Chapter 18
M y ears buzzed at the contrast between the noisy bar we were exiting and the quiet, cool night.
It had rained while we’d been inside, the sidewalk was still wet, and shallow puddles dotted the pavement.
I drew in a great big breath of fresh air.
Tonight had been good, and spending time with Scott was amazing. It felt like our closeness was back. He’d left my apartment so abruptly the other night and then this week we’d been like ships in the night. When we had seen each other, there had been a strange palpable tension I couldn’t quite shake, even though things were seemingly still exactly the same.
On Tuesday night he’d brought over takeout, and we’d shared easy conversation over spring rolls and chicken chow mein, but then on Wednesday my morning call had gone to voicemail, and he’d had an extra practice.
That evening, I had to tell him I was too busy for our usual mid-week meal, where I cooked and put his kitchen to good use. He’d said he’d bring something over, but I’d been munching on twisted cheese bites, stressing over a giant cupcake order, and was too full to eat another thing.
But it wasn’t even that.
Nothing felt right between us. I was looking too deeply into his texts and his voice had seemed distant when we’d talked on the phone during his shift.
When he’d picked me up for the karaoke party tonight, though, he’d acted more like himself, and I’d gotten caught up in us feeling like us again. That had shaken me out of my rumination, and we’d ended up having the best night together.
We’d sat close and laughed all night. I’d let myself relax and sink into the fun that being out with the girls always brought. Scott had stayed near, his chair jutted up against mine. Not an inch of space separated us, and I loved it.
He was touching me again. Playing with my hair, his arm around my shoulders, or holding my hand.
He was also guarding my drinks like it was his job and giving any guy not from our circle a glare had they dared to come within a five-foot radius of our table.
A table myself, Wren, his sister, his sister-in-law, and her best friend were sitting at.
It hadn’t slipped my notice that he’d switched to water while Wren and I had doubled down.
Now the fun was catching up with me, however, and things were a little spinny.
Totally worth it though.
“Wow, did we need that or what?” I collapsed into the cab Scott had hailed and he gave the driver the directions back to Cupcake while he buckled me in like I was a toddler.
But toddlers couldn’t get drunk, so, the joke was on him.
“Yeah, it was a good night,” he agreed and smiled. But it didn’t meet his eyes.
I worried my lip. “It’s been a little weird between us.” I wasn’t trying to ruin the time we’d had, I just wanted to know if everything was okay.
“No, it hasn’t. You’ve been busy with your orders, and I’ve been at the rink a lot.”
That was true. Maybe it was just how things were at the moment.
Meeting Gabe hadn’t helped. Scott had had such a problem with him but then he seemed to . . . relent.
Backed down almost.
But that wasn’t a trait Scott Madden possessed. He was intimidated by nothing and no one and didn’t understand the concept of feeling pressured in any way.
Recently, though, I’d look at him and he seemed like he was in pain. Tortured. I asked him a few times if something had happened at work, and he’d just shrugged and shook his head.
I looked at it from his point of view. Was it me? Was it all in my head?
Nah, it was weird.
“Why have you been being weird?” I drilled my index finger into his side.
“Jenna.” He jolted, and I thought he was going to smile but he frowned instead.
“We just had a great time with all our family and friends. We sat together all night and there’s no other place I’d rather have been.”
Okay, okay. Maybe it was me.
He said it with such conviction I decided to change the subject. “I forgot how well Knox could sing. Did you?”
“No. And I have absolutely no idea where that gene came from.”
“I know. An elite athlete, and a record-deal-worthy singer. He’s a package right?—”
Scott lunged and tickled my ribs, making me squeal and squirm.
“Staaap,” I wheezed. He eventually relented and pulled his hands back.
When I could breathe again I stared out the window, the lights of the city whizzing by.
Phew, I was exhausted from the mental gymnastics I’d been doing. I let my mind wander to the way my hand had felt in his, to my palm resting on his thick thigh, to the tiny kiss he placed on my head as I’d leaned against him and let out an achy sigh.
“ Jenna . . . cupcake. Wake up, we’re here.”
“Here?”
I groggily blinked my eyes open and saw we were parked outside my building. Well, the building that I rented. For Cupcake and where I lived. Because I lived above my bakery, which was my dream.
“It was your dream. You’re right. Come on let’s get you upstairs.”
Huh, must’ve said some of that out loud.
He effortlessly picked me up out of the seat, gently placing me down next to my door, and I watched him turn the key in the lock. He’d rolled the sleeves on his henley up and the forearms were on show again.
Know how I knew forearm porn was a thing? Because I had Scott Ashley Madden as a best friend and to me, he was sex personified.
He had everything going for him. Inside and out.
