Animal Attraction: Buckhorn Ever AfterImagine Me and YouGimme ShelterPartner in Crime

by Lori Foster

  “Because this is the alternative!” she shouted. “Screaming about it and freaking out about it because...because suddenly this bomb went off between us and neither of us could do anything about it. Because it scares the hell out of me, Jace. Because we went from best friends to having a mutual orgasm in a bathtub in about three minutes flat.”

  “Actually, Sam, it took fourteen years to get into the bathtub, but I get your point.”

  “Aren’t you freaked out?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “Then why talk about it?”

  “Because it happened.”

  “But we can pretend it didn’t,” she said, her eyes shining. “Please, Jace, can we pretend it didn’t?”

  “How?”

  “By not talking about it,” she said. “I’m embarrassed.”

  “Why are you embarrassed?” He knew why he was embarrassed. Because, in his estimation, it was pretty obvious why it had been so easy for him to go from friend to bathtub buddy. It uncovered the fact that he had some serious not-so-latent lust where she was concerned.

  “Because I...climbed all over you like a...hoochie mama.”

  He laughed, in spite of the situation and his own horror at it; he just couldn’t help it. “Sam, that wasn’t what I thought about you.”

  “Well, gosh, I don’t know what you thought. I attacked you. I’m horrified. I literally have no excuse except...obviously—” she took a breath “—obviously I’m attracted to you, but the thing is, it’s not really worth doing anything about.”

  He felt as if he’d been sucker-punched. “You’re attracted to me?”

  “No, Jace, I think you’re a flipping ogre, that’s why the minute you touched me I had a violent orgasm.”

  Heat streaked over his skin and his face got hot, not from embarrassment but from that same dangerous arousal that had overtaken common sense yesterday. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to think of something to say.

  “Obviously it’s mutual,” he said. “I sort of felt like I attacked you.”

  “I think I embedded a fingernail in your shoulder.”

  “I knew you...liked it,” he said. “But I felt like I must have taken advantage of you and...”

  “No. I felt like I jumped you. But it looks like we both sort of feel like the sexual predator and neither of us feel...preyed upon, so that’s...good. And now we can move on. Hopefully we’re both a little less...hair trigger now.”

  He laughed because the alternative was to say: no, no I’m not, if you touched me right now I’d come on contact.

  “I know we avoid talking about this stuff, but it’s been...a while for me. Since before the bakery. Since David...so...a long time.”

  “Right,” he said, not sure he liked the explaining-it-away thing she was doing. But what was the other option? There wasn’t one. Not really. The other option was to say it meant something. But...he didn’t think he could have it mean something. He was sure she didn’t want it to mean anything.

  Burning attraction to your best friend only worked if you were also hopelessly in love with them. Which he was not.

  And she definitely wasn’t.

  They were just, apparently, mutually hot for each other and in a mutual dry spell. So that explained things. That was the perk of explaining things away, he guessed.

  “It’s been a while for me, too.” Not that long, but a few months...like...eight now that he thought about it, which was actually a very long time.

  “So see? There. Glad we talked.” She patted his arm, then drew back quickly. “This was good. Now we can...be normal.”

  “As normal as we are.”

  “Yeah, well, normal for us. It will be enough.” She smiled, but the smile still rang false. He smiled back, and he knew his was fake. “I’ll make dinner.”

  “Seriously, you don’t have to.”

  “Hey, I want to. I like this. I like being here with you.”

  The silence stretched between them, not really awkward but full. Of desire on his end, questions. A deep ache that he couldn’t quite define. He wanted more. He wanted something else. Right in that moment he felt as if he might want it all.

  But there was a reason he was thirty and not anywhere close to being married. He liked his control too much. He liked his space the way he liked it too much.

  It wouldn’t make any sense to pursue something more with Sam. Not when it would ruin what they had. Because it would ruin it. Because he would go nuts about Poppy’s fur. Because he didn’t know how to live with someone. He didn’t know how to share his space.

  And then he would be left with the burned-out remains of the most important relationship he’d ever had. All because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.

  No. The longing and aching were just going to have to keep on longing and aching. Because he wasn’t acting on it.

  He and Sam were going back to normal.

  “I’m going to go wash up, then,” he said. “Thank you.”

  She looked at him, the expression in her eyes unreadable. “You’re welcome.”

  “Movie and popcorn after dinner?”

  “Sure. As long as it doesn’t star Bruce Willis.”

  “I’ll let you pick.”

  “Then we have a deal. And I brought movies with me, so don’t think you’re getting off easy.”

  Interesting choice of words. And he’d learned yesterday that where Sam was concerned, there really was no getting off easy. Well, it was easy to get off. It was the after stuff that was hard.

  But it was an important lesson learned.

  “Great. I’ll be down in a few.”

  “Great.”

  Yeah, things were normal now. And he was glad.

