Just This Once

by Mira Lyn Kelly

  Sean wasn’t moving out.

  She hadn’t won.

  All she’d done was embarrass herself by acting like an idiot who didn’t value their friendship enough to respect the lines that shouldn’t be crossed and embarrassing Sean by…well, causing the physiological response that had nothing to actually do with her.

  She was done.

  Done pushing his buttons and done lying to herself about being able to handle it. Her feelings for Sean weren’t just some passing crush, and they’d never totally gone away. She loved him like she always had. She’d just learned to manage it. And come morning, she was going to start managing it again.

  * * *

  Sleep was hard to come by.

  Molly heard the TV turn off around eleven. The sound of Sean getting a glass of water. The door to his room closing and then, a few minutes later, opening again, followed shortly by a muffled curse and the shower starting to run. She shouldn’t think of him in there, peeling off his thin T-shirt and shucking his jeans. Like she shouldn’t think of the spray running hot over his back muscles or what he’d look like soaping his chest.

  She shouldn’t have done a lot of things lately.

  A torturous twenty minutes later, the water turned off, and the apartment went quiet.

  Eventually, she fell asleep, but it was fitful, her dreams the kind she wanted to return to and avoid in equal measure. She was awake before Sean but again waited in her room, listening to the sounds she’d be hearing for the next month or more. Yes, she could find a new roommate…or at least she could try. But Sean didn’t want to stay at the hotel or in his parents’ place, and after what she’d done this week? She owed it to him to give him a room.

  Once she heard the front door close and the apartment was quiet again, she ventured out into the space where Sean had been only minutes before. She was a chicken for waiting until he was gone, but she was still feeling a little tender, and it was only a few hours. She’d see him at the party later. Following the scent of fresh-brewed coffee, she found a sticky note on the mostly full pot.

  Slept like shit. Today will be better. Brand-new day.

  She pulled the note free and leaned back into the counter, feeling some of the tension that had been knotting up inside her ease.

  Everything was going to be fine.

  Chapter 7

  Six wasn’t coming home early.

  Sean knew it. Kept trying to sell himself on the truth of it as he stepped out of the car in front of Molly’s place and headed upstairs. Only thing was, he couldn’t quite buy what he was selling. Probably because he’d had a shit ton of work left on his desk, and he usually just stayed a little longer and got it done—but today, he’d had other priorities.

  Honestly, he wasn’t looking forward to the party the way he’d thought he would. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see everyone; he did. But with things so messed up with Molly this week, the greater part of him just wanted to hang out with her. Alone. Laugh about the both of them being idiots. Cuddle up on the couch and—

  Shit—he stopped halfway up the stairs and gripped the keys in his fist. Maybe the cuddle should wait, because as soon as the couch crossed his mind, he was back there with Molly’s legs spread across him and all the places they hadn’t gone bombarding him like a dirty wish list of shame. The same dirty wish list that had followed him into the shower the night before. He wasn’t proud, but there’d been no way back from what happened without some physical relief.

  Maybe he should get her a new couch. Something untainted by his hard-on reaching out and grabbing a taste of the most forbidden part of Molly there was.

  For as independent as she was, he suspected she wouldn’t argue.

  She’d gone too far last night, and she knew it.

  On the upside, the games would stop. Small victory. Though even that wasn’t quite right either. He hadn’t won anything. In fact, he was pretty sure they both felt like losers after what happened. But at least it was safe to go back in the apartment.

  Pushing open the door, Sean dumped his keys and slipped his messenger bag off his shoulder, stopping at his room to lose his coat and tie. “Hey, Moll,” he called out, figuring she was in her room or around the corner in the kitchen area. “I talked to Jase and Em, and they’re going to meet us at the party.”

  Folding his jacket before laying it across his bed, he toed off one shoe and then the other. “But Brody’s up for some grub first.”

  Tugging his tie, he pulled it free and waited. “What do you think?”

  Silence. He frowned. Her keys were here, but the apartment was silent. Unbuttoning his shirt, he went to check the kitchen and living area. “Moll?”

  Empty. Weird. He’d been sure she was there.

  Gut tightening, he started back to his room, hoping like hell she wasn’t still avoiding him. But then he drew up short next to her room. The door was half open, and when he looked in, there she was. Facedown on her bed, in a black tank top with a fuchsia bra beneath and green-and-yellow polka-dotted cotton panties.

  He should not be seeing this. Not after the assistant manager down south’s latest takeover attempt.

  Probably not at all.

  He stepped back, tripped over his own foot, and stumbled into the wall with a thud.

  Molly’s breathing changed, and then she was making this little moany sound that was hitting all the wrong chords with him—because, fuck, that sleepy, soft Mmm was not what he wanted to hear.

  “Sorry, Moll, I didn’t realize you were sleeping,” he said, taking another step back. He left her door open like he’d found it…except she was wearing those green-and-yellow narrow-hipped panties, and that wasn’t really open door attire. So he stepped back to close it, not meaning to look, but fuck, that’s exactly what he was doing.

  “Sean?” she murmured softly, turning her head and looking at him with sleep-hazed eyes.

