Head Over Heels

by Serena Bell

  Not tonight? he’d asked.

  I winced.

  Oh. You mean, not ever.

  As breakups go, it was bloodless. He was a good sport about it, further reinforcing my conviction that he should find someone who can appreciate him.

  Chase is staring at me like he can see my thoughts, which is a disconcerting idea. “What?”

  “Why do you go out with these guys you aren’t even really into?”

  I’m about to snap back at him, but let’s face it, I said something pretty similar to him last night.

  “Seriously, Liv, the only difference between me and you is that you string the guys along for a couple of weeks or months before you bail out.”

  Oh, now wait a second. Them’s fighting words. “I don’t string anyone along.”

  “You kinda do, though. I mean, you deliberately pick these great-on-paper guys that don’t do anything for you.”

  I know it’s crazy, I know I should keep my mouth shut, but he’s really pissing me off. I cross my arms. “How do you know Kieran doesn’t do it for me?”

  He levers himself off the couch, and my mouth goes dry.

  My heart starts pounding at the look in his eyes—slow-burning and intense.

  I instinctively take a step back. Because—well, a million things. Because if he’s about to do what I think he’s about to do, it would be a mess and a disaster. It would ruin our friendship and confuse everything and I don’t, can’t, want to like him the way I think I might like him—

  “So Kieran ‘does it for you,’ ” Chase says slowly, his eyes never leaving mine.

  I’m frozen in place, pinned by the heavy-lidded look.

  “So when he gets close, you feel this?”

  He does. Get close, I mean. His body is not quite touching mine, but it might as well be, because he’s brought every hair to attention, every nerve screaming to life.

  “F-f-feel what?” I squeak. Even though I know exactly what he means. He’s talking about the heat that’s filled up all the available space in the room, all the emptiness in my body. That rich, melting sensation that has invaded me. The sweet swirl low in my belly, pulling me toward him.

  He’s so close. All I’d have to do is tip my face up and lean in a fraction and we’d be kissing.

  That thought sends a surge of heat across my chest and face and makes my legs wobbly.

  His eyes on my face flash satisfaction. He saw me blush. “Well?” he demands. “Is this what it feels like?”

  I’m frozen. I can’t speak.

  “Yeah.” His smirk is gone. His eyes are dark and hot. “That’s what I thought.”

  He wraps his hands in my hair. I feel the tug not only on my scalp but also in my nipples and between my legs. Despite my best intentions, I make a sound. Pretty sure it qualifies as a whimper.

  You know how everything slows down during a dramatic event, like a car crash?

  Yeah. That’s this kiss. I see it coming so far off, and I’m, like, forming words in slow motion. Nooooooo! Dooooon’t dooooo it! Not sure if I’m addressing this warning to him or myself, but neither of us is listening because I’m also trying to process the flood of sensation that being this close to him brings. My breasts tighten and my nipples pinch as the solid planes of his chest collide with me, and my mouth waters at the sharp smell of soap and the lemongrass-evergreen-wood-smoke scent of deodorant or cologne or whatever it is that makes him smell so damn good. And his skin itself. That scent doesn’t have a name, only an effect—like the last sigh you breathe out before you relax your body completely in bed, in total surrender.

  And yes, that’s what I do: I give in, I give myself up. His mouth floats down to mine and settles softly but with total certainty, and I hear his sigh of satisfaction, and then I am lost to his lips, warm and commanding, and his tongue, which strokes into my mouth before I’m aware of opening it.

  His hands leave my hair to map my waist and hips, and before I can stop him, curve around and cup my behind and tug me up against him.

  Wow.

  That is a lot of Chase.

  Chase has alluded a few times to the extent of his Chase-ness, but this is proof, and I definitely whimper.

  Which makes him groan.

  That’s when my body really goes into overdrive. Because, whatever, I knew Chase was hot. I strongly suspected he could kiss a woman into stupidity.

  But what I wasn’t expecting was how good it would feel to make Chase lose control.

  Too good. Way too good.

  I take a step back. And then another. And as I do—as the space between us widens and clarity returns to my fogged brain—I panic.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I—don’t—I don’t know.” He sounds genuinely uncertain.

  “Are you just trying to prove a point?”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  “Well, whatever it is, quit it.”

  His head comes up, and his brows draw together. “I’m right, though, Liv. You have to admit that.”

  “Right about what?”

  “Tell me it didn’t feel…” He hesitates. “So fucking good.”

  His words shimmy down my insides, lighting me up. I come so damn close to getting sucked back in—to the heat in his eyes and the magnetic pull coming off his bare skin.

  Instead, I say, as calmly as I can, “Chase?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going upstairs. And this?”

  “Yeah?”

  “None of this happened.”

  And I walk away.

  Chapter 13

  Chase

  I lie in bed, still hard enough that it hurts, cursing myself.

  God damn it.

  That wasn’t what I meant to do.

  I mean, it was, and it wasn’t.

