No one should feel this good first thing in the morning. He couldn’t stop grinning as he flipped pancakes. Hell, if Livvy wasn’t still passed out in his bed he’d be whistling a jaunty tune. Maybe even doing a tap dance, who knows?

All he knew was, he’d never felt so good in his life.

And it wasn’t just the sex.

Okay, a lot of it was the sex. Because that had been epically awesome sex. But it was more than that. He’d had good sex before, but nothing compared to that. That had gone deeper than just two bodies coming together.

And it had been with Livvy. His Livvy. The one woman who knew him better than anyone else.

His best fucking friend.

But also more than his best friend.

Hopefully.

Maybe.

One thing at a time.

He cast a quick glance in her direction and saw she was still sleeping. Jesus, she was beautiful when she slept. She was stunning when she was awake but when she was sleeping she looked so soft and vulnerable. It was a side of her he rarely got to see, a side few ever got to see.

But she was here, in his bed, sleeping like the dead.

A glimmer of pure male triumph had him scrambling her eggs with a little more flare than absolutely necessary. Aw yeah. She was sleeping like the dead because she’d been satisfied.

There was no way anyone could say that they didn’t have chemistry, that was for sure. Sex like that didn’t happen with just anyone.

“Morning.” Livvy’s sleepy voice pulled him from his self-congratulatory post-coital analysis.

He turned to see her sitting up, the cover pulled up to her chin as she gave him a heartbreakingly shy smile he’d never seen before.

“Morning,” he said. There was nothing shy about his grin. He may have stared for just a second too long before he took a running leap onto the bed.

When he landed with a thud beside her, making her bounce on the bed, she laughed, which was the desired effect.

“How’d you sleep?” he asked, valiantly resisting the urge to brush her hair out of her face. The goal here was to get her comfortable with the idea of him as more than a friend, not scare her out of there before she’d had her coffee.

“Fine,” she said quietly. “How about you?”

He fell back onto one of the pillows and after momentary hesitation, she lay back down too, her long blonde hair fanning out around her as she turned on her side to face him, the blanket wrapped tightly around her.

He stared up at the ceiling and clasped his hands on his chest. “I slept okay, except there was this naked chick snoring next to me all night—”

She smacked his shoulder as she laughed. “Shut up. I don’t snore.”

Grinning he turned his head to face her. “Are you sure?”

Her eyes narrowed into slits as she pursed her lips in a way he remembered way too well. It was the face she made when he was teasing her.

God, he’d missed that look.

“Yes, I’m sure, jackass.”

He moved up onto his elbows and pretended to be hurt. “Hey, is that any way to talk to the guy who gave you the world’s best orgasm last night?”

Her face turned a fierce shade of red but she rolled her eyes at the teasing. “Wow. Cocky much?”

“Sorry, what was that about my cock?”

She pulled a pillow out from beneath him and smacked him over the head with it. “You’re unbelievable.”

Laughing, he got up and headed back to the kitchen area of the tiny one-room apartment. “That’s what all the girls say.” He was kidding, of course, but as soon as it came out of his mouth, he had to stifle a groan.

“I bet.” Her tone was teasing too but he had the distinct impression that she was serious. Shit. That was exactly what he was trying to disprove. He needed her to see that while he might have had his share of women, this was different. And now he’d gone and put his foot in his mouth like a dope.

He poured her a cup of coffee and brought it over to her.

She struggled to sit up and grab the coffee while still maintaining her death grip on the bedspread. “Thanks. Could you, uh…” She nodded toward her top and panties, which were strewn over his couch. “Could you hand me those?”

He raised his eyebrows. “And miss an opportunity to see you strut your stuff, miss thing? I don’t think so.”

Her mouth fell open. “You’re serious.”

He didn’t answer.

“You are seriously going to make me get out of bed naked so you can be a perv and watch?”

He couldn’t hold back a grin. She was so damn cute when she was annoyed.

Her gaze was moving around the bed. He saw the moment they lit with triumph before she leaned over and snagged his T-shirt from the night before.

Despite her half-hearted scowl, he watched avidly as she struggled to get into his shirt without revealing anything. “You do know that I saw every inch of that gorgeous body of yours last night, right?”

Her blush was adorable. “Yes, but that was different. Last night was…”

He found himself stiffening, holding his breath as he waited for her to finish that thought. Last night was…what? He was terrified she’d say “a mistake” or “a one-time thing” or something equally dismissive.

