Page 39 of The Friend

Her breath hitched as he leaned forward, tipped her chin up, and slanted his lips across hers, a slow, sensual assault that left her reeling.

“Where did that come from?” Her hand shook as she placed her cocktail on the table, but not half as much as her heart. Shaken didn’t come close to describing the cataclysmic realisation a second before his lips touched hers.

She’d been deluding herself.

She didn’t just love Judd.

She wasinlove with him.

Heart and soul.

He reached out and captured her hand in his, steadying her, infusing her cold hand with his warmth.

“You really need to ask?”

“Uh-huh.”

She needed to know if he stood by their initial plan for a fling or if last night changed everything for him too.

She needed to know if feeling this way about a guy she’d known for so long was crazy.

Most of all, she needed to know if the heat, the passion, and the tenderness blazing from his eyes every time he looked at her was real or some role he was playing.

She’d seen him do it before. He’d played roles his entire life: the devil-may-care kid who didn’t give a hoot what people thought about him, the rebel teen who pushed away anyone who tried to get close, the adventurous warrior hellbent on travelling the world and never having ties to one place.

She’d seen it all, had loved him through it all, yet now, what if his role-playing affected her?

“We’re good together,” he said, holding her hand as if he’d never let go. “You’re incredible, the most important person in my life, and my head’s still spinning from what’s happened over the last few days. Surely you know that?”

Abby blinked several times, annoyed by the sudden tears burning the back of her eyes.

She could ask him how he really felt.

She could ask him if this was all a game, a new role he was trying on for size.

Instead, she did what she always did with Judd: kept things light.

“All I know is you’re a great friend…and an even better lover.”

She leaned forward and kissed him, swift and hard, demanding an instant response, needing to obliterate her doubts and questions with the consuming heat between them.

The kiss could’ve lasted a second, a minute, an hour, she had no idea, and when they finally came up for air, breathing heavily, she knew this wasn’t the time for thinking or admitting anything.

“Come with me.” She held her hand out to him and he took it, all but leaping off his sun-bed.

“Should I trust you?” His sinful smile sent heat rushing through her and she tugged on his hand.

“Yeah.”

“So the Tom and Tara thing is taken care of?”

“Totally,” she said, laughing as they picked up the pace, their feet flying across the sand towards her room. “Now it’s time I take care of something else.”

“A woman who likes to take charge, what a turn on.”

“Less talking, more running,” she said, laughing as he tripped over his feet in his haste to keep up.

She had to lose herself in his arms, in his kisses, in the sheer mind-blowing pleasure of sex, anything to reassure herself that maybe she hadn’t made a mistake and she wasn’t in love with him.

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