She deepens her voice. “You mean my newlovely young ladylook?”
Yup. She’s still peeved about that. “I didn’t have a choice. I had to call it that in front of Owen and River.”
“Why?”
“We both know they would kick my ass if they heard me say that you were smoking hot.”
Claudia twists her body and peeks at me over her shoulder. “You think I’m smoking hot?”
What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t tell a seventeen-year-old girl, even if this is Claud, something like that. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
She turns onto her opposite side so we’re lying face to face. “What you think matters to me, Duke. Much more than you’ve ever realized.”
Her body is pressed against mine. Her lips mere inches away. Her sweet breath on my face. Nothing about those things reminds me of the kid I’ve always considered a little sister. And my cock doesn’t think so either.
No two ways about it. Being next to her this way—and liking it this much—is wrong.
I’m twenty-three. A college graduate. A man. She’s seventeen. A high school senior. A girl. Off-limits. Forbidden fruit. “Whatever this is… it shouldn’t be happening.”
“What isthis? What’s happening between us?” Her voice is soft, low… seductive. I don’t think she realizes how much.
Giving this a label means admitting to the thoughts I’m having about her. Confessing the intense desires that she stirs inside me. Revealing how much she turns me on. I can’t do that and expect Owen not to tie me up by my balls. “That’s a conversation we can’t have.”
She presses a palm to the side of my face and her eyes search mine. “But I want to have that conversation. And I think you do, too. I see it in the way you look at me.”
I see it in the way you look at me.Fuck, if she sees it, does that mean others do, too?
“I’m too old for you. And I’m Owen’s best friend. Nothing can happen between us.”
She wraps her leg around my waist and presses her body against the bulge in my jeans. “Something is already happening. I feel the proof of it right there.”
“This is wrong.” I place my hand on her hip and push her body away from mine. “This is what’s going to happen. You’re going to get up, go to your bedroom, fall asleep, and tomorrow you’ll wake and pretend none of this happened.”
“The last thing I want to do is pretend this didn’t happen.”
Shit. This has already gone further than it should. I’ve as good as admitted that I want her. “We aren’t going to speak of this again.”
The urge to pull her body against mine is almost overwhelming, but I obey my gut and push her farther away. “Go now, before Owen or River comes back and finds us like this.”
She looks at me for a moment before pulling away. “God, I’m so stupid.”
“No. Don’t say that.”
“I can’t believe I thought you…” She stops midsentence and covers her eyes with her hands. “I shouldn’t have said anything. God, how humiliating.”
I don’t want her to be embarrassed. “Hey, come here.”
I sit up and reach out for her hand—unsuccessfully—as she steps beyond my grasp. “No, Duke. I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t need you to say things you don’t mean just to make me feel better.”
“Claud…” I don’t want her to walk away believing she misinterpreted anything that happened between us, yet I can’t encourage her. I can’t tell her how she really makes me feel. But I also can’t let her walk away believing our relationship has changed. “Dove? Are we okay?”
She looks up and rapidly blinks. “Yeah. We’re okay. This never happened.Just like you said.”
She says the words but I know in my heart they’re not true. Something significant has just taken place. Nothing is ever going to be the same between us.
My heart aches with an incredible pull to go after her. Tell her everything she said is true. Tell her I feel the same things as she does. But I don’t do that. I can’t. Instead, I stay on the couch, spending the rest of the night seeing her behind my closed lids.
The first few hours I imagine myself having her in no less than ninety-nine different ways. The horny lobe of my male brain was more than happy and able to supply all the images to accompany the fantasies happening in my head. My favorite was the one where she was lying on the bed, begging me to bury my face between her legs.