  I meant to kiss her. Hell, I couldn’t not kiss her.

  I just didn’t mean to kiss her like that.

  I got so mad when she started bullshitting me. It made me go crazy, and that’s why I said what I said and did what I did, the way I did.

  But I should have done it right. Above board. Told her how I felt, given her time to think about it, to end things with Kieran properly.

  Instead, I made her think I was trying to prove some point. Just trying to one-up Kieran. I hurt her; I made her angry; I made her sad.

  And now?

  Now, I might have lost my chance to do this thing right.

  I groan.

  God damn.

  And the thing is, I can’t have lost my chance. I can’t. Because it was too good, and I want more. I want Liv more than I’ve ever wanted anyone.

  Reliving events in my head has had the predictable effect on my body. I shove my shorts and my briefs down and wrap my fist around myself. Hard enough to pound nails.

  I want another chance. I want to give her a demo of what it feels like to be kissed so deep and so well that remembering it will make her hot all over again. So hot she can’t string five words together.

  I want to make her wet and soft and open and full of sighs and whimpers.

  I want to pick up where we left off. That’s what I want to do.

  I stroke myself, imagining. The sweet give of her lower lip, the way she’d press her curves against me, her nipples hardening against my chest and her pubic bone tipping against my dick.

  I imagine getting her so worked up she’d have no choice but to tell me the truth. “I was never into Kieran. I’m into you, Chase. I’m so into you.”

  I imagine how it would feel to have her breasts and her ass naked in my palms, handfuls of her as I—

  And holy shit, I’m ramping up so fast it’s like I’m fifteen and fantasizing about whatserface in math blowing me under my desk.

  This is Liv. My friend Liv.
r />   I don’t care. I just care about the images and fantasy sensations that are careening through my head now, one after the other, the way she’d look naked, the way my lips and tongue would slick her pussy, the way I’d suck her nipples hard into my mouth, the way I’d lay her back on my bed and plunge, burying myself in her.

  And I’m coming so hard I bite my lip and pound my available fist into the mattress to keep from groaning it out loud.

  Chapter 14

  Liv

  Eve and I meet for breakfast the next morning, Monday, at our favorite diner.

  Her honey-colored corkscrew curls are loose in a puff around her head, but otherwise, she looks like she’s on her way to work—dressed to kill in a blouse and pencil skirt and heels. Eve is an incredibly successful Realtor, one of Seattle’s youngest, and part of why she’s so good at what she does is that she’s always on the job, even when she’s theoretically relaxing.

  Eve and I met in college, after I transferred to UMass. She was my roommate, and we’ve been friends ever since. It was Eve who lured me to Seattle in the first place from Boston, where I worked first after college. And it was Eve who scraped me off the floor and spoon-fed me Ben & Jerry’s after I moved out of the apartment I shared with Zeke.

  “Hey,” I say, plopping down across from her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  She tilts her head. “Bullshit.”

  Now that’s a good friend, right? “Um. You remember how when I said I was moving in with Chase, you asked if I knew what I was doing?”

  Both her eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah.”

  “And I said, ‘Nothing will ever happen between Chase and me. Not in a million years. From a sexual perspective, it’s as safe as sleeping on your couch.’ ”

  If possible, her eyebrows go higher. “I do remember that. Very clearly.”

  “Well, unless there’s something you’re not telling me about your couch, I was wrong.”

  She whistles. “Girl, I knew it! I knew it! Holy shit, Liv, what happened?”

  I frown at her. “It’s nice of you not to say ‘I told you so.’ ”

  “A saint would say ‘I told you so’ in this situation,” she says.

  Eve, like most people, doesn’t believe men and women can be friends. To quote When Harry Met Sally, she thinks the sex always gets in the way. Plus, she and her friend Jesse, who were the ones who fixed Chase and me up, have been mystified all along by Chase’s and my friendship. If we get along so well, and we’re both attractive, what’s preventing us from bonking like bunnies?

  Not much, apparently.

  “What happened?”

  The waitress is eyeing our still untouched menus. “We should order first.”

  “Quit stalling,” Eve commands, but we do put our orders in, and then I do my best to give her an accurate accounting of what’s gone down since Thursday. It feels like about ten lifetimes, but it’s less than a week.

  When I get to the part where Chase says, “So when he gets close, you feel this?” Eve shakes her head in disbelief, and—I think—awed respect for Chase’s moves. And why shouldn’t she? He did reduce me to jelly in seconds flat.

  She’s shaking her head again when I finish the story. “How do you know he was trying to prove a point?”

  “It’s Chase,” I say. “That’s what he and I do.”

  She stares long and hard at me, but doesn’t contradict.

  I say, “I think I should come back to your place.”

  “You can’t do that. Bail out on Katie. Bail out on Chase.”

  “Screw Chase. He kissed me. But you’re right about Katie. I can’t bail on her.”

  “Anyway, are you sure that’s what you really want? To walk away from this?”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  “Tell him you didn’t mean what you said about it never happening. Tell him it happened and you want it to happen again.”

