“WE DON’T HAVE to do this, you know.” Kacey was nervous. His toast had nearly made her cry. Her appearing in that bra had nearly knocked him out of his briefs, but it had also bothered him in an entirely different way. She was pushing too hard.
If she had to force things, it wasn’t going to happen.
“You don’t want to?”
They’d promised honesty. It was the only way. “I am not going to touch you if it makes you nervous,” he told her.
“Your touch doesn’t make me nervous.”
“Something’s going on.”
She looked down at the wine in her glass. Took a sip. And he had a really strong feeling it was for courage.
Setting his glass on the table, he turned to her, ran a hand down her exquisitely perfect face. A symbol of the dichotomy between them. If they ever were together for life, he’d be waking to that face every single morning. And she’d be waking to half a ghoul.
“I want to have sex with you.”
She was pushing again.
“I mean it, Michael.” The look in her eyes, hungry and filled with warmth, confused him.
“Then what’s going on?”
She took another sip of wine. And he thought he knew.
“Your mind wants you to have sex with me,” he said. “Because you know I’m safe and you so badly want to recover from what happened on the beach. You’re using me to get yourself back. I’m going into this with eyes wide-open. But it’s not going to work if you aren’t ready, Kace. We have to wait until your body wants it, too. Or at least is tempted to want it.”
Her eyes flooded with tears this time.
“Oh, Michael, I really do love you.”
As a friend. He knew and believed that. But he also knew she was in recovery mode. He knew it well. He’d lived in it himself for more than three years. Through surgery after surgery. And then following the breakup with Susan.
“And sometimes you make me nuts,” she continued.
He didn’t get that.
“I am so wet with wanting you right now, I can hardly believe it. I’ve never felt anything like it...”
Oh, God. Man, oh, man. She was throwing him a curveball and he was only human...
But he hadn’t imagined the shaking hands. The pushing.
And she was a consummate actress. He’d seen her show. More times than he cared to admit even to her.
“Kace...”
She took another sip of wine, a big sip, and opened the bag of marshmallows, popping one into his mouth and then one into hers.
“It’s not me I’m worried about, Michael,” she said, the words slightly garbled as she spoke around her marshmallow. He was on fire, watching that. Needing to kiss her. To lose himself in her.
Even knowing that once he did, he’d never fully get himself back.
But she acknowledged worry. They were getting somewhere.
He finished chewing before he said, “What are you worried about?”
“Disappointing you, you nut. Do you have any idea what it’s like being seen as some kind of sex fantasy? I mean, come on, how could I possibly live up to that? Unless maybe if sex was my profession, I might be able to pull it off, if I had that much training. But...”