  * * *

  Sam was happily surprised at how easy dinner had been. And they were onto cake and a movie, and things were still easy. She’d picked a rom com because that was what she liked, and since she humored Jace’s need for car chases and explosions on a regular basis, he had to deal with her love of slapstick and happy endings.

  They were keeping a healthy distance between them on the couch, and yeah, it was a little healthier than normal, but that was probably good. Because clearly, things were a little more combustible between them than they’d realized. So taking precaution was a good idea, really.

  The popcorn bowl sat in the yawning blank cushion space between them—not in anyone’s lap. It was just smart to do it that way. As conscious as she’d been about what was beneath the bowl that last time it had ended up in his lap, she would be a million times more conscious of it now that she’d felt every hard delicious perfect inch between her thighs, taking her to heaven faster and better than any other man ever.

  He’d had clothes on, and still, comparing the quality of the orgasm she’d received to what she’d experienced with her exes had been like comparing first class to economy. A superior ride in all senses of the word.

  But she wasn’t thinking about that. She was watching a movie and not thinking about it. Because she should be good. She should be satisfied and stuff because they’d gotten all the tension dealt with, so to speak, and now they were being normal.

  She took a deep breath and reached for the popcorn bowl, and her fingers brushed against his. She jerked back as if she’d been burned, turning to face him, her eyes wide.

  Jace was staring straight ahead, his posture rigid, his eyes focused on the TV. He didn’t look as if he’d just been zapped by a rush of electricity.

  And she immediately felt stupid because when did she react like that to him touching her hand? Never. So why start now? Because she knew how good that hand felt against her bare skin? Because she wanted to feel that hand on her bare breast, and her butt and...and...other places?

  No. Surely not. So inappropriate. And she wasn’t bein
g inappropriate. She was being normal. She checked this time to see if his hand was in the bowl before she reached in and took another handful. She was taking no more chances.

  The electricity between them was just hazardous. And she hated it. Because she couldn’t deal with it. At least, she couldn’t deal with it in a healthy, mature way that didn’t involve throwing herself on his body and breathing heavy.

  It was the proximity—it had to be. It was like cranking up the heat on something that had been on a low simmer for a lot longer than she would like to admit.

  And last night it had boiled over.

  She turned her attention back to the movie and tried to focus except... Oh, that kiss on screen was getting very passionate. And...how had she forgotten this part? How? How had she forgotten there was a shower scene? Of all things.

  It was so very bad. She and Jace had just had their own, less awesomely choreographed scene in a shower, and now this was just making her think of that. Well, she was already thinking of it so it was making her think of it more.

  She didn’t want to look at Jace. It would be awkward. But the more she didn’t look at him the more awkward it got because she was so purposefully not looking at it him that it was getting painful.

  Oh, geez. How had this happened? How had they gone from best friends to this? To her sitting frozen on the couch afraid to move and break the band of electricity stretching around them? Because if she did, she would either snap it and things would just fizzle all to hell with the uncomfortable tension, and he wouldn’t want to sit next to her ever again ever. Or worse, she would set off a spark that would ignite them both and she’d find herself flat on her back again, riding the ridge of his arousal.

  But she looked at him, anyway, in spite of the inner voice screaming at her not to. She couldn’t do anything else.

  He was looking at the TV, his jaw tight, his hands clenched into fists. She looked back at the screen and her skin prickled. Some serious action was happening there, and she was feeling envious and edgy.

  “It’s going to get better, right?” she said.

  She wasn’t going to pretend everything was fine—not when it wasn’t. She’d tried that earlier and the attempt had been laughable. He knew her too well. And she respected him too much to lie to him. She respected their friendship too much.

  “This?” he asked, and she knew he knew she was talking about that invisible crackle of electricity, the one you couldn’t see. But damn, you could feel it. “I don’t know, Sam.”

  “It has to. How else are we going to...live together for the next month? How else are we going to be friends?”

  “It’ll get better.”

  “But you just said you didn’t know it would get better!”

  “I lied one of the times. Pick which one disturbs you less and call it the truth.”

  “It will get better.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it will.”

  “Or we just have sex and get it over with.”

  Jace did a literal spit take with his beer, a fine sheen of moisture coating the TV screen. “What?”

  “I don’t know what I just said. I think I’m crazy. Don’t listen to me.”

  “You said we should have sex and you think I’m going to just...not listen to that?”

  “Well, I hope you’ll write it off as temporary insanity.”

  “Like last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “If we’re still having insanity from last night, is it really all that temporary?”

  “We’re within a forty-eight-hour window. I think it is.”

  Jace looked at Sam, who was looking back at him with huge eyes, chewing on her thumbnail. A gentleman might let her take back what she’d said. A gentleman might get up and go to his room instead, take the offer off the table completely by removing himself from the situation.

  But he’d proved yesterday that he wasn’t a gentleman, and she was offering sex so he sure as hell wasn’t about to start pretending he was one.

  “It’s not temporary for me, Sam. I wanted you before last night. I want you now. I don’t know what that tells you, except maybe that, for me at least, it’s not just going to go away.”