  “Yeah, I, uh, just wasn’t sure where you were, but, uh, now I see you were sleeping, and I’m sorry to have disturbed you. But I’ll…uhh…” He shook his head, trying to catch the thread of what he’d been about to say. Where he’d been going. But all he could think was that Molly was pushing up on her forearms, and the low scoop of her black tank was giving him a criminally good view of that narrow well of cleavage.

  Throat suddenly dry, he tried to swallow but only managed to choke.

  Molly’s eyes cleared, and slowly, her brows began to climb. He was so busted.

  “I didn’t mean to,” he started, his tongue as clumsy in his mouth as a wad of Silly Putty. “I didn’t realize you were, uhh, not all the way…” Closing his eyes, he stepped back and pulled the door shut. One breath. Two. “I’ll catch you at the party. I’ve got to run back to the office for some files I need for the weekend.” His heart was racing like it was about to bust out of his chest. “Because I forgot them there.” Jesus. “At the office. I forgot them at the office.” He pressed his palm to the panel of her door, then pulled it back like he’d been burned. “And I need them for this weekend.”

  The door swung open, and he jerked back, eyes shooting to the ceiling.

  “Relax, Sean,” she said, cutting past him. “I’m dressed.”

  Letting his breath out in a slow stream he hoped she didn’t notice, he nodded and dared a glance at where she’d stopped by the butcher-block island. She was still wearing the tank, but she’d pulled on a jean skirt. Her feet were bare, and the way she was rolling out her shoulders made him think she wasn’t all the way awake yet…and that she could probably use a back rub. Which he definitely wasn’t going to offer, even though he’d rubbed the tension from her neck and shoulders probably a hundred times before. And sure, he’d noticed how soft and smooth her skin was. Maybe once or twice he’d even needed to remind himself not to get carried away with it. But in the past, it hadn’t taken more than the single mental shake to remember that the silk
y neck and shoulders he’d had his hands on were off-limits to his mouth and to get his head back in the right space.

  Today? He’d been mentally chanting Molly’s name since he walked into her room so he wouldn’t forget who she was, and his fingers still burned with a less-than-platonic need to get hold of her. So yeah, no touching.

  Walking over to the sink, she ducked down to grab the long-spouted watering can. After filling it from the tap, she started to feed her collection of sickly plants on the shelf in front of the window.

  “I didn’t do that on purpose,” she said, sounding almost angry. “I didn’t think you’d be home for a few hours and was getting dressed when I heard my email ping. I crawled into bed to check it out, and the next thing I knew, you were there.”

  He nodded, desperately trying not to think about her panties.

  She glanced over her shoulder, the worried furrow between her eyes telling him he should have answered her.

  Clearing his throat, he crossed around to the counter. “Yeah, totally. I mean, you were in your room. It was my fault.”

  The look in her eyes said she wasn’t sure she believed him. But then she shrugged, and he was pretty sure it meant they were good. Christ, he wanted them to be good.

  “So see you at the party, Moll.”

  Turning back to pick a few dead leaves from one of the plants, she nodded. “See you there.”

  * * *

  Molly loved her apartment, but when it came to throwing summer parties, she’d been coveting Suzanna’s place for years. The Southport apartment was a wide-open space on the second floor with tons of windows, all of which were open wide as Molly walked through the front door, waving to a few familiar faces in the crowded living room and hall. The kitchen was in the rear of the apartment, overlooking a good-sized balcony and the backyard below. It was modern, stainless, and stocked with all the foodie essentials Molly found at Brody’s place but on a smaller scale. Suzanna’s brother was mixing drinks in the corner breakfast nook and called out to her as she walked in.

  “How’s it going, Ben?” she asked, weaving around another cluster of friends. Giving him a hip bump in greeting, she checked out his drink fixin’s. He had two dozen tall glasses lined up on the counter, along with several bowls filled with limes and mint and sugar. “Mojitos?”

  “You know it, gorgeous.” He rinsed his hands and wiped them on the white towel thrown over his shoulder before handing her a drink. “What do you think?”

  It was fresh and delicious. She made an appreciative sound and shook her head, looking up into his face. “You sure you don’t want to quit trading and come work at Belfast? You’ve got a gift.”

  He wagged his dark brows at her. “Not my only gift, Moll.”

  She laughed and stepped back. “Yeah, I actually heard that from Tonya last week.”

  The guy was a relentless flirt, and he got around. But not with Molly—though it had been a close thing. Ben was only a year older than she was and had been a sophomore when the guys were seniors. There’d been a party, and they’d been talking. And then he’d brought her a drink—one with booze in it—and Sean had stepped in to talk with him. That had been the end of that.

  Ever since, he’d been flirting with her like it was his job, but it had never been the same. There was no spark behind the charm. It was strictly friendly. Fine by her.

  They joked back and forth about him wearing her down one of these days and then caught up some, since it had been a few months. He was telling her about the trip he was planning to Alaska when Suzanna came in from the back.

