Chapter 17

Sawyer

Her mouth opens for me. Right away. I don’t even have to coax her lips apart with my tongue. And for some reason, that gets me going. How willing she is. How eager.

She fits her body against mine with a breathy sigh, raising herself onto her toes, pressing the vee of her jeans against my thigh, her breasts against my ribs. She yields completely, her mouth soft and sweet and hot, her hands grabby, and where her sex nudges against me through two layers of fabric, I can feel heat radiating. Blood rushes into my dick so fast I get light-headed. Involuntarily, I push my erection against the softness of her belly.

She breaks the kiss, drawing a breath that’s more like a gasp.

“Shh,” I say. “What will the neighbors think?”

She covers her face with her hands and draws back, inserting a small amount of too-cool space between us.

“Wow,” she says between her fingers. When she drops her hands, her face is flushed. Her breath comes fast, in little pants, her breasts heaving. It makes my dick—already hard—even more ridiculously rigid. I’m tangled up in my briefs, longing desperately to get free and—

Well, and everything.

“And yikes,” she adds, with a small, embarrassed laugh, and takes another step back.

“Should we go inside?” I gesture at her house. And then mine. Offering her choices.

Her gaze follows my hand. She frowns. When she looks up at me, I can see that I’ve lost her.

“Sawyer,” she says.

“What?”

“You don’t do repeats.”

She’s right, of course. But I can’t make myself care, not now, with the taste of her on my lips and the sensation of holding her still rushing through my nerve endings.

“I would make an exception. I’ve wanted a repeat since that night outside Maeve’s.”

“Me, too.” Her eyes are bright. Hopeful. “It was good, wasn’t it? So good?”

The pleasure of hearing her say that swells my head and my dick. I was pretty sure it was good for her, too—I didn’t think she could fake that kind of reaction—but it’s always nice to hear it. But then her face falls. “The thing is, Sawyer, you have really good reasons not to do repeats. I mean, your wife and all. I can tell you still love her.”

I don’t try to deny it.

“And also, I mean, this is kind of an effed-up situation. We’re neighbors. And our kids are friends. And—” She hesitates. “I’m still putting things back together, too. I mean, I’m not in love with Trevor anymore, but I’m also not, like, over what happened, obviously. So I guess I’m saying—I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m saying—”

“Are you saying no?” If so, I want her to have to say it, straight and simple, out loud. But I don’t think that’s what she’s saying. Not exactly.

“It’s just—I think I’d end up getting hurt, you know? Because I’m guessing you don’t want anything, you know, serious, and—I don’t, either, but—I know myself and I’m the kind of person who just—if we end up having sex, and it’s not just strangers at a bar one time, but if we were, like, friends with benefits—it would get complicated.”

I could kiss her to shut her up, I could kiss her hard and sweep all the rational thoughts out of her head, but I let her talk because she’s talking sense and because, truth? I like it when she does this, when she says what’s in her head.

“And I do like you, Sawyer, I think you’re a good dad and a really, really good guy, the kind who builds his elderly neighbor free bookshelves and would construct a fence that looks attractive on both sides and put lattice on it because he thinks his neighbor would appreciate it, and—don’t frown at me like that, Sawyer, you know it’s true!—I guess what I’m saying is, if we were friends, and if we were also having sex, I could get to like you a lot, more than would be good for either of us, because you’re not available in that way. And I just think that would end up sucking for both of us and for the boys. So maybe let’s just not go there?”

I set my jaw against the impulse to laugh—or kiss her. “But you’re not saying no.”

“Sawyer, don’t.”

I hold up a hand. “I won’t try to talk you into anything.”

She’s right. I don’t want anything serious. I know what she’s saying is true: it would be pretty easy for things to get out of control, being as we’re in such close proximity to each other. There would have to be rules and regulations, something to keep it in line.

Then the answer occurs to me. “What about a one-time-only repeat?”

She looks intrigued at that. Or at least she doesn’t immediately tell me to go to hell.

“What if we give Trevor and Helen something real to talk about?”

Her brows are drawn close together in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“When’s the wedding?” I ask her.

She thinks about it a minute. “Three weeks—like a week and a half after school ends.”

“Where?”

“Portland. Where Helen’s from.”

“So you have to get a hotel room.”

“Yup.”

“Is Madden going?”

She sighs. “This is a bone of contention between me and Trevor. I just think it’s wrong. I mean, who doesn’t invite their eight-year-old son to their wedding?”

I scrub my face irritably with my palm. “Do you think he researches all the ways to be a dick?”

She grimaces. “On the other hand, I’m sort of glad, you know? Because it would be so weird for me. To watch my son watch his father get married again. And it’s a nighttime wedding, at a super-fancy location. So he’s staying with my parents.”

I am already picturing Elle dressed for a “super-fancy” location, and liking the image it brings to mind. “So here’s my thinking. Maybe we leave the boys with their respective grandparents, go to the wedding, and since Trevor thinks we’re sleeping together anyway, for that one day—and night—we will be. But just that one day and night. Then we’re done.”

She bites into that plump lower lip. I work hard to resist the urge to bend over and lick the bitten spot. I will exercise restraint now to get what I want later.

“One time? Or one night?” she asks finally.

I take that as an excellent sign.

“Which do you want it to be?”

She thinks about that for a long time—another promising sign. Finally she says, “One time would be neater. But one night would be—” She eyes me, a head-to-toe appraisal. My dick stirs. Of course, he thinks it’s all about him. And to be fair, her eyes do snag for a moment on my fly before her gaze comes up again to find mine. “One night maybe would be better for getting it out of our systems.”

One night would definitely give me more time to work through the variations I pictured lying in bed that first night…

“One night it is,” I say.

“But that’s it. No kissing before then, and once the night’s over, nothing else.”

I extend my hand and we shake on it.