Page 32 of The Dating Pact

I could only hope it was my imagination. Like, it had been so long since I’d had sex that I’d imagined how good it was. A feast after a famine.

Because I didn’t think I could bear what it meant otherwise.

That everything I’d felt for this guy, the relationship we’d built over the last five or six years, had been irrevocably changed. I wouldn’t be able to handle losing him.

“What were you thinking?” I snapped at myself as I yanked a makeup wipe out from the packet and scrubbed my face clean in the bathroom mirror. “You weren’t thinking, you idiot.”

I grumbled and threw the dirty wipe in the garbage.

This wasn’t me. I didn’t make decisions on a whim. I was thoughtful and deliberate about my choices. I didn’t jump into bed with anyone.

Then again, this wasn’t anyone. This was Jude.

My Jude.

My sweet and funny friend.

“Oh my god!” I shrieked as I stripped off my clothes, flicking the shower on. “He saw me naked!”

I could only assume that now that he knew what I looked like under my clothes, he’d think of it whenever we were together. Because I sure as shit wouldn’t forget about the soft sandy-colored hair on his chest, his “dad bod,” which I liked even though he didn’t, and the thick length of him jutting out toward me.

“He’s supposed to be having sex with other people. Other people,” I moaned, thumping my forehead against the shower wall.

I was supposed to be helping him.

Which…maybe I did.

I spun under the showerhead, letting the hot water soothe me. It didn’t fully drain my anxiety, but it did slow my spiraling thoughts.

Jude had such a hard time with the idea of being with other women because he still mourned Mira, so it might have been a good thing he got that first time over with me. Especially since he’d broken down after. If it was guilt or grief, I didn’t know, but I was sure he wouldn’t have wanted anyone else witnessing that. Jude prided himself on being “fine.”

So fine, he lived in stasis. He’d admitted to me on more than one occasion that he struggled to balance being a grieving husband and a single father. He never wanted Sebastian and Amelia to know how hard it was for him, so he had locked himself down, pretended he could handle being the captain of the ship alone. But too much in any one direction, and he feared the boat would tip.

Tonight, the boat hadn’t tipped. It had capsized.

I only hoped our friendship wouldn’t drown in the wreckage.

I washed my face, ignoring the pictures flashing in my mind, the ones of us laughing while kissing, joking while we’d lain naked on the couch, the way his dark eyes had dilated when I told him to hold my wrist tighter.

I knew so much about Jude, and he knew a lot about me, yet tonight, we’d shared pieces of each other that would be impossible to forget.

How he’d kissed me like a starving man and I was his favorite food.

How he’d grunted quietly when he’d orgasmed as if he was afraid to be too loud.

How he’d clung to me when he’d cried like I was his lifeline.

I wouldn’t be able to forget any of that.

Even as I convinced myself I had to.

I rinsed off my body, careful of the tender flesh between my legs. I should’ve known Jude would be nothing short of respectful during sex. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word. Not only had he made sure I orgasmed first, but he hadn’t batted an eyelash at giving me what I needed to accomplish it.

The boyfriend bar was in hell for heterosexual men.

For me, though, the bar hadn’t been raised; Jude had thrown it into another universe.

I shut off the water and stepped out of the shower to wrap myself up in a towel. I brushed my teeth, ridding myself of the last physical evidence of Jude.

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