“Was it like fucking? Or did it feel like more?”
I thought back to the moments he never looked away, moving slow and hard. Then I thought back to the moments he nipped at my breasts and held my hips in a bruising grip, and he lost control. “Yes.”
“Damn,” she breathed. “Both? That’s the best.”
I took the last bite of my burger to avoid saying anything else.
“Have you thought about telling him how you feel?”
“God, no. I just realized it myself. I need to make sure it’s not some rash feeling based on him being the first guy I slept with.”
“If it makes you feel better, he seems different with you. I don’t know him very well, but the way he looks at you reminds me of the way Erik looks at me.”
“Ugh.” I dropped my head to my hands. “What would you do?”
“Well, with all of my knowledge from my one relationship ever…”
“I know. It’s like the blind leading the blind here.”
“We could always ask Carina,” she suggested.
“I already know what she would say.”
“Go for it,” we both said together.
Once we stopped laughing, Alex sobered. “I don’t know, Hanna. Maybe just let it ride and see where it goes. The bottom line is you have to consider each outcome. You could tell him, and he could feel the same. Or you could tell him and…”
“And he pulls way back, and I lose my friend.”
“Like I said, consider each option and find the best one. Sometimes the best one is the one that still hurts but maybe hurts the least. Sometimes, there’s no good answer.”
That’s what scared me the most. At the end of this, I’d end up just as damaged as when I started.
23
Daniel
I opened the door, and for a moment, froze just to take Hanna in. Somehow, even dressed down, she managed to steal my breath. Like she was in risqué lingerie, instead of jeans, a black tank, and an oversized cardigan.
“Hey,” she said, bringing me out of my stupor.
“Hey. You came.”
“Of course, I did,” she said, laughing, stepping past me into my apartment. “Besides, why wouldn’t I?”
I closed the door and led her to the kitchen, pondering how I wanted to answer her question. I could think of a million reasons that she should stay far away from me, but the one most prevalent was that she didn’t need me anymore.
“I figured we covered all the bases, so to speak.”
Another laugh. This was with a shy smile and a blush.
Somewhere over our time in the Caribbean, boundaries blurred. Justifying my actions by saying I wanted to help her couldn’t mask the way I craved her. I couldn’t lie and say I did it all for her. I wanted to be around her for me. I liked her. A lot. And breaking down those boundaries left me in a limbo I didn’t know how to navigate.
Did she want to continue how we were those last few days on the beach, like a couple who had a right to touch and kiss? Or did she want to go back to friends, who only touched at Voyeur?
I guessed tonight would test the last one. I invited her to my apartment because I wanted privacy and time.
“You’re still my friend. Whether the benefits end or not.”
She perched on the edge of a bar stool as I grabbed a bottle of wine, but I stopped at her words. She said them as a statement, but I heard the question behind them—the same uncertainty that swirled inside me slipped out with one sentence.
I set the wine on the counter and waited for her to meet my eyes. “Like I said, I’m all yours.”
Her hand slid over mine to grab the glass and stayed there. The moment stretched as we danced around the real question of what we were doing, or better yet, how much longer we could do it before something imploded.
I wasn’t ready yet. I couldn’t have the actual conversation our eyes were sharing right now. I cleared my throat and softly extracted my hand.
“It’s no hardship. You’re a beautiful woman.”
“You’re not too bad yourself.”
“I do the best I can for my age,” I joked with a wink.
“Yeah, I mean, how old are you? Sixty? Seventy?” She tried to hide her smile behind her glass, but her eyes glimmered with humor.
“You’re a riot.”
“Numbers are my jam. What can I say?”
“Speaking of numbers, how was heading back to work today?”
What I really wanted to ask was, how was it seeing what’s his face? Did you flirt? Did you finally accept his date? Is this ending soon because you’re good to go now that you know you can have sex?
“It was fine. I had lunch with Alex and avoided the third degree from Erik by hiding in my office and catching up on work.”
“He worries about you.”