I may never be aroused again.
This is like a three-week celibacy pill.
Who knew that Michael Fassbender’s penis would cure me of all my desire for Summer Clarke?
That is, until Friday morning when I see her march into the pool area at the gym as I’m finishing my swim.
Out of the corner of my goggles, I notice her sundress, how it’s swishing around her legs, showing them off, accentuating her curves and muscles.
And now I won’t be able to get out of the pool.
Thanks a fucking lot, Fassbender.
Your dick failed me when it mattered.
Time to turn up the friendship charm.
20
Summer
I crouch at the edge of the pool, waiting for Oliver to finish his lap.
When his head pops up, he gives me a grin. “Good morning, fake fiancée,” he whispers, wiggling his brows.
“Shh. We don’t want anyone to know,” I say, pressing a finger to my lips.
But the pool is quiet. It’s only us.
He parks his elbows on the edge of the deck, water droplets sliding down his face, one hitting his lip.
My finger itches to touch it, to swipe it off.
I ignore that desire, zeroing in on everyday us. “Just wondering if you wanted to grab a quick breakfast when you get finished. I would love to go over my plans for how to use the money from the essay. That is, if you have time.”
“I have a meeting at nine, but I always have time for the future Mrs. Harris.” He’s laying on the charm, flashing a slightly strange smile, but he doesn’t move to get out of the pool.
“Breakfast is on me,” I add.
“Sounds great,” he says, still not budging.
“Do you have more laps to do?” I glance at the wall clock. He’s usually done at seven on the dot, and it’s ticking past the hour.
His eyes light up. “Yes, I nearly forgot. I have ten more to do. Can’t fall behind.”
“Cool. I’ll wait for you on the bench.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t mind. I can answer some emails.”
His eyes stray longingly to the clock. “Maybe twenty more laps. You’d better wait in the lobby. You know, for your health. Nasal health.” He taps me on the nose, an overly cute gesture. Made all the overly cuter when he crinkles his own nose.
“For my nasal health?”
“Well, all the chlorine in the air,” he says apologetically, like it’s somehow his fault. “It isn’t great to breathe.”
“I already taught a water aerobics class, so I’ve been inhaling it all morning.” The whole exchange makes me wonder what he’s been inhaling, but I just point out, “I’m not affected.”
He simply shrugs. “If you say so.”
I rock forward and rap my knuckles on his forehead. “You’re being odd.”
He’s silent, and I see the cogs in his head turning, picking up speed. Then things seem to click, and he heaves a dramatic sigh. “Fine. Fine. I’ll skip the rest of the laps. I was trying to do you a favor. I just thought, with you being my fake fiancée and all, it’d be even harder for you to look away when I got out of the pool. I didn’t want to tempt you.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll do my best to resist you.”
Though, admittedly, resisting him is much harder now that I’ve kissed him. Twice.
Even though they weren’t real kisses.
He glances at the pile of towels on the bench. “Any chance you can grab one for me?”
My brow knits. He’s suddenly strangely shy. More proof the kiss was a one-way street.
With tongue.
And moans.
He definitely moaned the other morning.
I can still hear the sound of it rumbling in my ears.
Whatever. I’m not letting myself go there, and I’m not thinking of his hands all over me at the wine tasting. How they felt when he slid his palms down my bare arms.
I turn around, head to the bench, grab a towel, and return to him. He’s at the ladder now, and he climbs out, quickly wrapping the towel around his waist like he’s preventing me from seeing his Speedo.
“Weirdo,” I mutter.
“Takes one to know one,” he says with a wink.
Ah, that’s the Oliver I know. Fine, I get it. He’s firmly planting his flagpole in Friendship Land.
Well, duh. Where else would he plant it?
“I’ll be ready in five minutes,” he says.
“That’s all it takes to blow dry your Harry Styles hair?”
He drags a hand through his wet locks. “Harry’s got nothing on me, baby.”
There’s the sound of shoes clicking on the tile, then a voice calls out—older, feminine. “Summer, dear. Have you seen my silver tennis bracelet? I think it fell in the water this morning.”
Hello, déjà vu.
It’s Mrs. Wilson, one of my regulars in water aerobics, and evidently a regular when it comes to losing her shiny objects.
I turn around, and Oliver does too, scanning the pool area. A hint of silver gleams on the deck by the ladder. “I think that’s it,” I say, and Oliver and I cross over, bending and reaching for it at the same time.
We’re close to each other, our noses inches apart, and I’m keenly aware of his body, his scent, and how even with the chlorine he still smells kissable.
Damn him. He is good for my nasal health.
“Found it,” he says.
“Oh, thank God. Good thing it wasn’t my cubic zirconia ring that everyone thinks is a diamond. I’d hate to lose that. I’d have to go to John Steven in Midtown to get another one,” Mrs. Wilson says with a laugh.
Oliver meets my gaze, his green eyes saying what I’m thinking. Holy shit, we need a ring before dinner with your client this weekend and probably before the hockey game tonight.
Geneva must not have noticed the absence of one the other night, but I suspect she’ll be more hawkish at a dinner party.