  My mouth falls open. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Let me ask you something. Was it good?”

  That was the one set of details I left out of my retelling. And I apparently am not going to get away with it.

  Eve crows. “The answer is obviously yes. You’re blushing.”

  I turn away. “I am not.”

  “You are too.”

  I know she’s right; my face is hot enough to power Seattle’s grid. The waitress chooses that moment to show up with Eve’s French toast and my avocado-and-tomato omelette. I glare at Eve across the table and she smiles sweetly back.

  We dig into our food, and I mentally cross my fingers that she’s been diverted from her previous line of questioning.

  “Tell me,” Eve demands.

  No such luck. “None of your business!”

  “I’m your best friend, right?” she asks. “I at least merit a summary judgment.”

  I know she’s right. As much as I don’t want it to have happened, I don’t want to lie to myself about it, either. “It was so good. Ridiculously good. Life-changingly good. But there are so many reasons it’s a bad idea.”

  “Name one.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “Have I ever told you my Pandora’s Box theory of friends and sex? It’s not going back in the box, Liv, and no pun intended there. You crossed the line and you can’t go back, and you might as well enjoy it. If it’s going to end awkwardly, then whether you just kiss or whether you have screaming sex ten times a day for the next week and a half isn’t going to change that outcome. But you could have a blast in the meantime.”

  It sounds so logical, but it doesn’t chip away at the panic building in my chest.

  “Liv,” she says sternly. “This isn’t Zeke. This isn’t some guy making you believe he’s going to give you forever and then stomping all over your heart.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Give him so much power. He was an asshole.”

  “He was an asshole you were in love with.”

  “But I’m not anymore.”

  Eve narrows her eyes at me. “That doesn’t mean he isn’t still in there, messing with your head.”

  “He’s not.”

  “Have it your way,” she says, shrugging. “Either way, this thing with Chase isn’t anything like that. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something crazy, knowing full well that it has an expiration date. You move to Denver; you get a nice, clean break from whatever weirdness might arise. Everything doesn’t have to be serious. It’s the twenty-first century! Women get to have casual sex, too.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Liv. You can’t tell me you don’t want to take a ride on that coaster before you head out of Disneyland!”

  I start giggling and can’t stop. That starts her giggling, too, then outright laughing, until she has to grip the table to keep from tipping over and the people around us in the diner are giving us weird looks.

  “God! I can’t believe you’re leaving! Girl, I am going to miss you so darn much!”

  “Me, too. You have to come visit all the time.”

  “This is how much I love you: if I thought I could keep you from going, I wouldn’t sell you my car.”

  She has tears in her eyes. Eve doesn’t cry, so that makes me cry. The other people in the diner have given up on making sense of us and returned to their conversations.

  “And you have to come back all the time.”

  We promise. We actually pinky-swear, which makes us both laugh and then cry some more.

  Chapter 15

  Chase

  Liv left this morning without saying anything to me first. And to be honest, the first thing I thought was that she’d left left. Packed all her stuff up and gone back to Eve’s, where no one messes wit
h her head (or her body). I was so sure of it that I didn’t even feel like I was invading her privacy when I peeked into her room—the door was partially open—to see if her stuff was still there.

  I can’t even tell you how relieved I felt when I saw it was.

  Still, I figure she’s probably not planning to stick around for the dinner with my parents. Not after the way I acted yesterday.

  So I’m shocked when she shows up after lunchtime with her arms full of grocery bags. Shocked, and ridiculously glad to see her. “I thought you’d bail.”

  Her eyes fly up to meet mine, startled. “I told you I’d help you with the dinner. And I will.”

  Her tone is brisk, though. Businesslike.

  “You don’t have to.”

  My words come out curt, too. Because I don’t want her to do anything because she feels like she has to.

  “I don’t do stuff because I have to.” She begins unpacking the bags efficiently, briskly, putting stuff away in the refrigerator and the cabinets as easily and comfortably as if she were in her own kitchen. I can’t help it; I like it. I like that she feels that comfortable in my kitchen, that it’s almost like she—

  Like she lives here.

  I push the thought away. First things first. I need to repair the damage I’ve done to our friendship.

  She comes back to where I’m standing, hands on hips. “Let me try that again. I want to help you with this dinner. After all, I am your friend.” She laughs, a short, unamused laugh. “Even if you are a total idiot.”

  I recognize an opening when I hear one. “I am a total idiot,” I admit. “I did that all wrong.”

  “What are you saying?” She narrows her eyes.

  “I shouldn’t have—” No, that’s not what I mean. Not what I mean at all. “I should never have made you feel like I was kissing you to prove a point. I wasn’t. Not at all.”

  “You weren’t?”

  Does she sound…hopeful? And is the hope in her voice and on her face starting a cascade of that same emotion in my chest? And is this really going where I think it’s going?

  I fucking hope so. “Nope.”