She gave a sigh of exasperation as she finally pulled it over her head and threw back the covers. “Last night we were drunk.”

He watched her pad barefoot across his living room to grab her panties and slide them on. “I wasn’t drunk.”

She was quiet as she picked up her tank top.

“Were you?” Shit. Had he taken advantage of her? She hadn’t seemed all that tipsy, but maybe—

“No,” she said. Turning, she gave him a sheepish smile. “I guess it would have been easier to explain…this,” she gestured vaguely to him and the bed, “if I had been.”

Well, at least she’d been honest. He tried not to take offense at the idea that she’d have to be drunk to have gone home with him. Turning back to the stove where he was keeping their breakfast warm, he tried for a nonchalant tone. “Any regrets?”

Her silence nearly killed him. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he turned around to see her staring at his back with an indecipherable expression. She shifted from one foot to the other, looking cute and utterly vulnerable in his T-shirt that fell to her knees. “No regrets.”

Her soft response had him letting out a long sigh of relief.

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “You?”

God, she looked so nervous. So insecure. She hadn’t always looked like that. This was new. Maybe it was solely because of the change in their relationship but he would bet money that it was partially due to the blow her self-confidence had taken when Jessie had cheated on her. Motherfucker.

He waited until he’d plated their eggs and pancakes and handed her the dish. With his free hand he reached out and pulled her toward him, planting a kiss on her lips that he hoped would erase every doubt in her mind.

She tasted like coffee and when he pulled back she blinked at him dazedly.

“Not even a little bit,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade last night for the world.”

She blushed again—a record for a girl who he’d never seen blush in three and a half years of friendship. Then she gave him a sweet smile that twisted his heart and wrung it out like a dishrag.

Fuck, this girl was going to be the death of him.

He pulled two barstools up to the kitchen counter, which also served as his dining room table, and sat beside her as she dug into her meal.

“Mmm,” she said, her mouth full of pancakes. “This is so good.”

He grinned and wiped some maple syrup from the corner of her mouth.

After she’d swallowed, she tilted her head to the side. “Do you do this for all the girls?”

Ugh. Her words were a blow, a swift one-two to the rib cage. Avery’s warning was fresh in his mind. She’d see him this way until she didn’t. Until he showed her another side of himself, another way they could be. Even last night at the bar, she’d seemed perplexed at the idea of something between them that wasn’t friendship. He’d hated the way she’d immediately discounted the idea of a relationship—so sure that he wouldn’t want that.

But he also got it. Looking at it from her perspective he could see how she saw him…and he hated it. She’d watched him hop from one bed to the next. He’d never held down a relationship, nothing serious at least.

But what she didn’t know—what obviously had never even occurred to her—was that it was all because of her. He’d been holding out for her. Or, if not her, then someone who could compare.

No one had.

But she wouldn’t be convinced of that right now. He had to stick to the plan. So he didn’t agree or disagree, he just smiled like a moron who didn’t understand the question.

After a brief pause where he felt her eyes on him but didn’t look up, she broke the silence. “Do you think I should call Kimmie?”

He looked up then. “Why would you do that?” He had nothing against Kimmie, per se, but she and Olivia had never been close and the question was as out of the blue as they came.

She narrowed her eyes and fixed him with a knowing look. God, that look. He’d missed that look. It was the one that said she was amused by him but trying not to show it. “Maybe because I don’t want her spreading rumors that I’m pregnant to all of our friends?”

Oh right. That. He grinned and took a bite of his omelet. “Come on, it was funny.”

She sipped her coffee. “Then I suppose you won’t mind if I tell everyone that you’re the deadbeat dad who won’t stand by my decision.” Before he could respond she launched into a horrifically, adorably off-key version of “Papa Don’t Preach” in which her fork doubled as her microphone.

It was exactly the kind of thing she would have done back when they were friends. He laughed softly as he finished his breakfast and endured her performance.

This. This was what he’d missed. For the first time in what felt like forever Livvy was acting like Livvy. Like her old self, the one who said what she wanted, and did whatever she pleased.

He’d watched this Livvy—his Livvy—disappear little by little over the course of her relationship with Jessie. Oh, she was always like this around him. Well, up until that night. But she’d stopped being so outgoing and outrageous around Jessie and their other friends. He’d watched at first in confusion and then in horror as she’d muted herself, trying to make herself fully into the kind of Stepford-wife girlfriend she thought Jessie wanted.

