Just This Once

by Mira Lyn Kelly

  As quietly as she could, she eased the key into the lock and slipped into the dimly lit apartment. Closing the door with a quiet snick, she turned toward the couch and cocked her head at the sight of him sprawled across the cushions. Wearing the clothes she’d packed that afternoon.

  Her eyes narrowed. Maybe quiet was the wrong approach.

  With a flick of the lights, she bellowed her greeting, “Hey, did I wake you?”

  “What the…?” Sean jerked upright, his usually perfect hair sticking in every direction at once.

  One chunky motorcycle boot hit the wall with a satisfying thud and then the other. “Wow, long night at Belfast,” she said, strolling over to the couch where she allowed herself a single tousle of Sean’s hair before bouncing onto the cushion beside him. “Somehow, one of our cases of Ketel One got stocked in the wrong area, and I ended up having to go through the whole last delivery to double-check our inventory. Two waitresses called in last minute, a bartender cut his hand open, and Brody was off at some dinner meeting with one of his vendors. One of the pretty ones, so I didn’t want to call him, no matter how late it got. How was your day?”

  The fog was clearing from Sean’s eyes as he rubbed a palm over the golden stubble of his jaw. “Mine?” He shook his head again and looked at her, that bleary look almost gone.

  “Yeah.” She grinned, bouncing again and giving him a jostling shoulder bump. “What did you do today?”

  With a shake of his head, he cleared his throat and met her cranked-up grin with one of those half smiles responsible for panties dropping around the world. “Meetings. A shit ton of them. We’ve got second-quarter numbers back for the Midwest territory, my dad was traveling so I had to handle the teleconference with Milan—”

  “Busy,” she agreed, then cocked her head and asked, “Hey, you don’t still have that thing where you can’t go back to sleep if you wake up in the middle of the night, do you?”

  The sleepy smile dropped off Sean’s face. “What time is it?”

  Yawning into her hand, she stood. “’Bout two thirty. Which reminds me… I’m whipped.” He was still scowling at the empty space in front of him when she paused at the door to her room. “Kind of fun having you here to chat with for a few minutes when I got home. I could get used to this. Night, roomie.”

  With her threat left hanging in the air, she slipped into her room.

  Suck on that, Wyse.

  * * *

  Four hours later, Molly woke to the ringing of her phone. No one called her this early unless it was an emergency. Fumbling the phone in a haze of confusion, she managed to answer. “Hello?”

  “Oh, darn it. Did I wake you?” Sean asked, his voice pouring through the line like sugar-free syrup. “Sorry, Moll. Just wanted to tell you I really enjoyed our chat last night too. And it means a lot to know that we’re the kind of good friends who aren’t afraid to wake each other up from time to time.”

  Eyes closed, she flopped back on the bed and pictured the cocky Eastwood-esque smile on the other end of the line. He wasn’t giving up. Yet.

  “Me too, Sean.” Neither was she. “See you tonight.” After she closed Belfast again.

  “Can’t wait.”

  Yeah, she just bet he couldn’t. Returning the phone to her nightstand, she curled into her light comforter. Good thing she didn’t have Sean’s problem and could fall back to sleep on a dime.

  * * *

  Molly shocked awake, her limbs quaking as a series of hard knocks ripped her from the sleep she’d returned to—she glanced at the clock—not even thirty minutes ago. Which meant she only had ninety minutes left to sleep before she had to get moving for her 9:00 a.m. Tuesday gig, cleaning the Stratton condo. Too soon. Following the persistent thuds, she stumbled through the apartment and opened the door to a bouquet of flowers.

  “Delivery for Ms. Brandt.”

  “I didn’t think you delivered this early,” Molly said, yawning.

  “Special request.”

  Yeah, she bet.

  It was one of those artfully decorated vases with the flowers arranged in a perfect tight ball. Gorgeous. Accepting the bouquet, she walked it over to the butcher-block table. The card was from Sean, written in his neat handwriting.

