there aren’t three million other guys in the city who would happily return any interest she showed in them.
Dakota huffs. The gray dress she’s wearing is falling off her shoulder and she looks so small next to me.
“I don’t know . . . maybe I never said your name, exactly.” She looks around my bedroom. Her eyes stop at the picture of us on my dresser. “And I didn’t keep any pictures of us around.”
She looks guilty when she says this. And it’s not like I expected her to build a shrine for me or anything, but is it possible that she didn’t even mention my name to her roommates? Not once?
“Like at all?” I ask.
She shakes her hand and pulls at my shirt. Her fingers are struggling to loosen the fabric, so she moves to the buttons of my jeans. I steady them, cupping my hands around hers and pulling them to her chest.
“Not tonight,” I say against her cheek.
With a pouty grumble, she pulls her hand free and dips it into my pants. I groan as she grips me and slowly moves her hand up and down.
Think logically, I remind myself.
I have to think logically, and I can’t do that while Dakota’s teasing me like this. I reach for her hand and gently unwrap her fingers from me. She looks up at me in confusion.
“You had too much to drink,” I say, and lead her by the elbow to my bed. She stands in silence while I reach for the zipper of her dress.
She gathers up her hair and holds it out of the way to allow me access to the fabric. When the dress begins to fall she holds it to her chest and I pull her tights down her smooth legs. She steps out of them and lets the dress drop to the floor. She isn’t wearing a bra.
Fuck me, she isn’t wearing a bra.
Clearly I’m meant to be tempted tonight. For panties, she’s wearing a red thong made of lace. Her ass looks so good in them, petite and toned. She turns around to face me with a devilishly sly grin.
“I don’t remember these,” I tease. I hook my finger around the hip of her panties and she moans when the fabric snaps back against her tawny skin.
I back away and she glares at me.
“You’re mean,” she says, sticking out her tongue as she shakes her ass a little. She’s in a playful mood now, and I’m very aware that I’m in for it. There’s nothing she can do to make me sleep with her tonight, no matter how sexy she looks standing here in only panties. We haven’t touched each other in months, and we aren’t dating. Tonight isn’t the night to change all that. Not while she’s wasted and we’re both confused.
She’ll understand in the morning.
I wrap my hands around her shoulders. “Let’s get you to bed.”
I can hear Tessa and Nora talking in the living room, but I can’t make out anything they’re saying. Dakota grabs the picture frame from my dresser and holds it to her face.
“We were soooo dorky!” She laughs, running a finger over the hideous plaid shirt I’m wearing in the picture.
Her bare breasts are distracting me, but I steer my attention toward grabbing her a shirt from my drawer. I reach around her and blindly pull something out, only to find it’s my Adrian High School track shirt.
Of course it is, because we are in some mystical land where we can’t seem to outrun our past no matter what we do. Dakota snatches it from me and brings it to her chest. She lifts it up, smelling the worn-out fabric.
“This shirt, oh my God!” She seems genuinely happy, and I don’t think she notices when the talking in the living room quiets again. I do.
“We had sooo many good times in this shirt,” she muses, her tongue licking at her lips.
I look away from her bouncing body.
“Put me out of my misery and put it on, please,” I plead with her.
She giggles, thoroughly enjoying my compliments and admiration of her dancer’s body, as she should. She should always feel like this, beautiful and empowered. She’s still a little drunk, but