Page 27 of You Had Me at Chocolate

Oh, only since she’d walked through the door tonight. But he was pretty sure this boundary blurring of hers was coming from an emotional place and he didn’t know where that would leave them. He sure as hell didn’t want her to hate herself—or him—in the morning.

The tension in his quads and in his inner thighs as he held himself as distant as he could, cranked a little tighter. Still… he couldn’t help but ask. “Do you want to kiss me?”

“Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “I really think I do.”

Well, fuck… that was knowledge he could have done without as tension crept from his thighs to his balls. Shutting his eyes briefly, he gathered his wits. Opening them again, Jude locked his gaze on hers. “Okay…” He cleared his throat. “What’s going on, Clementine?”

“I—”

Her shoulders straightened and her lips pressed into a line and, for a second, Jude thought she was going to tough it out but, in the next second, she practically deflated before his eyes. Gaze dropping to her lap, she flopped back into the corner of the couch.

“Oh, god. Forget it.” She glanced up. There was color in her cheeks and her amber eyes could barely meet his. “I’m so sorry, it was a stupid idea.” She waved her hand as if she was swatting it away. “And completely unforgivable of me to ask. Talk about mixed signals. Ugh.” She sat forward, sliding her hand onto his arm, clamping on tight. “Please don’t hate me.”

Jude gave a wry smile at her earnestness. “I could never hate you. Just talk to me. Help me understand what’s going on.”

She barked out a laugh. “If only I knew. I’m sorry, I just… I need… I needed…” She scowled as she looked down at where she was clutching his arm. “Oh god,” she wailed. “I’m a horrible person.”

Smiling, he gently lifted her chin. He didn’t want to see her like this—mortified, wretched, wrestling with all this emotion when she’d already had to deal with so much this week. “What do you need, Clementine? You can tell me.”

Her chin might have been in his grasp but she resisted looking at him, fixing her gaze somewhere near his ear instead. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Maybe it’ll help, talking about it?”

She snorted. “Trust me, it made more sense inside my head.”

Jude chuckled. “A lot of things do.” With her still looking at his ear, Jude didn’t hold out much hope that she was going to reveal anything. Maybe he should broach the subject? “Why did you want me to kiss you, Clementine? Were you looking to…” He hesitated not wanting to get her motivations wrong but, considering she’d been so adamant about the state of their relationship, her reversal was stark. “Take this to a friend’s with benefits situation?”

Her gaze snapped to his, her eyes wide. “No.” She shook her head emphatically, displacing his fingers as her curls bounced around her face.

Okay, so that was a no then…

“I just… needed tonight… A distraction for one night from all the things that chase each other around and around in my head when I go to bed.”

Her admission stopped his breath in his lungs. Jesus. She wanted a… one-night stand? Not just making out on the couch like horny teenagers.

Going all the way.

“But that was wrong of me,” she continued, “and I’m so, so, sorry. Using you like that, to… forget, is awful.”

Jude pulled himself back from thoughts of hitting a homerun with Clementine Jones to concentrate on what she’d said. Concentrate, damn it. Forcing a nonchalant shrug, he said, “I’ve been used for worse.”

He’d had women sleep with him to meet other celebrities, to make money selling a nonconsensual dick pic to a tabloid and to bump up their Instagram followers. Clementine’s reasons were pure by comparison.

“Oh god, really?” She blinked at him. “That sounds terrible. I’m… so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he dismissed, touched by her soft apology. “Nobody put a gun to my head.”

Truth was, he hadn’t regretted too many of his liaisons even though accumulatively, he’d grown tired of the game. It had all seemed so empty, especially now, with Clementine sitting so close, mortified by her proposition which had been the antithesis of so many others he’d had in the past.

He’d certainly had more sophisticated seductions. But none as sweet. None he’d wanted more.

“So…” Jude’s gaze fanned over her face, his heart thumping a little louder in his chest at the prospect. “One night, huh?”

A small smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “I suppose I’ve shocked you.”

Jude returned her smile. “A little.”

“Because I’m a small-town librarian and therefore must be some kind of virginal prude who swoons the second a penis comes out? Or because we’re friends and there are probably a million reasons why doing this is dumb?”

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