We rise, and Oliver hands the bracelet to Mrs. Wilson. She blows him a kiss, but then her brow knits. “Wait. Aren’t you America’s Best Boyfriend? My granddaughter showed me the picture of you two kissing the other day. Apparently, it wound up on BuzzFeed’s Ten Best Kisses Ever list,” she says, then waggles her fingers and says goodbye.
As she walks away, I grab my phone, tap “BuzzFeed” into the search bar, then stare at the two of us at the top of the list.
I’ve seen the image a million times now.
But still, seeing it codified this way, seeing it labeled, is like seeing it anew.
Or maybe the difference is that I’m seeing it with him next to me, mere inches away.
My pulse spikes, and I shudder.
Oliver clears his throat, like there’s something smoky, husky stuck in it. “Yeah, that’s . . .”
My lips part to say hot, but Mrs. Wilson wheels around before I do. “Dear, can you remind me again how to do that move? It was like a trick. The leg-lift bicep-curl combo.”
“Of course,” I say, and the moment crumbles away as Oliver heads for the locker room and I show Mrs. Wilson how to do the move.
Over eggs and potatoes at a nearby diner, we arrange to snag a cubic zirconia ring in Midtown tonight at John Steven Jeweler’s before the hockey game, then we review my plans for the money.
We don’t discuss that moment at the pool. No need to after all. We’re past it.
“So, the extra money helps, but I’ll still have to push back the opening. Not the worst thing,” I say, taking a drink of my coffee and giving an easy shrug.
He munches on his potatoes then sets down his fork. “You always manage to see the positive. And I have no doubt you’ll be swinging open the doors in no time. I’d offer to loan you the rest, but—”
I narrow my eyes. “But you know I’d claw your eyes out with my daggers for nails.” I brandish my short, unpolished nails as claws.
He shudders, shirking away. “Yes, exactly. I learned from a very early age never to cr
oss you when it comes to you doing things your way. Like when you were insistent that we all go as the Breakfast Club for Halloween in tenth grade. Even if it meant taking the train to the city and scouring all the secondhand shops to find your frayed denim John Bender jacket.”
I wiggle my brows. “Worth it. We won best group costume. And this’ll be worth it too.”
He nods, then reaches for his coffee. “But it’s not just your iron will and damn-the-torpedoes approach, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
He takes a drink, then sets down his mug. “You’re so determined to raze the city solo.”
“I am not.”
He laughs at me. “Funny, how you believe that.”
I narrow my eyes, grumbling. “Fine. I’m stubborn. I just want to—”
“Do everything on your own?”
“Yes. But you know why. I mean, are we that different? You like to be prepared. I like to be independent.”
“Well, nothing could have prepared me for the Twitter hate,” he jokes.
I wince. “Are you mad at me for that?”
He takes another bite of his breakfast, then says, “It’s hard to be mad at you. And believe me, I tried.”
I’m about to reply when the woman in the booth behind us says to her companion, “I have no problem admitting I would watch the neighbors have sex. Are you telling me you have an issue with that?”
My eyes pop.
I nearly drop my fork.
Oliver mouths, This is getting interesting.
As I lift a forkful of eggs, the woman says, “And you’re telling me you wouldn’t watch?”
The man she’s with scoffs. “No. I wouldn’t. You would? You truly would? If you looked outside and saw someone in an apartment across the street having sex, you’d watch?”
I keep my gaze on Oliver’s, smirking as I take a bite.
Oliver mimes bringing a pair of binoculars to his eyes, pretending to peer at someone in the distance. I hold in a laugh as the man and woman grab their things and leave, the debate raging on as they go.
“It’s not perversion,” she says, her voice lingering as they head to the door. “It’s curiosity.”
“It’s a little perverted. Actually, a lot,” the man says as they fade out of earshot.
Oliver’s lips quirk in a grin. “That raises an interesting question, doesn’t it? A little or a lot perverted?”
I laugh. “I thought you were going to ask if I’d watch.”
“Excellent question too. Would you watch?”
“Would you?”
“You go first,” he says.
“Fine. The answer is yes. Yes, I would.” I square my shoulders, owning it.
“So, set the scene for me,” he says. “You’re at home with Mags, you walk past the window, you see the neighbors shagging. Mr. Winchester with his bald spot and beer belly has bent Mrs. Winchester over the couch by the window. And you’re the Peeping Tom in that scenario?”
“Are you saying I should only watch hot young things bang in front of the window?”
We are back to Oliver and Summer, pals at large.
He laughs, shaking his head. “Not saying that at all. I just want to understand this particular perversion of yours.”
I pretend to toss my napkin at him. “Humans are inquisitive. If someone is going to publicly screw, I will watch. Not for titillation but curiosity.”
He arches a brow. “You’d watch for curiosity?”
I nod, then take another bite of my eggs, chewing, swallowing. “Yes. Because it’s interesting. Sex is interesting. And if someone is going to do it in front of an open window, I’m going to check them out. And obviously, you are not.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am most definitely watching. Wait. Correction. I am flipping through the channel, stopping, deciding if it looks good.”
“And if it’s Mr. and Mrs. Winchester, you’re moving on to ESPN?”