But around him, she’d stayed the same. Maybe because she hadn’t cared what he thought, but he preferred to think it was because she was comfortable around him. Like she felt free to be herself, terrible Madonna impersonations and all.

Her song ended abruptly as she seemed to lose interest in singing, simultaneously remembering that she had a half-eaten breakfast on her plate. She dug back into her pancakes with relish as he watched.

She looked up at him with raised brows, picking up on their conversation as if nothing had happened. “So, Kimmie?”

He waved off her concern. “Avery will do damage control and clue her in that it was just a joke.”

Livvy’s hand froze with her fork hovering in front of her face. Her expression was inscrutable. “You and Avery still hang out a lot, huh?”

“Mm-hmm,” he answered while chewing.

Olivia’s lips twitched to the side before she turned back to her food.

Huh. She wasn’t…no, she couldn’t be. But maybe she was? “Are you jealous?”

Her scowl made a crease above her nose. “Of course not.”

They ate in silence for a moment before she looked up again. “Why would I be jealous? You’re not…” She flailed the hand holding her fork, spattering pancake crumbs in her wake. “I mean, do you do this with her?”

By the way she stressed “this” it was clear she was referring to more than just eating pancakes. He stared at her dumbfounded for a moment. A, because she clearly hadn’t realized that Avery was a lesbian, but also because…what the hell? He knew she thought he was a player, but she must think he was a poor man’s Wilt Chamberlain if she thought he was screwing all of their friends.

“You know what, forget I asked,” she said.

They ate in silence again and he tried to figure out what he should do. He wished he had Avery there hiding in a closet to give him guidance because he was at a loss. But he was on his own so he was forced to go with his gut, and his gut said to be honest. “No,” he said after too long of a pause.

She gave him a questioning look.

“I don’t do this with Avery.” Inspiration struck and he set down his fork. “In fact, I think we should make a deal.”

She set her fork down too and placed her hands on her lap, twisting them nervously. “What kind of deal?”

He leaned forward, unclasping her hands. He hated seeing her self-conscious in general, but it just felt wrong when she acted like that around him. “Let’s agree that for as long as we’re doing this,” he arched his brows meaningfully, making her giggle, “we’ll keep it strictly between us.”

“You mean like a secret?” she asked.

He rolled his eyes. “No, not a secret. I meant…” He swallowed, oh fuck he was giving his hand away here. “I meant we keep it exclusive.”

Her eyes widened and his heart stopped beating. Shit. He’d gone too far. She was going to run scared. He’d messed up and—

Her brilliant smile stopped his headlong rush into crazy town.

“I think that’s a great idea.” A bit of a blush was creeping up her neck and into her cheeks and her smile turned shy at his stare. She picked up her fork and started pushing her food around on her plate. “So…what exactly is this?”

And that right there was the million-dollar question. He could answer honestly—this was everything. It was their destiny. This was how he wanted to go to sleep every night and wake up every morning.

The thought of how quickly she would bolt from that sort of dramatic response had him swallowing down the truth and sticking to the plan. “What do you want this to be?”

He hadn’t meant it to sound quite so teasing but her answering grin made him smile. “Be serious, Drew.”

Oh, he was serious. Too serious. If she only knew…

“So, this is like…a fling, right?” She said the words slowly, tentatively, as if trying them out on her tongue.

No. That was exactly what he did not want this to be. But, he had to believe that Avery was right and that he could use this fling to show her that. Still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to agree, so he shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it.”

She rolled her eyes but she was laughing. “That’s right, I forgot. You don’t like to put labels on these things.”

He laughed too because he remembered the conversation she was referring to. It had taken place sophomore year when he’d started dating a freshman named…shit, he’d forgotten her name. Olivia had been excited at the idea that he was finally serious about someone—well, serious for him. She hadn’t known that he hadn’t been serious, he’d been hopeful. He’d met a girl who he’d thought might help him get over his agonizing crush on his best friend.

It hadn’t worked.

The girl had gotten hurt and he’d realized how fruitless it was to try.

He should have known it was pointless right off the bat when Olivia had been more excited about the idea of his new girlfriend than he had been. So much so, he’d had a hard time saying the word girlfriend aloud. Olivia had persisted. Why won’t you say she’s your girlfriend? Well, what is she then? But you’re dating, right? Can we admit that much, at least?

Finally, he’d had enough. That kind of pestering would have been annoying coming from any of his friends, but coming from Olivia, it had been brutal. A steady stream of reminders that she had no interest in him romantically.