  Sorry to wake you earlier. Sleep tight.

  Sean

  She wanted to be pissed, but she had to give the guy credit. He was good. Really good. Pulling out her phone, she snapped a picture and texted it over.

  Molly: Nicely played.

  A minute later, she had his response.

  Sean: You didn’t really think I was going to let you run me out without a fight.

  No, she knew him too well to think he wouldn’t take this as a challenge.

  Molly: Doesn’t matter. You’re still going.

  Sean: Sure. When you find a new roommate.

  Ass. Grinning, she headed for the shower. No way she’d get any more sleep today, but she could use the extra hour to work on the Dawson website. She was on track to meet her projected delivery date, but getting ahead was always a good thing.

  * * *

  “Okay, you know I like to win,” Emily Foster said, sighing after Sean dropped back onto his stool at their table for their regular Wednesday night game. She slapped her darts on the polished high top and glowered first at him and then at Molly. “But throwing the game? Come on.”

  Elbows resting on the table, fatigue sitting heavy on his shoulders, Sean raised a staying hand. “We’re not throwing the game.”

  Emily’s eyes narrowed. “You missed the board. And Molly here has zero points for the game so far. What’s going on? Is it me? Do you just not want to play with me anymore because I keep mopping the floor with you?”

  Jase returned to the table with a fresh beer for his wife and two steaming mugs of coffee. “It’s not you, Em,” he reassured her, pressing a kiss atop her head of strawberry-blond waves before sliding back onto his stool. “Frick and Frack here are roommates again. They’ve probably been staying up half the night watching raunchy movies and trying to out-belch each other. They’re not throwing the game. They just suck because they’re exhausted.” Jase handed Sean one of the mugs, which he took with near-tearful gratitude. “Am I right?”

  Not exactly, though Sean had certainly been looking forward to a scenario very similar to what Jase had described when he’d moved in.

  “Close enough,” he replied, passing the other mug to Molly, who stared down at it while biting her lip in indecision. Probably afraid it would keep her up, and after two nights of roommate wars, he got why she’d be concerned. They were both barely making it through. “Just drink it. You’ll feel better.”

  Big, blue eyes swept up to his, vulnerable and weary. “I’m dying.”

  The girl had all but begged for exactly what she’d been getting by staging yet another wee-hours wake-up and then adding insult to injury by locking the coffee maker in her room, but still Sean didn’t like to see her eyes like that. He didn’t like the feeling deep in his gut that came from knowing he was responsible.

  “Yeah, me too,” he conceded, certain it would brighten her spirits to know she was giving as good as she got.

  “Thanks.” She smiled, but it was small and apparently took too much effort, because then she just dropped her forehead into her hands.

  Leaning in so their shoulders touched, he angled his head so his words were only for her. “Look, we’re both beyond wasted. How about we call a truce tonight and catch up on some sleep?” She wasn’t working, so they could just go home and crash.

  Peeking out from the cradle of her hands, she looked him over. “You wish.”

  He sighed, wondering why he’d even asked. This was Molly, and she was stubborn with a capital S. “Yeah, I kinda do.”

  A set of darts tapped an impatient staccato across the table, bringing their attention back to E
mily, who was giving Sean a no-nonsense look. “You’re up. Take a hit of the coffee, and snap out of it. This is no fun at all.”

  Sean stood, rolled a dart between his fingers, and grimaced. He’d tapped the last of his reserves to stay sharp during the marketing meeting, and now…damn, he had nothing.

  A solid hand clapped his shoulder as Jase stepped up beside him and took the darts from his hand. “Friends don’t let friends throw sharp objects dead tired. Take Molly, and get out of here.”

  Sean ran a hand through his hair. “Brody hasn’t even made it out of his office yet, and I’m pretty sure he wanted to talk about camping next month.”

  “Trust me, he’ll get over it. Besides”—Jase glanced back at Emily—“someone’s got to give my wife a little competition.”

