Page 53 of Between the Lines

“I don’t know. Should we stop?”

“Probably.” He nodded, holding my gaze for a long moment before he grabbed my head again, pulling me back into him.

So we agreed.

Fuck what weshoulddo, more energy toward what felt all too right in the moment—getting our clothes off. The visuals on the TV had stopped playing a while ago, ignored in favor of our conversation, and now…this.

The reconnection I’d longed for, but didn’t know how to initiate.

Reliefwas the best word to describe it.

Sweet,sweetrelief is I sank onto him, relishing the feeling of him inside me again.Thiswas something that couldn’t be emulated or faked for the camera, me and him, mouths locked together as I rode him in slow gyrations of my hips.

There was no need to rush.

No reason to hurry things along.

Just pure, elongated…bliss.

He dropped his hands to my hips, fingers digging into my flesh as I rocked up and down, fully tuned in to every modicum of friction, every inch of stretch as my body molded to his.

It was like our time away from each other had never existed.

Just…an unfortunate blip in the atmosphere, easily forgotten, easily overthrown by pleasure.

Over, over, over.

My nails dug into his shoulders as he pulled my mouth back to his. We stayed like that, tongues tangled as I rode him, the sort of intimacy I’d so sorely missed. He slipped a hand between us, between my legs, easily finding the specific spot.

He already knew exactly how hard, how fast, and in next to no time I was melting into his lap, my blissful moans swallowed by his lips. He pulled me tight against him as he drove into me one last time, hips surging up he released.

My head collapsed onto his shoulder, completely spent with the unplanned exertion of what we’d just done.

I wanted to feel good about it.

Ididfeel good about it.

Except…there was immense guilt weaved in too, wrapping around my throat as I came down from the high of the orgasm and reflected on what we’d just done.

Exactly the type of impulsive shit I was supposed to be growing out of.

I worked myself off his lap, not saying a word as I rushed to the bathroom, rightfully shamed about the evidence of what we’d done dripping down my thighs. I hadn’t even had time to start wallowing yet when a knock sounded at the bathroom door—which he didn’t wait for me to open.

“Don’t do this,” he insisted, draping himself in the door.

“Don’t do what?” I asked, grateful that I at least still had my sweatshirt on.

Abitless embarrassing.

“Act like we did something wrong,” he answered. “We didn’t do anything wrong, Ellie.”

“We’re not together,” I reminded him. “And we said we wouldn’t do this, remember? Muddying the waters of usactuallybeing friends. I don’t want to lose that, not again.”

“So let’s not then,” he said, grabbing my hand. He pulled it up to his mouth, kissing my fingers. “Clearly,just friendsisn’t what either of us wanted anyway, if this was all it took.”

“Are you calling meeasy?”

He laughed. “I’m callingmyselfeasy,” he countered. “Seriously though…what do you want to do?”

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