Page 91 of Light My Fire

And I don’t feel one single stir of desire.

I’m pissed about that.

“Hi guys,” Carrie greets, as she sets new beers down on the high top table for all of us.

Ben, Gavin, and Mitch all know Carrie and her friends.

“Ladies,” Ben says with a grin.

The other women, whose names I cannot remember, start chatting with my friends while Carrie turns to me.

“How’s it going?” she asks, smiling the smile I know is actually an invitation.

She looks great. She’s also very nice and I know that I could simply say, “let’s go to my place,” and she would say yes. And I could have some great sex and wake up tomorrow with zero guilt about leading her on.

But as I am standing here in my favorite bar, even having slept with her three times before, I find myself comparing her smile to the one that enchanted me this past weekend. I find myself thinking about Brooke holding the newborn puppies. I think about Brooke making snow angels and how she drowned her pancakes in syrup and how her big blue eyes took in every detail of everything going on around her.

And of course, I think about much less sweet things.

How her nipples look behind the thin cotton of a T-shirt. How she looks warm and wet from the hot tub. How her neck gets pink from whisker burn. How she sounds when she comes.

Fuck.

I can’t take Carrie home.

If I can stand in a bar, trying to have a conversation and failing to keep Brooke out of my head for five fucking minutes ofsmall talk, there’s no way I’ll be able to keep from thinking of her when I’m trying to kiss or fuck another woman.

Has Brooke Wilder ruined me for all other women?

Is it possible that spontaneously fucking a woman who was practically a virgin against the wall could end up making me a damnedmonkfor the rest of my life?

I am going to be very pissed if that’s true.

But looking at Carrie, who is now watching me with confusion, it feels true.

“It’s not going well,” I finally answer. Andthatdefinitely feels true.

“Oh,” she says with a small frown. “I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

Carrie and I are not friends. We are not friends with benefits. We’re not even fuck buddies. We’ve hooked up three times. But she is a nice woman, and we’ve had some pleasant conversations over coffee the next morning. We’re not that far apart in age and we’ve both been through a nasty divorce.

Maybe that’s why I shock us both by saying, “I think I’ve fallen in love.”

Her eyes go wide. “Oh.” Then she laughs. “I was not expecting that.”

I nod and blow out a breath. “Yeah. You and me both.”

“Not with me, right?” Carrie looks amused.

I shake my head slowly. “No.”

Just a sweet, beautiful, intelligent girl I have no business falling in love with.

“Phew.” She puts her hand to her chest like she’s relieved, though she’s obviously just teasing me. “You honestly had me scared for a second that I was going to have to let you down easy.”

I sip my beer. I don’t want to think about Brooke or her rejecting me. I don’t want to consider what it means to open myheart back up and allow a woman to own my emotions. Though I strongly suspect I’m not going to have much choice.

The only one letting me down is myself.

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