Page 52 of Single All the Way

“At the risk of sounding like a rom-com that could have a bad ending…” I tried to laugh at my own joke, but nerves were taking over. “Yes? I mean, maybe. Roommates with benefits. If you’re interested.”

“And what happens when you find a house and move out? We’re done?”

I nodded. “If we’re not living together, the temptation should be gone, right? Back to just friends?”

“Nobody gets hurt?”

“Right,” I said. “We go into it with an approximate end date. The kids won’t know, so none of them will get hurt either.”

He continued to gaze into my eyes, all kidding gone, not a single sign on his face of what he was thinking. I waited, wondering if I’d misjudged and just screwed up our friendship for good, my heart hammering in my ears.

“I just have one more question,” Ben said.

I pressed my lips together nervously. “Yeah?”

“What the hell are we still doing standing in my kitchen with our clothes on?”

ChapterFifteen

Ben

When the woman who was your teenage crush nearly twenty years ago proposes getting naked, you don’t take the time to think through the downside.

As I swept Emerson into my arms cradle-style and hightailed it to my bedroom, I wasn’t sure therewasa downside. There was only this beautiful woman with full, tantalizing tits I hadn’t had the privilege of laying my eyes on yet, kissing me till my eyes crossed, suggesting we screw.

Sign me the hell up. Every day.

When I got her in my room, I lowered her feet to the floor, went to the nightstand, and flipped the lamp on low, bathing the room in a dim, warm light. I wasted no time returning to Emerson, who watched me, looking…hesitant? Hadn’t she been the one to suggest this?

“Something wrong?” I said, cradling her cheek in my palm and guiding her chin up so she’d look at me. I was confused. She hadn’t flinched when she’d stood in my kitchen and propositioned me.

Her gaze darted toward the lamp, and her chest rose with a deep breath in.

I held my breath, my gaze locked on her, afraid she was having second thoughts.

“I’m…still trying to lose weight from my pregnancies.”

“Oh,” I said on a relieved exhalation. In my opinion, she didn’t need to lose a pound. “Beautiful, sexy Ems, I want you exactly the way you are. Every curve just as it is.”

She still looked uncertain, so I pulled her body against my erection. “Does this tell you how sexy I think you are?”

Her eyes fluttered shut. “Mmm. I guess you can’t fake that.”

“If you’d feel better with the lights off, we can do that, but I assure you I will fucking love every inch of your body because it’s yours.”

She met my gaze, seemed to measure my words and turn them over in her mind. “The light’s okay,” she whispered as she lifted my thermal shirt up my chest, her fingers teasing me along the way. I took over from her and yanked it the rest of the way off, then tossed it on the floor.

As she ran her hands up my chest, seeming to like what she saw, I kissed her again, hoping to get her back to where we’d been a few minutes ago in the kitchen so she’d forget about her self-consciousness.

I tunneled my fingers through her gorgeous silky hair, angling her head, plunging my tongue between her lips so I could taste her, feel her heat.

I knew Emerson was right there with me, about to combust, when I felt her fingers at the button on my jeans. She had it undone in a heartbeat, then unzipped them. Pulsing with need, my dick was jutting out of my boxer briefs. When I thought she’d shove my pants down, instead she touched my tip, dipped her fingers into my underwear, and grasped me, pulling a groan from me.

“Fuck,” I bit out, my head falling back at the heavenly feel of her touch. “Let me catch up.”

I fumbled with the buttons on her flannel pajama top, my fingers feeling big and clumsy at first. My hands shook with need. I was thirty-five years old, and I felt like this was my first time with a woman. It’d been a while, a long while, but not so long I didn’t know what I was doing. I guess that’s what happened when you’d been hot for a girl so many years ago, then finally had her in your bedroom.

When the last button was unfastened, I left her top in place while I undid the drawstring of her pants. I kissed her again, forcing myself to slow down. I tended to her mouth, exploring it, relishing the connection I’d longed for for so long. She was turning me inside out just with her mouth on mine, with the sexy gasps and moans she made, the way her fingers clung to my nape, holding me close and insistently.

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