Chapter Ten

Talia watched Reed leave the apartment. She told herself to get going, get moving, go about her day as briskly and easily as he did.

This wasn’t supposed to be a feel-bad event. This was a hot fuck with a hot guy and life moving on. This was, of course, for the best.

So why couldn’t she drag her ass out the door? Why couldn’t she shrug and move on?

It wasn’t like she’d never had sex with someone only once, then called it quits. It wasn’t like she’d never had a one-night stand.

Just not one where she was already, sort of, technically, living with the guy. Where when he went out the next day, she was still in his home, lying on his sheets, thinking of him.

Last night wasn’t just sex with no strings attached. She was kidding herself if she could pretend that. It was the best sex of her life. The best non-date, too.

The food. The laughter. His touch. How it felt to fall asleep in his arms and wake throughout the night and still feel him there.

When she’d put on his shirt that morning, enveloped in the smell of him, she’d imagined his hands all over her again, and all she’d wanted was more.

Even when she’d known she shouldn’t. Even when she’d been thinking about how she had to focus on practicing her steps, getting ready for the moment the curtain rose and the spotlight zeroed in not on Stacey, not on some other, better, brighter dancer, but on her. Even when a voice inside had warned her not to risk it all for some guy who wouldn’t be worth it, in the end.

But this one, she’d thought. What if this one is different?

Then she’d stepped into the kitchen and seen the coffee pot with barely a quarter inch of liquid in the bottom.

It was just a coffee pot. How could she get such a sinking feeling from some glass?

But between the dregs in the pot and the set of his shoulders over the sink, he didn’t have to say anything. She knew.

It’s better this way.

He was doing her a favor. He may have been physically available, but emotionally? He had a steel trap locked around his heart. It didn’t take X-ray vision to know his insides were still bloody and raw.

So she’d better get up, get out of bed, and spend her Sunday rehearsing in the empty studio as if nothing had happened.

Since it was obvious that, to him, it hadn’t.

Talia came home late that evening. But Reed came home even later.

She’d expected him to be there when she walked in the door and was surprised by darkness instead. She had to remind herself that they didn’t owe each other anything. They weren’t lovers. They weren’t even roommates. They were just…happenstance. Pure coincidence.

As soon as this weird limbo she was in came to an end, the thing that was “they” would disappear. And that would be that.

She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and got into bed. She was tempted to text her friends and fill them in on the rise and precipitous fall of this latest plot twist in her life. But she needed to go to sleep—if only to make sure that she was out cold when he came home, so she wouldn’t be tempted to see him.

But no matter how tired she was, she couldn’t make her mind stop churning. She was awake when she heard the front door open and close. Still awake to the sounds of him in the kitchen, then the bathroom, then the click of the lights turning off in the apartment.

When the noises stilled, she guessed he was lying on the couch. Not sleeping in bed with her like he had last night. But choosing that too-small, uncomfortable couch, alone.

Thinking about the couch was dangerous. It made her think of how his body didn’t fit on there.

And that only made her think of how it fit, instead, with her. His large palms spanning her body. His mouth covering hers. Her hands on his smooth head pressing him down between her thighs.

She squeezed her legs together under the bed. His bed, with his sheets, his scent, his presence everywhere. Fuck.

She could not slip a hand under the covers and indulge in the fantasy. They’d agreed not to do that anymore, which meant no thinking about him that way. No letting herself go there. At all.

She wondered if he was asleep yet. At one point last night she’d woken up and caught sight of him close to her, sleeping. Maybe she’d been imagining it, but he’d looked so peaceful then, like there was less of that worry that tightened his brow.

It seemed too intimate a thing to know how his face softened, how his chest rose and fell with his breathing. She rolled onto her stomach to quell the thoughts.

But there was Reedness on the pillowcase, Reedness touching every inch of her skin. It wouldn’t let her forget that she was resting her head right where he’d rested his own the night before.

God, she sounded like she was twelve years old and gossiping with Jessie in homeroom. I touched the same pencil he touched! I breathed the same air molecules as him!

But she wasn’t twelve anymore. All she had to do was think of Max Matthers if she needed a reminder of why making eyes at cute boys only landed her in trouble.

Besides, Reed had been clear. This was an arrangement of convenience, to make up for what had been a night of terrible inconvenience.

She yanked her hand out of her pajama pants. She’d barely realized it had gone there of its own accord, thinking of Reed and his tattoos, Reed and his silences, Reed and the way he’d licked her to ecstasy the night before.

Was he okay? She wished she knew for sure if he was settled in and sleeping. Just so she could stop wondering about it.

It wasn’t like she wanted to see him. Not after she’d just been touching her clit fantasizing about him in his bed right after swearing up and down that there was nothing going on between them and she was 100 percent on board with making sure their little lapse never happened again.

He was practically made of stone—she probably hadn’t crossed his mind again. He would have gone to work, focused on murderers and drug dealers—a real boner killer, she was sure—and now he was bagged out on the couch, exhausted, not wanting to be disturbed.

She’d just tiptoe out, take a quick peek, and tiptoe back to the bedroom. They wouldn’t interact. He’d never even know.

But when she slowly, quietly, slid open the door, she froze.

At first it just sounded like breathing, and she was glad because that meant he was definitely there, and definitely asleep, so she could definitely do the same.

But then she listened closer, and it wasn’t breathing. Or it was, but it was heavy breathing. Unsteady breathing. Not the full, slow, steady rhythm of sleep but something quick and fast and hard. Strained. Held back, but escaping anyway.

She took a quiet step forward on her bare feet, using all her dancer training to tread as lightly as possible, not making a sound.

Then she heard it. Not just his breathing, but something else. A fast, steady shake of the cushions. Fabric moving.

Was he—?

No. It couldn’t be. She moved closer.

The sounds were unmistakable now: his hard panting, the work of his hand.

She came up over the couch. His eyes were closed, pinched shut and strained. His T-shirt was pulled up slightly, his sweats pulled down. His cock was thick and hard and full in his hand, and he was pumping it steadily, fondling his balls with one hand while he worked his shaft with the other.

Talia’s heart stopped. Her lungs, too. Everything in her was frozen. This was not what she’d expected to find.

Could she back away without him noticing? Would her legs hold her up that long, or would she collapse into a puddle of want on the floor? Between her thighs was an ache so deep she thought it might break her. He was so, so beautiful, and she couldn’t deny for another second longer that she wanted him so, so much.

But he’d also been so, so clear that she couldn’t have him. He was just releasing some steam, a quick jerk-off before bed. If he’d wanted to sleep with her again, obviously he knew where to find her. All he had to do was knock on the door.

He didn’t want her. He’d said that. She’d heard that. She knew it was true.

But then his lips parted, a faint moan escaping. And he whispered— Oh God, she could have sworn she heard him whisper “Talia” as he stroked his hard cock.

She leaned over him. His eyes flew open wildly as she parted her lips and whispered, “Yes?”