He pretends to work a remote. “Clicking the next channel at lightning speed,” he says, a gleam in his eyes.
“Well, I guess you’re more discerning than I am with your perversions,” I say, glad whatever weirdness he felt at the pool has vanished. “Or more discerning than the rest of the world too, since everyone seems to want to watch us kiss, what with that pic and all.”
One eyebrow climbs. “Really? I dunno, Summer. Seems like watching your neighbors go at it like bunnies is just a little different than checking out a snapshot of a somewhat chaste kiss.”
Somewhat.
That’s the key. It was somewhat chaste, but what does he make of the “somewhat” portion? I wish I knew.
“The concept is the same,” I say, sticking to the cerebral side of this conversation.
“The concept is one hundred percent not the same,” he insists, stabbing his finger against the table. “Case in point. We can look at that picture right now, in public, and that’s not perverted.” Grabbing his phone, he taps on the search bar, and seconds later, slides the device to the middle of the table so we can both see it again.
An image I checked out less than an hour ago.
And I can’t look away from this picture of a man and a woman swept up in each other.
Lost in a kiss.
They look . . . enrapt.
The memory of the kiss sweeps over me, cocooning me in a kind of residual bliss.
A somewhat chaste bliss, but I feel all the tingles you get from a memory. They float over me, reignite, send flutters all through my body.
Flutters that turn to sizzles as the memory intensifies.
They turn more carnal.
They’re hardly chaste at all now.
Heat races through me, and my neck is hot. My cheeks go red. And my wishes must be written in my eyes. I have to wonder if Oliver can read them there.
Kiss me.
His gaze locks with mine, and I swear on all that is good and holy—on Stella’s cookies and comfortable yoga pants and nights out with friends—that his eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them before.
Desire flashes across them too.
But we’re in a diner.
We’re just checking out a photo.
Testing a concept.
Except I’m thinking about where this image could lead to.
To touching, to closeness, to sex.
To nothing chaste whatsoever.
“You know,” he begins, as if he has an idea. I hope it’s to pour cold water on my head or dip me in an ice bath, because I need something, anything, to deal with the heatwave inside of me. “We should take one. Post it on your feed, since you defended my kissing the other night on Twitter.”
It’s not Summer the friend who answers his suggestion.
It’s Summer the tiger.
It’s Summer who wants Oliver, the man who’s spectacular at kissing, to kiss her again.
“Yes. We should.”
He rises from his side, moves with grace and confidence around the table, and sits next to me.
I shiver at his nearness.
He raises the phone camera, then laughs, shaking his head. “This may come as a bit of a shock, but I’ve never taken a picture of myself kissing before.”
I laugh. “First time for me too.”
He holds out one arm, slides the other all the way around my shoulders, clasping me tightly, and I am dying.
His touch is electrifying.
I feel almost ashamed, because he’s not even kissing me, and it’s not even real, but I’m already awash in anticipation.
Waiting.
Needing.
Hoping.
He peers into the screen, checking the image.
“Wait. Hold on,” he says, then adjusts his hands, moving his fingers away from my shoulder, fluttering them across my neck, playing with my hair, and then he’s leaning in.
And everything happens in slow motion.
I watch him inching closer.
His eyes zeroing in on my lips.
His lips part
ing.
Then, when he’s dizzyingly near to me, he glides his lips over mine, and all the hope I’ve been holding escapes in one long, delicious sigh that turns into a moan.
Because here we are again, kissing for the camera.
Click.
I hear him snap a picture.
And I hear something else too.
His sexy sighs.
His murmurs.
He kisses me with another click, another moment, another image.
It’s simply for the camera.
But he flicks his tongue against my lips.
And I ask myself if this is proving Stella wrong once again, and whether I want to fully explore her laws.
When I part my lips for him, inviting more, I know the answer.
I do.
And this kiss becomes more than a kiss for the camera.
The device slips from his hands and hits the table with a thud.
In no time at all, his hands are on my face, and he’s hauling me in for a hot, hard kiss.
This kiss wastes no time. This kiss leaves no mixed signals. This isn’t a kiss for a hashtag. He’s taking it for himself.
His hands curl around my face possessively. He holds me like he doesn’t want to let go.
He kisses me fiercely. His lips are hungry, fevered, as he skates his tongue across my lips again, and then our mouths explore each other.
Not just our mouths—my hands are curious cats, slinking up his suit jacket, sliding up his pressed shirt, grabbing his tie. I yank him closer, tugging on the silk.
And he responds with a rougher kiss.
It’s no longer an exploration.
It’s a declaration.
It says, I want you, I want your lips, I want your taste, and I want to feel you, touch you, have you.
In a diner, on a Friday morning before work, we kiss like the world is going up in flames.
I’m positive that if I were to see someone going at it like we are, I’d watch.
Oh, hell would I watch.
Because kisses like this don’t come around often.
I’ve never had one like it in my life, and I don’t have a clue what it means, or where we go after.
Someone coughs, and we break the kiss as the waitress passes us.
I blink, breathing out hard like I’ve run a race.
Dear Sexy Ex-Boyfriend (The Guys Who Got Away Book 1) Page 11