“Frat parties are the worst of the worst,” Rick says with a frown. “Those idiot college boys want nothing but tail, and they’re just looking to take advantage of drunk girls.”
Was that a strictly paternal note of concern in his voice, or a jealous one? The look on his face is inscrutable, but when he gazes at me once more, another jolt of electricity sizzles between us. I can’t be the only one who notices this; I swear I can see the hint of a flush on his high cheekbones. The air in this small room suddenly seems to be exceedingly warm. I shift on the examining table, wondering if he can hear my heartbeat increasing.
“I guess I’m interested in meeting someone, too. Who knows? Maybe I’ll meet him at a random party,” I joke, even though that’s not even the truth. I have met someone, and he’s sitting right across from me.
“You’re telling me that guys at school aren’t throwing themselves at you?”
I chuckle, secretly thrilled and flattered, and avert my gaze from his.
“Just asshole guys, apparently,” I say.
“You’ll find the right one eventually, Kara.”
I look back at him. He looks at me. My mouth has gone dry as sandpaper.
“I hope so,” I whisper.
Rick raises a brow, and his eyes flash. “What do you even want a boyfriend for anyways, Kara?” he asks, his voice low.
My heart leaps into my throat, and I swallow thickly in a vain attempt to push it back down. This conversation is creeping into very dangerous territory.
“You know,” I say feebly, suddenly unable, or unwilling to meet his gaze again. “To go on dates and stuff. To have someone to hold at night. I don’t know… to do what people dating do …” My voice drops to a whisper, and I can’t believe the words that come out of my mouth. “Like what men and women do together.”
Rick rises from his stool, and I look up at him, so handsome, so strong, and so very, very close to me. His chestnut eyes flash.
“You don’t need to worry, sweetheart. I’ll show you what men and women do,” he growls.
And then, he kisses me, right there in the exam room.4RickFor the first time — excluding in my forbidden daydreams — Kara James’s lips are on mine.
They’re softer than I could have even imagined. More plush. More full. I move my hands to the back of her head, and her hair beneath my fingers is impossibly soft and silky. I am barely able to resist moaning my pleasure into her mouth, as if I’m a teenage kid who’s never kissed a woman before.
What the fuck am I doing?
After one long, glorious moment, I force myself to pull back and see if she’s okay. Her lips are half parted, her eyes gently closed, the gorgeous golden fan of her lashes trembling against her cheeks. As I open my mouth to speak, she opens her eyes. Those baby blues make my knees weak, but I know that in this moment, I have to be strong.
“Kara, I am so sorry,” I say, my voice low. I can’t quite will myself to move away from her though, and her warm sweet breath is still on my face. “I shouldn’t have don’t that.”
“Please don’t stop,” she whispers.
Well, shit.
I shake my head in wonder, but before I can change my mind, I claim her mouth with mine again. I put both hands on the sides of her face, gently tangling my fingers in her silky blonde tresses. She’s wearing some kind of perfume I can’t quite place--vanilla? strawberry?--but the scent is so tantalizing that I want to inhale it forever, like a drug.
I am in serious trouble.
Kara has been my daughter’s best friend for the past decade now. I’ve seen Kara at her best--effervescent, smiling, laughing, dancing in our backyard--and her worst--crying over a boy, fighting with Bailey, passed out on our couch with her retainer in. I know her parents. I know her favorite foods. I even know her damn bra size because she and Bailey have had far too many conversations about this within earshot. She is my daughter’s rock, and her platonic life partner. Yet I’ve been eyeing the luscious blonde for the past several years.
What can I say? Any straight male would be unable to look away from her. Kara is tall and svelte but gorgeously well-endowed, with curves that less fortunate women would pay for. She’s the classic American beauty: a blonde, blue-eyed, girl-next-door who tans easily, kissed by the sun with freckles on the bridge of her cute nose and the slope of her shoulders. And her personality is sunny. She’s so warm, open, and carefree. She’s a flame and I’m the moth that’s a total fool.
I turn forty-five this year. I should have nothing to do with a twenty-year-old. But I have to admit that seeing Christopher and Bailey together has started to change my mind. When I first lost my cool over their relationship, my daughter insisted that she was an adult, and could make her own decisions. That means that Kara is an adult now, too, and can do the same. Would any of her decisions, though, involve a relationship with her best friend’s dad?