  “But what does that mean?” she asked. “Does it change things?”

  He closed the distance between them and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, drawing her to him and kissing her hard on the mouth. She was even sweeter than he remembered. “I don’t know,” he whispered, his voice husky. “Does it?”

  She bit her lip, looking at him, so close it would be easy to taste her again. “I don’t... I can’t think when you do things like that but I...I thought... I mean, wouldn’t it be better to let things go back to normal? I thought we were being normal.”

  “Closing the gate when the horse already got out?” he asked.

  “Maybe that’s what it is,” she said, looking down at his lips. Then she leaned in and kissed him, lightly at first, then deepening it, slowly, thoroughly. She slid her tongue against his. Her mouth fit perfectly against his, the rhythm and flow seamless.

  It was nothing like other kisses he’d had. Nothing like kissing a woman he picked up in a bar who didn’t know him. Who didn’t know the steps to what he liked or the shape of his mouth. Nothing, even, like kissing a woman he was in a relationship with.

  This was different. This was Samantha, and he was so acutely aware of that fact. Because she poured herself into her kisses, and he knew her better than he knew anyone else on the planet. Her kisses were sweet, sensual, with bright spots and little points of quirkiness. Nips, licks, the way she sucked his lip between her teeth, things no one else would do.

  Nobody kissed like Sam. Because no one else was Sam.

  And it was Sam he craved. Had craved since he was sixteen years old and learning just how strong physical desire could be. Had wanted her every day, every hour, every moment since then, no matter how hard he’d tried to pretend he hadn’t.

  The freedom now, to kiss her, just kiss her, was like balm on a wound he hadn’t known he’d had.

  When she pulled away they were both breathing hard and her eyes were glistening, the confusion in her expression causing a wrenching his stomach. “I... Jace.” She closed her eyes and leaned in, kissing him again. “I need you to promise me something,” she said when she pulled away.

  “What?”

  “This won’t ruin us.”

  “How could it?” he asked, even as he thought of a million different ways. But for him, their relationship was already changed. Because when her lips had touched his a moment ago he’d realized how much feeling he’d been holding back. And now that he’d seen it, now that he felt it, he couldn’t go back to pretending it wasn’t there.

  It was too late for things to be unspoiled for him. And maybe it was selfish of him to want to push on through the feelings. If their friendship wasn’t changed forever for her, then maybe he should keep it that way.

  But he felt selfish. Completely and totally ungentlemanly. And he was okay with that. Right now, he was very okay with it.

  “Sam,” he said, “I care for you. I’m attracted to you. We’ll follow through and see what happens. It can’t ruin things. What we have is too strong.”

  “Just sex?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. And he hated the answer. Because he wished he could give her more. He wished he could have more. But he couldn’t make those promises. And he knew Sam didn’t want them.

  Sex was one thing, but bringing emotions in—that was one gamble too far. Friendship and sex, a change to excise the wanting that was starting to take over his body, his life.

  He was just now realizing that Sam was the reason he hadn’t had sex in eight months. She was the reason none of the women in his life lasted for very long. He couldn’t get over the longing. The wha
t-if. And if they could just do it now, if he could take away the mystery, then maybe he could get over that desire. Maybe he could go back to being the friend that he should be.

  Yeah, somehow, in his lust-fogged mind, that made sense. A fix-it fuck. That was what they needed.

  “Okay.”

  She leaned in and kissed him again, that deep, sweet kiss that was like getting hit in the face with all the things he’d always wanted growing up but never had. A home that felt like comfort, spice and love. Companionship. Understanding. A place he could stay and rest forever. A refuge from everything ugly. She was so beautiful, her kiss so intoxicating, there was no room for bad feelings.

  He closed his eyes and let it all wash over him, through him. This was more than lust. More than want. More than the F word he’d thought of a moment ago. This was more than he’d bargained for.

  And they’d only kissed. But it was a kiss that had altered his whole body, from the inside out.

  She pulled away, extending her hand, touching his lips with the tips of her finger. “I didn’t know how much I wanted this,” she said.

  “I knew how much I wanted it.” He grabbed her wrist and tugged her forward, leaning back and bringing her with him so that she was astride him. She shrieked and braced herself on the couch arm behind his head. His erection was cradled by the heat at the apex of her thighs, her legs draped over his. He braced his hands on her hips and looked up at her, at her wide eyes and open mouth, and he thought that if he died then, he could die happy.

  Almost. It would be better if he could be inside of her first.

  Just the thought made his blood pump hot and fast, made him feel as if he was on the edge of losing it. His control, his mind. Everything.

  Sam put her hands on his chest and leaned back, tilting her head to the side, her hair spilling over her shoulder, red with gold fire around the edges in the dim lamplight.

  The movie was still on, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care about anything right now. Anything beyond what it felt like to have Sam touch him like this.

  “I seem to have forgotten how to do this,” she whispered. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”