“You’re out of your flipping mind,” Ava gasped, taking a step back from Sam’s insanity in action. From where he had a hold of his belt buckle and was pulling it free from his jeans and dropping it on the ground beside him.
“You got that right.” Then, reaching over his shoulder, he grabbed a handful of the back of his shirt.
“Sam, I’m serious. What you’re doing doesn’t make sense. Leave your shirt—”
He jerked it over his head.
“You said you wanted your chance. You couldn’t resist. Well,” he scrubbed a hand through his hair, leaving it standing in a tumbled mess of golden spikes. Sexy golden spikes. “Here it is, Ave. Risk free, because I’m pretty sure we couldn’t fuck things up more if we tried.”
This was bad, very bad.
Because she was angry and hurt and sorry and about a million too many things for her brain to be able to process all at once. And more than all that, she was still in love with the half-naked man glaring across the room at her.
“This is a mistake, Sam.”
The top button on his fly popped beneath his fingers. “That doesn’t sound like a ‘no.’ ”
He was right. She couldn’t say no to him.
Even with everything happening between them, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the bronzed, bare skin of his chest. The solid mas of his shoulders and arms, the banded muscles across his abdomen, and the narrow trail of crisp, golden hair that speared downward into that widening vee of denim.
“Come on, Ava, this is what you wanted, right? This is what was worth more to you than our friendship. So what’s the problem?”
Her heart started to pound. “I told you, Sam, if I’d thought for one minute we’d end up here, I’d never have risked our friendship. Do you seriously think I liked keeping this kind of secret?”
He shrugged one solid shoulder.
“I think some people like holding on to secrets. Fuck, some people get off on them.” He toed off one shoe and then the other, his focus coasting over the curves of her body, touching on all the spots he’d used to drive her crazy.
“Is that you, Ava? Did you get off on the lies, the promises you broke before the words had even left your mouth? Or maybe it was the risk itself. Was that it? Must’ve been some fucking rush to have you screaming the way you did.”
“You know that’s not true.” Her fists were clenching at her side, her heart hammering against her ribs. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because it’s the only way I’m going to know if it was me who got you off or some fucking lie. It’s the only way I’ll know what’s true and what’s not, since I sure as shit can’t take your word for it.”
“You make me sick,” she hissed.
“I make you wet,” he countered, the all-too-cocky smile on his lips twisted with an anger and bitterness she’d never seen in him before.
And then he was closing the distance between them, walking into her space like she’d invited him. Sucking up the oxygen and supercharging the molecules in the air around her.
He didn’t stop until he was so close she had to look up to see his face, so close she could feel the heat coming off his skin.
It was making her dizzy.
Damn him, it was making her—
“Mad as you are, I do, don’t I?” His voice dropped to a knowing, seductive whisper that teased through the strands of her hair, making her aware of every nerve. “Tell me you aren’t wet for me this very minute, Ava. Lie to me some more.”
With those last words, a switch flipped inside her and all she could think was: Screw him.
Her hands landed on the solid-packed muscles of his chest and she shoved him back a step.
Yes, she wanted Sam.
She’d always wanted him, and no matter how far away she ran or how much distance or time she put between them, she imagined she always would.
But enough was enough.
“You want the truth, Sam?” Her fingers curled into the loose fabric of her top and she yanked it overhead, balled it up, and fired it into Sam’s somehow surprised face.
Ha, now who wasn’t being honest? He shouldn’t have started this game if he wasn’t going to finish it. If he didn’t want what he was asking for.
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted from you, Ava!”
Her thumbs hooked into the waistband of her leggings and she shoved them off. “Well here’s the unvarnished whole of it: being in love with you sucks, Sam!”
Sam met her declaration with a curt laugh. “Is that right?”
Wadding up her pants, she hurled them at his feet. “Yeah, that’s right. And here’s why. I know I deserve better than you.”
Sam’s jeans hit the floor. “I used to think so.”
Jackass.
“I deserve a guy who won’t make me watch while he cues up the entire female population of Illinois to stick his dick into.”
“Come on now, Ava. We’re telling the truth here”—her bra hit him in the face—“and you know I leave the married girls alone.”
“I deserve better than to spend twenty years with no one to talk to, no one to cry to, because I wouldn’t risk what that information could do to your relationships.”
He blinked at that, his chin pulling back, but she wasn’t done.
“I deserve better than a guy who after twenty years can’t see why we’d be perfect together.”
He was staring at her breasts, the muscles along his throat moving up and down as he swallowed. Took a step toward her. “And I deserve a friend who means it when she swears what we have is enough.” The white boxer briefs went the way of the jeans, ending up somewhere behind him. “Who understands and accepts that I’m giving her the best I fucking have to give.”
He was naked. Hard.
And stalking toward her.
Her shoulders met smooth plaster before she realized she’d begun to retreat, but then there was no place left to go, and Sam was reaching for her, his rough hands closing around her hips as he leaned in, pressing her against the wall.
“I deserve a better—”
Sam’s mouth came down on hers in a bruising crush, as unforgiving and irresistible as the man kissing her. Hot and demanding, his tongue pushed between her lips, taking before she had the chance to give and turning her body molten with instant burning need.
Catching her by the backs of the legs, he pulled her thighs to either side of his hips and rocked mercilessly into the place she wanted him most.
God, yes.
It was crazy, what they were doing. Wrong.
But she was past caring.
As Sam had said, they couldn’t fuck this up more than they already had. And he wanted this.
Same as her.
Another spearing thrust of his tongue and she opened wider to his brutal kiss, threw her arms around his neck and held tight.
Sam groaned, his fingers sinking into her flesh.
Good, if this was the last of what they were going to have, she wanted the evidence of it on her body for as long as it could last.
Fueled by anger as much as lust, she bit at Sam’s lips, urging him on. Begging for more.
And then she had it.
The room swinging around her as Sam turned and pushed her down onto the bed.
“You want this, Ava?” he demanded, his eyes boring hot into hers.
“Yes,” she gasped as he moved between her legs.
Braced on one arm, he loomed over her. “Then I want everything. Starting now.”
Ava took a shuddering breath and nodded.
Everything slowed as a quiet slipped beneath the need.
Resting her hands at the sides of Sam’s face, she stroked her thumbs across the hard-cut line of his jaw.
Then, her throat aching with the same emotion leaking from the corners of her eyes, she told him.
“I love you, Sam.”