Page 88 of Let Me Be the One

Lainey

“Ready to go?”

If the way my insides are trying to perform a death roll on my stomach is any indication, the answer to Ben’s question is a big fat no. I’ve been trying to psych myself up for Cass’s twenty-sixth birthday party ever since she mentioned she was planning to invite Amber and Lucas, but these past few weeks spent with Ben in my bed every night have me ill-prepared for seeing his ex—the woman he’s still in love with.

Instead of saying any of this to Ben, I look down at what I’m wearing. I’ve attempted the whole biker-babe look tonight: dark make-up, teased hair, knee-high boots, tight black leather miniskirt and a lace-up leather top which pushes my boobs out. I wanted to knock Ben’s socks off. And I wanted him to be so focused on me tonight that he wouldn’t pay any attention to Amber.

Now I’m having second thoughts about going out dressed the way I am. Ben will be so caught up in his feelings for Amber, he won’t care about what I’m wearing once we’re there. Besides, I really don’t think I’m pulling off the look. Even if Ben did express some serious approval when he arrived to pick me up and saw me wearing this get-up, I’m going to be much more comfortable and confident in one of my usual dresses.

“You know what? I might go get changed.”

“No way,” Ben says, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me against him before I can walk away. “You look fucking hot.”

His hands come to rest on my hips for a moment, then move over my bottom, squeezing me gently before trailing them down the backs of my thighs. “I’m going to spend the whole night thinking about doing this,” he says, sliding his hands beneath my tight skirt.

He doesn’t have to tell me how much the thought excites him. I can feel him hardening against me. An answering tug of desire flares low in my belly, and wet heat immediately blooms between my legs.

“Jesus,” he murmurs when he cups my naked bottom. “Are you wearing anything underneath this?”

“Just a G-string,” I answer breathlessly.

“You know, I think we should stay here tonight,” he says, grazing my jaw with his lips before trailing them down my neck and sucking on my pulse point.

Liquid fire roars through my veins and my heart trembles in my chest as my knees give out from underneath me. Nothing compares to this intensity I feel with him. Nothing. And there’s nothing I’d rather do right now than stay here, climb into bed, and make love with him until I simply can’t take anymore.

But as I stand back and look at his seductively sexy grin, I know I can’t do that. Not just because it’s my best friend’s birthday, but because I’d be buying into an incredibly dangerous self-deception.

Right now, standing here with him, it’s too easy to imagine he’s mine—my very own bad boy. Dressed all in black, with his too long hair wild and untamed, just like him, his dark eyes smouldering, a day’s worth of stubble on his face and a silver bar through his eyebrow, he’s never looked sexier. He looks like he stepped right out of my wickedest fantasies, or at least off the cover of one of my favourite romance novels. But he’s never going to break his no-relationship rule for me.

His heart belongs to Amber, and it remains loyal to her. She’s the one he fell for. The one woman he decided to enter into a relationship with. It’s her name tattooed across his heart.

The devastation that rips through me at that thought, decimating everything in its path, shakes me to my core. Because I want that with him. I want him—his heart. I want a relationship with him. What we’re doing—what we’ve been doing—it’s no longer enough for me. Not that it was ever enough, but the thought we’ll never be more hurts like it hasn’t before. Sadly, I’m pretty sure I know why it does.

I’m falling for him.

After months of friendship, and weeks of ripping each other’s clothes off every chance we get, I’m inching closer and closer toward heartbreak with every kiss and touch. I thought I was playing it smart, thinking of our time together as some sort of lesson in pleasing myself. I’ve been practicing being alone, reminding myself I’m single, and deliberately not changing my behaviour to please Ben. But everything about being with Ben is so much more than I could have ever hoped for.

My heart is full of what I feel for him, and the only thing he’ll give me in return is his promise that he won’t screw anyone else until he’s tired of this arrangement. The way my heart is twisting in my chest with that knowledge makes me grateful his arms are around me and he’s holding me up; it hurts that bad.

He’s frowning at me. “Lainey?”

“We have to go,” I tell him, trying to smile up at him even as I’m pulling away. “It’s my best friend’s birthday. I can’t miss it.”

“What just happened?” he asks softly.

“When?”

“Just now. One minute you were right here with me, and then the next...” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “The next you were gone. Where did you go, Lainey?”

I turn my mouth into his palm and kiss him there. “I never went anywhere. I’m right here.”

I can’t share what’s going on inside my head. I will. Just not yet. I have to work out what I’m going to do about it first. Do I continue down the path I’m on, falling deeper with every night we spend together? After everything that happened with Lucas, I know I shouldn’t. But my friendship with Ben will never be the same when I end our sexual relationship. I’m not stupid enough to believe it will be. Whatever I do, I’m going to lose him. Which is a ridiculous thought, as I never really had him in the first place.

“We should go,” I tell him.

The frown on his face grows darker and I feel his anger roll off him in waves at my unwillingness to share what I’m feeling. I need to come to a decision about where I go from here, but I can’t tonight.

“I’m ready,” he says curtly, stepping away from me.

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