Because that shit doesn’t happen. I arch a brow, my pulse speeding as I take a step closer. “Pretty doubtful.”
“Right. Two weeks is barely any time at all,” she says, slowly uncrossing and re-crossing her legs in a way that threatens to give my thrill-riding heart something more serious to worry about. “And if we were going to fall for each other, we would have done it by now, right?” She scoffs. “I mean, we’ve known each other forever.”
“But we weren’t always close,” I remind her, the words out of my mouth before I can snare them.
Why am I arguing with her? I can see where she’s headed, and I want to go there. A part of me is already imagining the sounds Ruby will make as I kiss my way up her thighs and drag those stockings off her legs with my teeth.
But the other part of me seems stuck in protective mode. “Things have been different the past two years,” I add.
“They have. And we’re close now. We’re real friends, not simply . . . friends by association.” She tilts her head to study me for a beat. Her gaze is locked on mine, and there’s a new strength in her eyes, a new certainty. Maybe it’s from finishing PT, or maybe it’s from starting the list, or hell, maybe it’s from the mushrooms.
Whatever it is, she looks like a woman taking charge of a night she doesn’t want to end, and it’s so fucking hot.
“But if you think more than friends is a bad idea . . .” A hint of nervousness creeps back into her voice.
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you didn’t say you wanted to do more than stare at me, either.” She hesitates, biting her bottom lip as she waves toward me. “And you’re still way over there.”
I’m torn between teasing her and showing her just how fast I can do more than stare. “When did you get so good at that?”
“Good at what?”
“Flirting,” I say, taking a step closer.
She sits up straighter, causing her breasts to peak against her slinky shirt and my imagination to charge full speed ahead into the Friends with Benefits zone. “I don’t know,” she says, soft and sexy. “Honestly, I don’t think I am good at it. Not usually. Not with . . . normal men.”
I arch a brow. “Just weirdos like me?”
Her lips quirk. “Yeah. Just weirdos like you.” She pulls in a shaky breath, releasing it as I move even closer. “You’re the furthest thing from weird, and you know it. You’re . . .”
When she doesn’t finish, I ask, “What? I’m what?”
“You’re the it guy,” she says, holding my gaze with glittering eyes. “The unattainable sex god we mere mortals drool over as you walk by. But you’re so far above us you don’t even notice.”
“I notice you, Ruby,” I say, bracing my hands on either side of her hips. “I notice everything about you. Every . . . fucking . . . thing.”
My eyes travel up and down her face, her breasts, her body, memorizing how she looks this second as she says, “Then I think there’s only one thing to do.”
“What’s that?” I love the teasing, love the anticipation. Most of all, I love hearing this woman own the move she’s about to make.
She licks her lips. “There’s a reason I didn’t want the night to end.”
I glide my hand to her hip, touching her.
It’s a hip.
A hip I’ve known most of my life.
A hip I’m sure I’ve bumped, grazed accidentally many times.
There is nothing accidental about the way I touch her now.
Everything is deliberate as I curl my hand around that delicious bone.
Everything is electric when her voice hitches on one sexy syllable—a delicious, inviting, “Oh.”
I lean in until our faces are near enough that I feel her breath warm on my lips as she whispers, “I want to try something new.”