He was smart and protective, caring and loyal. A perfect friend. An amazing son. A courageous hero.
He was also strong. And ripped. Rugged. Handsome. Tall. Broad. Sexy.
Scott was so. Sexy.
He was my wildest dream. Every single fantasy I’d ever had involved my best friend, and tonight I yearned for him.
What would it be like? Me and him?
For those kisses to my hair to be dotted over my skin instead. For our hands to be clasped in a completely different way.
I was practically vibrating with need. It had been so long since I’d scratched this kind of itch, years in fact.
What if . . .
“You know what we should do?” My heart hammered inside my chest as I followed him up the staircase.
“What’s that?” Scott said as he locked the inside door behind us.
I walked backward into the main space of my apartment, too busy drinking him in, too busy looking at him instead of where I was going, and his arm shot out to steady me just before I bumped into the TV unit.
His hand on my hip felt like a brand instead of the friendly protective gesture it was.
I stared him down. “We should sleep together.”
His eyes flew wide. “Why would we do that?”
Yeah, Jenna, why would we do that?
“Dunno.” I chewed on my lip, the fire he always lit inside me, the one he was always stoking without knowing, spurred me on.
“It’s the one thing we’ve never done together. Well, that and drugs. We’d never do drugs. Everything else, we’ve experienced together.”
“I didn’t come to France or Italy with you,” he stated matter-of-factly.
I gulped on nothing. “That doesn’t count. We spoke every single day. You’ve heard me talk so much about phyllo pastry that you could make it yourself with your eyes closed.”
He shook his head and filled a glass from the drying rack with water.
“You’re drunk,” he said, passing it to me, and I drank the whole thing in one go.
I pointed the empty glass back at him. I was feeling brave and had a little liquid courage swimming through me, but I wasn’t drunk.
“I’m tipsy.”
He took it and filled it again. I mapped the planes of his back, watching the muscles bunch and contract under his white tee as he stood at the sink.
He turned. Man, he was sooo hot.
He quirked a brow.
“My thoughts came out loud again, didn’t they?”
A little smirk tipped up the corner of his mouth and he nodded.
“Come on . . .” What the hell was I doing?
“Let’s just try it. If it’s no good?—”
He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. “It would be good.”
A challenge. I could work with that.
“Oh yeah, stud. You got moves?”
He took a really long deep breath. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“You gonna join me?” I batted my lashes at him.
“ Jenna .”
“I had no idea you were such a prude.”
“I’m no prude. But it’s not a good idea.”
“Oh, come on. Let’s add one more to the memory bank. Or . . .” I wiggled my eyebrows.
“Spank bank.”
He groaned and guided me across my small living room. I was making myself giggle as he only got redder in the face. I couldn’t lie, it was really fun to mess with him.
“Oh, sorry,” my voice was laced with an innocence I didn’t feel, “should I call it something different?”
“You are trouble tonight.”
“And you’re no fun anymore,” I said over my shoulder as I left him to use the bathroom.
But he was. He was so much fun. Yes, 90 percent of the time he was a hard-ass. But when he let himself off the hook he could be playful. And when it came to me or his siblings, he gave as good as he got.
Would he be fun between the sheets? I wanted to know, and I’d never felt so free as I did right this very second. So wild.
Maybe he didn’t want to date me, but could he be what I needed for tonight?
The gin and beer coursing through my veins told me he could.
The mirror wasn’t too kind as I washed my hands in the sink. But then I looked harder.
I looked like a girl who knew how to have fun. My smile was wide. My eye makeup smudged a little, but it added to my carefree vibe.
I didn’t want to wash it off. I felt good and I wanted to stay this version of myself. Especially when I knew it would be fleeting. Could I go head-to-head with my insecurities for one night? Could I be brazen enough to go after the one thing I’d always wanted?
Yeah, I think I could.
I felt alive. Wired. Turned on .
I smiled and nodded at myself one last time.
Scott was still standing where I’d left him when I opened the bathroom door, that pained look streaked across his face again, but he moved when I entered my bedroom and flicked on the light.
I gripped the white comforter, turning it back, and then I sat on the edge of the bed while I pulled on the heel of my boot.
It didn’t budge.
I lifted my leg in a silent plea. Scott rolled his eyes and bent down in front of me, propping my knee up while he unzipped the thigh-high leather.
Right. Zipper.
I lay all the way down, my calves dangling over the edge so he could help with the other one.
“Probs for the best anyway,” I murmured, looking up at the ceiling and the pattern the light shade was making.
Scott had secured the fitting for me, but I’d insisted on being the one to fix the shade and bulb. He’d lifted me onto his shoulders so I could reach, and I’d screwed the thing in myself.
We were so good together. The best team. We complemented each other in so many ways. I’d bet he could make me feel so good.
