Page 66 of Just This Once

“Dude!” he cried as he followed me out into the warm September night. “Don’t even.”

“So you’re telling me you’re not theslightestbit curious now?” I pushed.

He scoffed, muttering, “Nope.”

“Well, now you’re just in denial,” I taunted.

“Am not. Sex with her would be like?—”

When he paused, searching for the right word, I lifted my eyebrows, waiting. “Like what?”

“I don’t know!” Clearly agitated, he blurted, “Like—like sex with…Hope.”

“Hope?” I echoed dumbly.

Everything inside me simultaneously perked to attention with arousal and tightened with dread.

Sex with Hope had basically been the only thing I’d been thinking about for the past two days straight. The only thing I’d craved.

And if Keene was thinking about her too, then that must mean?—

Fuck.

She’d gone to him with the same request she’d asked me, hadn’t she? Damn that woman. I hadn’t told her I’d sleep with her, so she’d moved right along to askKeenefor it.

I didn’t care if this was exactly what I’d told her to do, I would kill him. I would literally murder one of my best friends on the planet before letting him go anywhere near her.

Hope’s next orgasm was fuckingmine.

Gah. Stupid primal, caveman thoughts. I wanted to scrub them from my head with a wire brush because I didn’t want to hurt my friend; I didn’t want to lust after Langston; I didn’t wantanyof this.

All the while, Keene kept talking as if I weren’t having an internal crisis of conflicting wishes.

“Yeah,” he said with a grimace. “I can just picture her complaining and nitpicking andlaughingat me, taking potshots the whole freaking time.” With a shudder, he added, “Bleh.”

Needing to know exactly what had happened between them, I asked, “So if Hope Langston approached you right this very moment and begged you to give her the biggest orgasm of her life, you’d say no?”

With a confused squint, he asked, “Why the fuck would she ever ask me that?”

I released a breath, not wanting to think about how relieved I was to learn that she had, in fact,notasked him the very thing she’d asked me.

“It’s a hypothetical question,” I lied.

“Well then, I’d have questions first,” Keene said as we approached the parking lot. “Like, first of all, what kind of substance was she currently under the influence of? Then, how much was she going to pay me? And finally, where the fuck had everyone else in the world gone?”

I sniffed and rolled my eyes. He wasn’t even taking this the slightest bit seriously. Because she hadn’t asked him for shit.

Hope was a goddamn liar.

Feeling played because she’d managed to make me feel jealous ofKeeneof all people, I threw up my hands and muttered, “Never mind.” Then I turned away and abruptly stalked off.

“What the hell?” Keene asked in confusion, hurrying to keep up with me.

“You can find your Jeep yourself,” I shot back as I started in the direction of where I’d parked my truck.

But he called, “What about my mom?”

With a groan, I paused and turned back. “What about her?”

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