  It was an out he couldn’t refuse, and fifteen minutes later, Sean was thanking the Uber driver outside Molly’s place while she quietly snored into his shoulder. With the hard time she’d been giving him, he ought to slam the door and make as much racket as he could, but having her tucked in against him like this… Yeah, he ought to wake her up with an air horn, but instead, he gathered her in his arms as gently as he could and carried her up to her apartment.

  Inside, he laid her back on her bed and paused before pulling away to detach her fingers from where they’d hooked between the buttons of his shirt. Grabbing the throw from the overstuffed chair in the corner—the one they’d found together that day it rained so hard, they’d had to run for cover, taking shelter in the cool secondhand shop down in Wicker Park—he pulled it over her and brushed a few strands of corn silk and hot pink from her brow. Those dark-blond lashes fluttered, and then she was looking up at him with eyes that weren’t quite awake and a smile that made him feel—

  Knock it off, man.

  —a way he didn’t let himself feel around Molly. Shit, he was tired. “Go back to sleep, Moll. You need it.”

  “Mmm…you,” she murmured groggily. Her eyes closed again, and her head lolled to the side as she fell back to sleep. He watched her a moment longer, wondering what kind of sweet dream made that hint of a smile flicker across her lips.

  Chapter 4

  Not good.

  That was Molly’s first coherent thought when she woke to the sound of the front door closing and Sean’s keys landing on the table as he walked into the apartment. The issue wasn’t that she’d been woken before she was ready—it was already after ten—or that she’d slept in her clothes, or even that she had no memory of anything past leaving Belfast the night before. No, it was Sean. And more specifically, the dream she’d had about him. And her. Together.

  The dirty, dirty sex dream.

  Which was very bad, because it had been years since she’d suffered anything more than the occasional stray below-the-buckle thought about the guy who was without question her best friend in the world and just happened to think of her as the little sister he’d never had.

  And this infraction wasn’t just some wayward thought either. It wasn’t lingering in one of his big bear hugs a second too long because it felt right for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t a fleeting pinch of jealousy when she was flipping through the paper and happened across a photo of him with Valerie on his arm. That stuff was harmless and didn’t take more than a second to shake loose from her head. It wasn’t even the XXX rating her nocturnal wanderings had scored.

  No. The real trouble had been all the non-porny stuff that had been there too. The quiet moment before that dirty business in the shower. The way his hand lingered at the small of her back when they walked, the press of his kiss at the top of her head, how she’d felt when Sean was above her, his dark-brown eyes searching hers.

  The thing of it was, those moments were already hers—only in this dream, every touch and look and whisper had been infused with that essential something her real-life interactions with Sean had always lacked. The dream had breathed new life into the ideas she’d finally managed to put down more than five years ago, and now she was stuck with this heart-pounding, butterfly-belly sensation as she caught her first glimpse of him.

  Hovering at her bedroom doorway, she watched as he walked over to the sink. His T-shirt was damp with sweat and clung to his powerful back. Reaching over his shoulder, he grabbed a handful of the fabric and yanked it overhead in one swift motion.

  Oh no.

  He was standing there shirtless as he filled a glass with water from the tap, all those muscles flexing and bunching with every movement. Eyes closed, he turned around and leaned back into the counter as he drank. A bead of sweat trickled slowly down his neck, leaving a wet path that was making her mouth water in a way Sean wasn’t supposed to.

  No way could she go back to the years she’d spent silently pining for him while he knuckle-rubbed her head and then brought every other damn girl on campus back to his room to bang. It had been grueling, and it had taken her years to get past. Years for her to get to a point where she didn’t feel like she was lying to him every time they hung out and dying inside every time they didn’t. She wouldn’t go back to that.

  She couldn’t.

  “You have to move out,” she croaked, her eyes still fixed on that rolling droplet as it ventured over the packed layers of his right pec.

