Page 48 of The Dating Pact

“No.” I rubbed my hands over my face. “I had sex with exactly one person before you, and wild for us was me bending her over the kitchen counter.”

Neither one of us touched that part about before you, and she shrugged. “Oh. Well, that can be hot too.”

Except now I was imagining bending Brooke over a kitchen counter. I shook my head, but the picture didn’t go anywhere. “So, what else? What else do I need to know?”

“You need a manual?” she asked, amusement in her voice.

I held her gaze. “Yeah. That would be good.”

And then we were kissing.

THIRTEEN

BROOKE

How we’d ended up here again, I couldn’t be sure. Some mix of lowered inhibitions and heightened desire. Though I didn’t know which one outweighed the other.

Because when Jude kissed me, all of my senses amplified. No traces of slower body function to be found, only a pounding heart and tingling skin. He gripped my face like he was afraid I’d leave. Kissed me like he wouldn’t have another chance.

I dug my fingertips into his shoulders, having somehow ended up on his lap, my legs on either side of his waist, and sighed into his mouth.

He seemed to like that and tunneled his fingers into my hair, gripping the strands by my scalp, holding tight, pulling slightly. Perfectly.

I moaned, and I swore I felt an appreciative rumble from his chest before he tugged on my hair again.

Because this man could take direction.

“You like that?” he rasped, not merely to turn me on, but to truly know if I liked it.

I kissed my affirmative against his lips, and one of his hands snaked over my collarbone to my throat, spanning the width, pressing gently, his thumb and index finger under my jaw, holding me. He slanted his head back, eyes boring into mine. “And this?”

I nodded, my ability to speak gone.

He kept that hand around my throat, using it to direct me to the angle he wanted, nipping and biting at my lips, keeping me close.

Me.

This was the second time we were doing this now. Him talking about another woman but ending up here, like this, with me. He wasn’t scared. He didn’t hesitate. He was wholly himself.

I loved and hated it.

That we had this amazing foundation, allowing us to discuss all the things we hid from everyone else and still find what we needed in each other. Yet, we were here because we wanted two different things.

Even as he wrapped one arm around my waist and the other under my butt, lifting me up when he stood from the chair to lay me on the ground, I had to remind myself that he didn’t want what I wanted.

Marriage.

Family.

He was doing this for fun, for release, to forget about his anxiety for a while.

Not to say I didn’t thoroughly enjoy being his playmate in this moment, but I had to remember this wasn’t the same for him as it was for me. No matter that he skimmed the tip of his nose up my neck, inhaling deeply. Or how he wrapped his hands around my breasts reverently, brushing his thumbs across my nipples as his eyes shone with something that looked a lot like adoration.

We were simply two friends taking part in…sex lessons?

That idea had a giggle bubbling up my throat, and Jude canted his head back, eyebrows raised in question.

I shook my head, not wanting to give away everything I’d been thinking.

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