So, like a coward, he’d avoided answering outright because his honest answer would have blown up their friendship. She hadn’t been ready to hear his true feelings then any more than she was ready now.

What if she was never ready? The nagging thought was too depressing to contemplate, but it refused to entirely go away. What if she never saw him as anything other than a friend? Maybe he was deluding himself into thinking that time and patience would win the day.

He was so tired of being patient. That’s what this whole past year had been about. It had been a result of him being fed up, tired of waiting in the wings like a goddamn lovesick Romeo waiting for his stubborn, blind, idiot of a soulmate to see what was right in front of her eyes.

The pessimistic little voice wasn’t convinced that this time would be any different.

He watched her pick up her coffee and take a sip. Wearing his T-shirt. In his apartment. After the most erotic night of lovemaking he’d ever experienced.

Just like that the pessimism subsided. It went back into the lizard part of his brain where that kind of cowardly fear belonged.

This time it was different. She wasn’t in love with Jessie—he hoped—or going through a breakup from her first real boyfriend.

She was single, and so was he. And she’d slept with him, which meant she was finally ready to admit that she was attracted to him.

His grin turned wolfish as he remembered the way she’d responded in bed the night before. Oh yeah, she was attracted all right.

The timing was finally right. This would work, it had to.

They’d been sitting in silence and by the frown currently gracing her features, he had a sneaking suspicion her train of thought hadn’t been nearly as pleasant…or optimistic.

She set her cup down gently. “How is this going to work, exactly?”

He had no idea. But he couldn’t tell her that. She was looking to him as if he had all the answers and there was no way he would disappoint her. Besides, this was his game. His big plan. Well, Avery had come up with it but he was the instigator. He couldn’t exactly inform her that this was all new to him—that she was the first woman he’d ever fallen in love with, let alone the first woman he’d devised a plan to woo by embracing his player image.

He looked at her over the rim of his mug as he took a sip of his own coffee. “Livvy,” he said slowly. “Are you asking me to explain to you how sex works?”

Her mouth fell open with a gasp and she swatted his arm as he launched into a monologue on the birds and the bees.

“You know what I mean, stupid,” she said through her laughter. “How is this going to work for us?”

Before he could answer, her eyes lit up with a kind of crazy look. He recognized it. She was about to go into a frenzy of a tangent. “Or is it?” she asked. “I mean, was this just a one-night thing? Or like, a one-off now-and-again when we’re both drunk and horny?”

The fact that her face looked pained as she asked that gave him more hope than it should. She rolled her eyes and dropped her head into her hands. “Of course it is.” Shaking her head while still holding it in her hands, he heard her muffled words of embarrassment. “I’m sorry, that was a stupid thing to ask.”

He pulled her hands down, forcing her to look at him.

“This is casual,” she continued, in full spiral now. “That means it’s not a regularly scheduled thing, doesn’t it? God, I’m ruining this, aren’t I?”

He was laughing softly by the time she slowed down enough to take a break so he could answer.

“Hey,” he said. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since she’d started her downward, internal spiral. He smiled and watched as her gaze focused and her lips twitched up in an answering grin.

Reaching out he took her hands in his. “It’s you and me here.”

Her smile grew and his heart squeezed painfully in his chest.

“We can do whatever we want,” he said. “You name it.”

She blinked at him as if those words didn’t compute. “I can name it?”

He leaned back, letting her hands drop. He had a feeling he’d taken the intensity level up a notch too high and he needed to take it down a bit.

Olivia seemed to relax once his hands were off her, and she sat there in silence for a while, sipping her coffee as he watched her with as much patience as he could muster.

Finally, she said, “I think we should set limits. If that’s okay.”

He nodded and gestured with his mug. “I told you, you’re defining this particular relationship…or lack thereof.”

Her smile was shy, hesitant, and once more he wished he could track down Jessie and beat the living shit out of him for making her ever doubt herself.

For a second he was filled with a magnanimous selfless feeling. Even if his experiment failed in spectacular fashion and he never won the girl, maybe it wouldn’t be a bust. Maybe it would be good for her. Maybe he could be good for her. From that point on, he resolved that that’s what he would do. He’d help her. He’d make sure that when this ended—no matter how it ended—she’d be better off for it.

That he could do. Because this woman deserved nothing less.

“What are you smiling like that for?” She was watching him warily.

“Like what?”

She waved a hand toward his face. “All goofy-like.”

