Page 55 of Where She Belongs
“Nineteen, twenty...” I count, my voice growing rougher as her hair gradually tumbles free.
“This dress isn’t any easier,” she murmurs, her breath catching as my fingers brush her nape. “Hidden zipper. Thirty-eight tiny buttons. Whoever designed mother-of-the-bride gowns clearly wasn’t thinking about the end of the evening.”
“Clearly not thinking about impatient dates,” I agree, finishing with the last hairpin. Her hair falls completely free, and I run my fingers through it, reveling in the silky texture. “You’re beautiful like this.”
“Disheveled and half-undone?” she teases, but there’s vulnerability beneath her smile.
“Exactly like this.” I turn her gently, fingers finding the hidden zipper at the back of her champagne-colored gown. “Now, about these thirty-eight buttons...”
She laughs again, the sound warming me from within. “I might have exaggerated. But the zipper does stick.”
I tug it carefully, following its path down her spine. The dress parts, revealing the elegant line of her back, and my mouth goes dry at the sight of her skin, golden in the dim light of our suite.
“Gabe,” she breathes, her voice suddenly serious again as the dress loosens around her shoulders. “Are we really doing this?”
The question sobers me slightly. Because this is the woman I respect more than anyone, the friend I can’t bear to lose, the person who trusts me enough to share her bed even if it’s just pretend.
“We don’t have to.” The words cost me, but I mean them. “We can stop?—”
She turns in my arms, the dress slipping further, held up now only by her arms crossed at her chest. “Don’t stop,” she whispers, and the vulnerability in her eyes nearly breaks me. “Please don’t stop.”
Those words, combined with the feeling of her hands on my skin, snap the last thread of my control as I look down at her. God help me, I’ve never wanted anyone more.
“You’re sure?” I have to ask, even as every cell in my body screams at me to shut up and kiss her again.
Her answer is to pull me down to her, and this time when we kiss, there’s no hesitation. No pretense. Just us, finally letting ourselves want what we’ve been denying for so long.
Even if it’s just this once.
Even if it changes everything.
“Now it’s your turn to get undressed.” As she slides my jacket off my shoulders, she pauses, a look of doubt crossing her features.
“I’m not...” She glances away. “I don’t look like the women you usually date.”
The vulnerability in her voice makes my chest ache. The woman who’s always been the most beautiful person in any room to me, suddenly unsure because of Simon’s betrayal, because of our age difference, because she can’t see herself the way I see her.
“Look at me,” I say, waiting until she meets my eyes. “You’re gorgeous. You always have been.”
A smile tugs at her lips. “Always?”
The question catches me off guard, making me realize what I’ve admitted. But watching her beneath me, hair mussed from theabsence of those forty hair pins and my fingers, lips swollen from my kisses, I can’t bring myself to lie.
“Always,” I confess, trailing my fingers down her neck. “Even when I shouldn’t have noticed. Even when I told myself I didn’t.”
Her breath hitches as I find a sensitive spot below her ear. “Gabe...”
“Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to kiss you here?” I demonstrate, feeling her pulse jump under my lips. “Or how often I’ve thought about touching you?” My hand skims her side, and she arches into the contact. “How many nights I’ve dreamed about?—”
She cuts me off with a kiss that steals my breath, her hands threading through my hair to pull me closer.
“Show me,” she whispers against my mouth. “Show me everything you’ve thought about.”
The words send heat rushing through me, but I force myself to go slow. To savor every inch of skin she reveals, to learn what makes her gasp and sigh, to worship her body the way I’ve wanted to for longer than I care to admit.
As I trail kisses down her neck and chest, I repeat the mantra in my head: this is just once. We’re getting this out of our system.
Then we’ll go back to being friends.
