planted a kiss on her lips that made my cock twitch.
And left.
God. Fuck me. I watched her hips sway as she walked down the drive with her bag of leftovers. I couldn’t help but feel like I’d just been date-swapped.
Initially I worried that we’d driven her away, but she’d reassured both of us that she just wanted us to talk.
Given how fucking tense things had gotten, I had to agree with her.
June and I needed to work this out once and for all.
This wasn’t exactly how I’d planned date night to go. This morning, I’d fully believed I’d have Madi in my bed.
Now, I was pretty sure I’d have June’s knife in my heart.
So now it was just us.
The moment the front door shut, I caught June’s wrist. She spun around, meeting me toe to toe. Tension crackled between us as she glared at me.
Why did I feel like the worst person in the world? I felt like her own personal villain, except I still wasn’t sure why our kiss—the one where she’d yanked me toward her and told me to do it—was the origin story.
“What?” she hissed like a cornered cat.
“What do you mean what?” I growled. “You just pitched this wild ass idea without even talking to me.”
“And? You said yes, so what are you complaining about?”
“I . . .” I trailed off, not even sure where to begin. “June. This isn’t a regular arrangement. And—”
“You don’t need to worry,” she said, her brows pulling together. “There’s nothing here between us. That much is clear. We’d just both be sharing Madi. Friends with benefits. A few weeks of hot and kinky sex. Easy.”
Every word was a knife to my gut, twisting further and further.
Nothing between us. And not only that, it was clear. Clear there’s nothing between us. Meanwhile, the last few months had been agonizing for me.
June leaned against the wall, just a few inches between us. The air around us felt hot, stifling. She tucked her pink hair behind her ears, several piercings gleaming beneath the hall light.
“June,” I squeezed out. “You told me you didn’t want me. You told me that our kiss meant nothing. You’re the one that said it could never work between us, but you didn’t even give it a chance.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “And none of that’s changed. We both want Madi. She leaves in a few weeks. We can all have kinky and fun sex and it’ll be fine.”
Would it? Was I losing my goddamned mind?
Why couldn’t it work between us? Why couldn’t we give it a shot? Why couldn’t I kiss her until she believed in us enough to try? God, I was not above getting down on my knees and begging for a chance, even if that felt wrong.
But it certainly didn’t feel more wrong than her fighting the pull between us.
“And you’re okay with this,” I said coolly. “Us both having sex with the same person. Having kinky sex together. Doing all of these things together, but still being friends.”
“Yes.” She swallowed hard, but held my gaze. I could see the armor she wore—the metal shield around her heart, bruised but unyielding. “We can do whatever we want, just no kissing.”
No kissing?
Was she fucking with me?
I closed my eyes for a split second, trying to find the right words. Fuck. This hurt. It hurt to have her talk to me like this. She had no idea how much I wanted her. How much I wanted to have a future with her.
My eyes opened and I pinned her down with my gaze, “To be clear,” I started. “You’re okay with the following. Me sleeping with her, you sleeping with her, us sleeping together too? As in you and me, June. Us. But we don’t kiss. That’s your rule. We can fuck, but we can’t kiss.”
June pressed her lips together, her expression unreadable. “Yes. That’s the rule I’m suggesting, because I think we need some sort of boundary. We’ve known each other forever, Dallas. I just don’t want to get hurt.”
I raked my fingers through my hair. I wasn’t sure if this was going to work for me. The very idea of being with June and Madi at the same time lit my blood on fire, but not being able to kiss June? It felt wrong.
What I’d said earlier this week came roaring back.
Why won’t you let me love you?
Because there’s nothing to love.
How did I show her just how wrong she was? How did I prove to her that we deserved more of a chance than this?
“No feelings. No relationship,” she reminded me. As if I’d forget. “Just stress relief for all of us.”
“Stress relief.” I crossed my arms and couldn’t help but snort.
This proposal was going to ruin my life.
I shook my head, still at a loss. “This is a bad idea.”
“If you can’t do it, then—”
“I can.” It would crush me, but I wasn’t walking away. I couldn’t. “I can do it. But I’d like to have an honest fucking conversation about why you want to fuck me but not kiss me.”
Her lips parted, but no words came out. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to hear the truth.