  “Molly, you made it!” she greeted her, wrapping her in a tight squeeze. “Hey, mind if I borrow Ben here for a few minutes? Brody brought three trays of those marinated steak appetizers, and my fire’s about to die.” Turning to her brother, she pulled an anxious face. “We bought more charcoal, but where did it end up?”

  “No problem, Suzanna,” Molly cut in. “Give me your keys, and I’ll go grab another bag.”

  Ben snorted out a laugh as Suzanna coughed in shock at the suggestion that Molly would drive her precious baby BMW. Molly had only thrown it out there to mess with her, knowing Ben wasn’t even allowed to drive it.

  “Kidding,” she assured Suzanna.

  “You’re trouble, Molly.”

  She curtsied and headed out the back door, leaving the siblings to sort out their charcoal situation. Passing another group occupying a few chairs on the patio, she followed the wide stairs leading down to the backyard where she found the guys crowded around a picnic table with a few friends. Sean saw her first, not quite meeting her eyes before burying his face in his phone. She didn’t have time to wonder what to read into a greeting so different from their usual before Brody was up and shuffling people around in a flash to make room for her to sit. Maybe it was nothing.

  She hadn’t even been naked. He’d seen her in her underwear before and never batted an eye. So what was the big deal this time?

  But she knew. The big deal was that all week, she’d been coming at him in the one way he’d warned her not to.

  “Thanks, Brody,” she said, tousling his mane of red-brown waves with her fingers as she settled onto the bench between the two men and across from Jase and Emily. “Hey, Sean,” she started, hoping it sounded normal and not like she was panicked the guy was going to get up and leave. “Get your files?”

  He stiffened and then rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh yeah. All set. Thanks.”

  Her heart stopped, the air going still in her lungs as the silence stretched between them. She waited, because this wasn’t how it was with them. Ever.

  Sean didn’t avoid her or ignore her. If he was mad, he’d lay into her just the way she did with him. He’d tell her to knock it off. But this—God, she could feel the tension coming off him. She tried to come up with something to say, something to lighten things up, but all she could think was that Sean wouldn’t look at her.

  Brody turned to her, one brow raised in question as he mouthed “You okay?”

  She gave a tight, too-fast nod, and then one to Emily, whose concerned expression said she hadn’t missed the tension clogging the air around them either.

  Heat burned its way up Molly’s neck into her cheeks as she tried to hold on to her smile. But pretending was beyond her.

  Finally, she turned back to her friends at the table—who were all staring. All except for Sean, who seemed well and truly mesmerized by the neat shrubs bordering the fence of the yard.

  That heat in her cheeks pushed higher, getting hotter as it did. Finally, she stood with a jerk and sucked in a deep lungful of air. “Fine. It’s totally my fault. I was pissed at Sean for moving into my apartment and kicking my old roommate out without talking to me about it first. And I did something stupid, okay?”

  There was a round of slow nods from the table, except for Sean, whose head had come up in a snap, a smacked look on his face like he couldn’t believe she was putting it out there.

  “I tried to get him to move out by flirting with him, because I knew how uncomfortable it would make him.” She sucked a shaky breath and fought the tears threatening to break with the best defense she had. Anger. “But the total ween wouldn’t go, so I kept trying and trying, except then he got a boner, and it touched me, and now it’s all weird and uncomfortable, which is why Sean’s sitting there looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.”

  Four people started talking at once, but she didn’t hear a word of it.

  Throwing her hands out to the sides, she cut them off. “I’m going back upstairs, because I’m embarrassed and upset. And you guys…” She met each of their eyes in turn, landing on Sean’s last. He looked agonized, and she hated it, but they needed some more space. “…are just going to let me.”

  Hands shaking, she launched away from the table, wondering what the hell she’d just done. She needed to get away. There were t
wo dozen people she could talk to at this party, easy. People who wouldn’t make her feel like she’d threatened the very fabric of their tightly woven world.

  The truth of it slammed into her.

  That was exactly what she’d done. This wasn’t just about what she might lose with Sean. It wasn’t just their friendship on the line.

  It was everyone.

  And it wasn’t like she’d never thought about it before. Like she wasn’t aware of how interlocked all their relationships were. She’d known from the very first year. It was why she’d always worked so hard to keep her feelings under wraps.

  Because there was too much at stake.

  But she hadn’t been thinking about that last night.

  Molly hit the stairs without looking back. She was halfway up when Ben came out the kitchen door laughing, a bag of charcoal under his arm.

  Catching her eye, he grinned. “It was in the trunk.”

  Hugging the rail, she forced herself to laugh back, latching on to the exchange like a lifeline. “Exactly where I would have expected it to be.”

  Nodding at her, he asked, “Which way you heading?”

  “I was going up. Need any help with the drink prep?” she offered.

  “Hell yes. Let me drop the briquettes, and I’ll meet you back up there in a minute. There’s another bag of limes ready to go if you want to start on that.”

  “Deal.” Honestly, something to keep her hands busy would be fantastic. Ben was always good for chitchat, and watching him work the girls was entertainment of the highest order. Or, more specifically, ribbing him over how he worked the girls. Besides, being at the bar station would give her a slew of people to talk to. Anything to keep her mind off this thing with Sean.

  Chapter 8