He leaned over and planted a quick kiss on the top of her nose. “That’s just how I look after a night of mind-blowing sex.”

He was rewarded with another blush, this one because she was clearly pleased by the comment. “Mind-blowing, huh?”

He grinned. “What would you call it?”

Her answering smile lit up her eyes. “Spectacular.”

He pretended to scoff. “Spectacular? That’s what you’d say after seeing Cirque du Soleil or something.”

She giggled and he couldn’t resist. He had to touch her. Just talking about their night together had him jonesing for more touches, more kisses, and a whole hell of a lot more sex. He stood and moved so he was standing just in front of her, her bare knees parting naturally to let him stand between her thighs.

The T-shirt rode up revealing her pale, rounded thighs that were made to wrap around his waist. Her gaze followed his and she tugged down the hem of the shirt. Her attempt to cover herself was futile. His hand stopped her even though her efforts were doing no good. “Don’t hide yourself from me,” he said softly. “Please.”

Her hand stilled and she peeked up at him from beneath a lock of hair that had fallen into her face.

She looked achingly vulnerable and he hated that she had no idea how beautiful she was. Sliding one hand over the thigh he loved so much, he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Do you have any idea how delectable your body is?”

Her lips parted as she blinked up at him. He saw the moment her brain clicked into gear because she averted her gaze and her smile turned rueful. “Thanks, but I need to lose ten pounds or—”

He cut her off with a kiss. When he pulled back he leaned his forehead down to rest against hers. “You’re perfect.” His hand moved over her thighs and hips, round and soft and so fucking sexy he couldn’t stand it. “I love these curves right here,” he said as his hands stroked her thighs.

He heard her breath catch as his hands slipped beneath the hem of her T-shirt and over her belly and waist. Dropping a kiss on the corner of her mouth, he murmured, “And I love how soft you are here. Your skin is like silk.”

She shivered beneath his touch, her muscles contracting as he made his way up to cup her breasts. “And these curves,” he whispered. “Oh hell, princess, these curves were made to be touched.”

Her whimper nearly sent him over the edge and her lips were ready and waiting, molding to his when he finally pulled her against him for a kiss.

The kiss went on and on. He was in no rush to move. This right here was perfection. Livvy was in his apartment, in his arms, in his T-shirt. This was what he’d dreamed of for years.

“Wait,” she said, her breath coming in short gasps as she pulled back, her hands pressed against his chest. “We didn’t finish setting the terms.”

He stared down at her for a moment, before letting out a short laugh of disbelief. Hell. Leave it to Livvy to be distracted because she was worried about the rules. “I told you, it’s up to you.” He got back to kissing her neck, hoping to bring her back to the moment. He didn’t want to think about the parameters of this little arrangement because he was banking on the fact that this arrangement wouldn’t be an arrangement for long.

One day in the not-too-distant future, this would be a relationship.

The thought made his chest ache and his arms tightened around her.

“I think we should set an end date,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper next to his ear. Her breathless whisper would have been a turn on if it wasn’t for the words.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, trying his hardest not to think about what she was saying. Despite his efforts, his brain couldn’t block it out. She was putting a ticking clock on his plan.

Right. No pressure.

“We’ll just do…this…until the wedding,” she said, her words interspersed with little moans as his hands and mouth moved over her.

He didn’t say anything in response. To agree to that would be a lie. There was no way in hell he would be able to let her go in two weeks’ time. Not now that he knew just how good they could be together.

So instead of answering, he claimed her mouth with a hot, searing kiss that he hoped would silence the last of her thoughts on limits and boundaries and anything that wasn’t directly related to what was about to occur.

Her arms slid around his neck and he picked her up, her legs wrapping around his waist as he carried her over to the bed and set her down.

“I want…” she started. “I need…”

He grinned. “I know.” And he did, because he needed the same thing. To lose himself in her, finally and completely. To revel in what they created when they were in each other’s arms.

As he moved over her, slipping the T-shirt up and over her head so she was laid out before him, he shut off the functioning part of his brain that told him his time was already running out. That he’d better get his ass in gear or risk losing her forever.

Her hands reached up and grasped his shoulders, pulling him down to cover her naked body with surprising strength. “Hurry,” she moaned.

Oh shit, she was the sexiest woman he’d ever met. If he lost her again…

His brain stopped working as her tongue darted out to taste his skin making him groan at the sweet sensation.

Later. He’d worry about that later.