He gave off a certain energy.
Fine, it was of the big dick variety, but I wasn’t supposed to say that about my bestie. He vibrated at that kind of frequency though. He had a commanding presence. A way about him that screamed confidence without him needing to showboat.
I dared myself to push him. Just one more time. I might be embarrassed in the morning, but I was willing to go for it and blame it on the alcohol—the alcohol that was burning off pretty quickly if I was being honest.
My brain scrambled for something to say, some way of getting him into living a little, and then it hit me.
It was a cheap shot. A dirty play, but nothing was going to stop me as the words left my mouth.
“Think I’m gonna go out to dinner with Gabe. Maybe it will lead to drinks and who knows what else.”
Scott stood then, tugged me even closer to the edge of the bed, and bent over me, planting his hands on either side of my head which bounced with the force.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. This was a way better view. His handsome face above me. His blue eyes stormed, but it wasn’t anger I saw, this was . . . huh, this was heat.
I licked my bottom lip, my mouth suddenly feeling dry. Those gorgeous eyes snagged on the unintentional movement.
I raised my fingers to the corner of his mouth, his day-old stubble rough against my palm.
“Remember the year you grew this out for Movember?”
He nodded and kissed the pads of my fingers as I dragged them over his soft top lip.
“It felt like the longest month of my life.”
“How’s that?” he asked. Still above me, still staring so deeply into my gaze I felt like he was seeing through to my very soul.
“It obscured my favorite thing.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Your smile,” I answered his silent question.
He searched my eyes, and in that second I saw a war rage behind his. Then to my utter shock, he did what he hadn’t done since that night senior year—the night Toby Ross hadn’t had the guts to kiss me— Scott kissed me.
His lips pressed to mine, and his left hand moved into my hair, threading his fingers through it at the roots.
Yes!
Yes, this is what I wanted. What I had always wanted.
His kisses grew more intense. His fingers tightened, and the bite of pain drew a surprised gasp from me.
He took the opening and his tongue slid smoothly against mine. My fingers slid down the backs of his arms and my touch made him shudder, but before I could sink further into the kiss, he pulled away.
No, pulled wasn’t the right word. He ripped himself away from me with a force that seemed superhuman, and my eyes flew open, the cool air hitting me as he stood and took a few steps back.
It should have offended me—that he was that desperate to get away from me. But I knew it had nothing to do with me, and rather who I was to him.
“Goddammit!” he said through ragged breaths, his hands fisted tight at his sides. His head was shaking no, but his eyes were burning blue flames of yes.
“I—”
“How drunk are you?” he demanded.
That’s what had me scrambling to my feet.
Hell, he was nearly at the door before I could answer. I swallowed around the knot in my throat and started inching toward him.
“Drunker than at my mom’s fiftieth birthday party, but not as drunk as when we went to Julie and Reece’s wedding.”
He knew the difference.
By the time I’d spoken my last word, his hands were cupping my face. He moved his head, slowly bending toward me, and then stopped.
I grasped his hands firmly against my face. “No. Please. Please ,” I whispered.
Pleaded.
His eyes darted between mine. He was going to pull away, I knew it.
I sucked in a breath, ready for rejection, ready for him to chalk the kiss up to a drink thing or a proximity thing. I was losing him and then . . .
“Fuck it,” he growled before his lips crushed against mine.
I opened up straight away. I was taking everything I could get in case he remembered himself again.
But the kiss continued. Went deeper even. My mind swirled as he lifted me off the ground and stalked back over to the bed.
We resumed our earlier positions, him above me and me flat on my back. Only this time I was further across the mattress and his knees were between my thighs.
Something in me knew this was it. He wasn’t going to stop this time; in fact, those were his next words.
“I’m not gonna stop this time.”
“Don’t.” I shook my head.
“Don’t what?” he asked as he kissed his way across my jaw.
“Don’t stop.”
“I’m ready to cross every line, Jenna. This is your call.”
“Cross them. Cross them all.”
He reached behind himself and pulled on the neck of his shirt, bringing the Florida-sun-kissed skin of his chest and torso into view. And boy was I glad the light was still on.
Rock-hard pecs, a rippling eight-pack, and his delicious V lines all begged to be explored.
If this was the only night we would have, I was going to make it count. I was going to touch, and lick, and bite every inch of him.
I didn’t let my mind dwell on what he must’ve seen when he looked at me. I was soft and my curves had curves. It made me want to hide. Made me want to reach for the light switch, but I willed myself not to panic. All I wanted was to enjoy this one reckless moment.
And when my wandering eyes made their way up to his, the heat from the look he gave incinerated me.
My insecurities could go to hell because Scott, my Scott, wanted me.