  Sean’s eyes opened. He set his glass down on the counter behind him. “Morning, Moll. I slept great. Thanks for asking. Even pushed my schedule back to after lunch so I could catch up a little extra and get a workout in.”

  “I’m not kidding.”

  He wiped his face with the T-shirt he’d just whipped off, and a sinking feeling came over her. She knew what she’d be dreaming about tonight.

  “Seriously, Moll, I don’t get it.”

  And she hoped he never did.

  “We lived together for five years, and it was awesome. You always say you love it when I crash here. Hell, you try to talk me into it every other weekend. You want—no, need—a roommate who actually pays rent. So what’s the problem?”

  She swallowed hard, trying to keep her eyes on his face. The problem was that glistening expanse of muscled chest and banded abs, shifting and flexing with his every movement. The problem was that fine trail of golden hair bisecting all of it and leading south into those too-low basketball shorts—red this time, and silky enough to hint at the contours beneath. The problem was the utterly untamed mess of dark-blond hair making her fingers itch with the need to touch it.

  Pretty valid problems, to her mind anyway, but not exactly something she was ready to share with Sean. Not if she wanted to hang on to the most important relationship in her life. She needed to look away and come up with an answer quick.

  “Molly?” he asked again, sounding uncommonly stern as he crossed his arms over his chest. Which was so not helping…because his arms and oh God, that crazy V thing happening with the muscles above his shorts when he—

  “Uhh…Molly… What…uhh… Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Molly’s heart stalled in her chest, and her eyes squinted shut. He’d seen it. Years she’d ached and pined and prayed for him to notice that she wasn’t his little sister, that she wanted him, and he wanted her too. That they’d be perfect for each other if he’d only give up the idea of the perfect pedigreed wife. But in all that time, he’d never seen a thing. And now, after five years of walking the straight and narrow, she falls out of line for five damn seconds and he catches on?

  What the hell, man?

  “Okay, Moll, if you’re trying to make me uncomfortable looking at me like that, uncool. I know you’re just trying to find a new angle to get to me, but no matter how bad you want me out of here, that’s the line you don’t cross.”

  Huh?

  One eye squinted open and then the other. Sean was standing straight now, nothing casual in his demeanor at all. In fact, he looked as freaked out as he had the day he’d been propositioned by one of his mother�
��s friends.

  He thought she’d been…faking that look?

  Whoa, this could work.

  Squaring her shoulders, Molly drew on every ounce of false confidence she could muster. “There’s no line I won’t cross to win, Sean. You don’t want me looking at you like…like the incredibly hot piece of man-candy you are,” she stated, letting her eyes run over him from head to toe and then back up again. “Well, then, I think we both know what you can do to stop it.”

  Her pulse was racing. Her skin hot. She had no idea if he was buying this or not, but please, oh, please let him. Not only would it serve as the perfect cover for that look he’d just busted her taking, but it would have him out of her apartment before lunch.

  Sean’s jaw shifted to the side as he gave her a narrow look. “No way. Look at you. You’re red as a beet, and your hands are shaking.”

  He didn’t believe her.

  She was going to have to own up to the truth. She was going to have to tell him about the dream and maybe about five years ago, and even though it was going to be weird for a while and possibly never totally the same again, they’d get past it.

  “No way you can keep this up,” he said, suddenly a whole lot more confident than he’d been a moment ago. “Good effort, sure, but save us both the brain bleach and just give it up.”

  The brain bleach?

  Even if it was exactly the response she ought to be hoping for, it stung. It really did.

  “Give up? Not happening, Sean. And I wouldn’t get too confident either, because”—she swallowed and, jutting her hip to one side, tried to channel some smolder—“I could look at you all day.”

  The forced words hung in the air between them, awkward and unnatural. So very not sexy at all.

  Finally, Sean shook his head, giving in to a short laugh that left her dying inside.

  “Okay, Moll. If that’s the way you want to play it. Go ahead.” Walking past, he ruffled her hair. “Give it your all.”

  She gulped. What had she just gotten herself into?