“Do you think so little of me?” I asked. “I don’t understand what I did.”
“You kissed me.” She said it like an accusation. “And it changed everything.”
My throat ached, my muscles rigid. “I don’t know, June. Let’s remember the night. If I recall correctly, you told me you wished you had someone to kiss you. Then you asked me to kiss you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me no?” she whispered, her eyes searching mine. “Why? Why didn’t you just reject me?”
“You know why, June.”
No.” She crossed her arms and tore her gaze away. “If you don’t want to do this with Madi . . .”
“I do,” I insisted. “I do want to. Are you going to give me any other explanation? Something as to why no kissing is your rule?”
She pressed her lips together. “Not right now.”
“But you can still kiss Madi.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I raked my fingers through my hair and stepped back from her. My eyes were burning. “I’ll be with Madi. She can be with you. I won’t be jealous over that. We can fuck her in the same room together. I’ll give you commands if you want.”
“That sounds good.”
“I’m not finished.” I took a step closer. “We can do all of those things, but I’m not fucking you if I can’t kiss you. I can’t do it, June. I can’t. To be able to touch you but not kiss you would kill me.”
“Fine.”
“Great. Glad we got that out of the way.”
“Yep. Me too.”
Fuck me. No one could give a cold shoulder like she could.
In all the years we’d known each other, I’d only ever gotten this treatment twice.
Once when I accidentally ran over her flower bed while learning how to drive, and once when I held her hair while she threw up for the first time from being drunk.
Although, the second one was really her just being embarrassed by the fact that she, Avery, and Evie had all shown up on my doorstep drunk and singing Poker Face.
But, I couldn’t go along with this completely. Even agreeing to have sex in the presence of each other was probably too much, but I selfishly wanted it.
This would kill me. I knew a few weeks from now I would hate myself for saying yes.
But sometimes bad decisions were the best ones. I’d deal with the pain later.
“I should probably go,” I muttered.
“Yeah.”
My eyes burned as I started to slip on my boots.
“If you ever want to have an open conversation about this, I’d like to.
And I’m sorry if kissing you ruined everything, but I don’t regret it.
I don’t regret a single moment of it.” My voice hitched.
“I’ve been thinking about that kiss for months, June. ”
She winced as I reached for the door. “Dallas, wait.”
I paused.
“I’m sorry.” Her fingers curled into my shirt, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I care about you which is why I’m suggesting we have rules in place. You’ll be in my life forever. I don’t want to do anything wrong.”
“The only thing that feels wrong right now is not acknowledging that something did change.”
“I know something changed.”
I turned around to face her. Her eyes shone with tears. It killed me. I never wanted to make her cry. I never wanted to make her feel stressed.
I just wanted her to let me in.
June blew out a slow breath. “What do you want?”
I slumped back against the door. “I want you, June. That’s what I want. I want to touch you. I want to kiss you. I want to do all the things I’m doing with Madi with you too. Do you want that? Or do you want us to just be friends? Because it has to be one or the other.”
Now there was only an inch or so between us. I could scoop her up. I could take her to her bed and kiss her until our brains and bodies melted together.
But not until she told me that’s what she wanted.
“I want you.” Her words sounded like a confession of something dark and twisted, laced with pain and longing. “I want you. But I can’t promise anything other than sex. And kissing you again is the worst idea in the entire world.”
“All of this is,” I said. “But the only reason you’re not pinned against the wall right now is because you haven’t given me a sure yes. Until I hear that—”
“Yes.”
Fuck. I’d dreamed of her saying yes. I’d imagined it over and over in my head. But I never really thought I’d get this far. It suddenly felt all too real with her.
“June,” I warned softly. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I said yes.”
“You don’t even know what I want to do to you. You don’t know what I like—”
“I know you’re into BDSM,” she cut in, then snorted when my mouth dropped. “Don’t act so surprised. I’ve seen your secret closet.”
“What? When?”
“That one time you asked me to get a pair of boots out of it for you when you rolled your ankle a couple years ago.”
Fuck. I’d forgotten about that.
“So, I know you’re kinky. I know you like running. I know all your favorite romance books have a couple specific kinks in common, too.”
“What?” I hissed. I felt like I’d been exposed.