He bent to pick up the chair. Their arms brushed, and he caught the scent of her shampoo—lavender. His fingers closed around the edges of the chair, lifting, but his eyes caught and remained on the way her lips had parted. A split second later, she grabbed hold of his coat and jerked him nearer.
He forgot every excuse he’d given himself about not wanting her. Without a thought to reason, they were kissing. It was even better than the teasing sensations of Will’s dreams. It was hot and hungry and desperate, as though they couldn’t stop. Heat shot straight down his spine.
He dropped the chair.
And put his arms around her (if only he knew her name), and the kiss became frantic, determined, significant. His chest felt full to bursting, and for a moment, he almost drew back, startled by his reaction. But she was warm, her lips soft and eager, her body like a line of fire against him. She was the furthest thing from an Ice Queen he’d ever met.
He felt shaking hands run through his hair and stroke the back of his neck. He reached down, smoothed his palm along her thigh and tugged her tighter against him. She gasped.
And then so did someone else.
Oops.
They broke apart like guilty teenagers, aware that they had been caught. He felt embarrassingly out of breath. The counselor stood in front of them, shaking his head.
“I came back for my keys,” he told them sternly.
Will stiffened his spine. The counselor’s look alone left him feeling thoroughly chastised despite the fact that he wasn’t really the one who had fallen off the wagon.
“I am very disappointed with you both,” the counselor said. “I hope it wouldn’t have gone any further, but by the look of things, I think it would have.”
Will looked down at his rumpled shirt. Then he glanced at her, and his throat grew dry. Her pale skin was flushed, her lips pursed into an unhappy pout, and her arms were crossed, pushing up her chest. The urge to kiss her again was powerful, even with the counselor watching. He looked away and coughed into his fist.
“It’s so important to abstain from sex until the therapy is well established. Especially sex with another addict!”
“I’ve been coming for the last twenty weeks. When will it be well established?” the girl asked coolly.
Will cast her a surprised look. He had no idea she’d been coming for that long, and he glanced back at the counselor to await his answer. Will wanted to know as well.
“When you finally accept that you have a problem, and are willing to work to fix it,” he said evenly.
The girl rolled her eyes. “It was only a kiss.”
“Nevertheless, we are leaving now, and I expect to see you both go home—in different directions.”
Will was very aware of the fury radiating from his partner in crime as the three of them walked out onto the open street. He couldn’t help feeling relieved that she was visibly as frustrated as him, but along with that frustration was the returning guilt that it probably shouldn’t have happened at all.
The counselor escorted Will to his car, and minutes later, he’d left far behind the girl who would most definitely haunt his dreams again.
Chapter Eight
Leah had checked in on Elijah prior to the meeting—shockingly, her mom had been home and had already made dinner—so she went straight back to her apartment afterward. She walked in to find Helena reveling in her new living room. Their old one had been furnished with an assortment of discounted, inherited and reclaimed oddments. Nothing had matched. Now with the loan Leah took out to replace everything that had been stolen, the room was color-coordinated (a pink sofa, Leah noted—who would have thought such a thing existed?) and, she had to admit, pretty cool.
Helena greeted her at the door, grinning her head off, and took her on a guided tour. Leah wondered if her friendliness meant that she was finally forgiven.
“Look at this dinner table. Don’t you love it? It’s so formal!” Helena gushed, running her fingers over the dark, glossy wood. She had set a red runner along the middle and accented it with a red crystal vase filled with dry branches long enough to almost touch the hanging lights.
Leah did sort of look forward to eating on it. Eventually. Her bed had become her new favorite place to eat.
Before she could form a reply, Helena ushered her down the hall. Her new bedroom set was cherry wood, and the top of her dresser was already cluttered with textbooks, papers, and the impressive three-tier, blue brocade box where she kept her formidable collection of nail polishes and nail care tools. Helena considered her nails a canvas. At the moment, they were chic black and white diagonal stripes with a line of rhinestones along the tip.
Nearly hidden behind the clutter was a picture frame Leah thought had been taken along with everything else. It was a simple black frame with a pink flower painted in one corner. It displayed a photo of them at the park, taken on one of many evenings Helena had joined her and Elijah. Leah had taken Helena shopping on her birthday and let her pick out the frame. Leah was crap at giving presents (lack of practice), and didn’t see the point in giving something unless she was certain the recipient would like it.
“Looks really great,” Leah said, and meant it.
Helena beamed and gripped her hand before tugging her back down the short hall to the living room. A thirty-two-inch flat screen television stood in place of the nineteen-inch dinosaur they’d had before. It was currently tuned into some sitcom featuring a talking dog. She cast Helena, who had ducked into the kitchen, a dubious look before turning the channel to a documentary featuring a pride of lionesses stalking a gazelle.
The lionesses had just taken it down when Helena returned juggling a bottle of red wine, two glasses, and a plate of microwaved hot pockets.
Leah smiled. They ate like queens. Oh yeah.
Helena made a face at the TV, where the lionesses were stripping flesh from the gazelle while buzzards waited in a nearby tree, and set their dinner on the coffee table. “Well, now I’m really hungry,” she said.
Leah liked watching animal documentaries. It was all so basic and instinctual. Especially the ones about mating. (They weirded Helena out.) “Survival of the fittest. Sometimes I wish this was how humans worked. I would totally be a lioness.”
Helena snorted. “You’d be a hyena.”
Leah flashed her a toothy grin. “Well, you’d be a meerkat.”
“Meerkats are awesome.” Helena bit into a hot pocket with an emphatic nod.
Leah didn’t argue. She was just glad they were getting along again. She poured herself some wine and settled into the corner of their new—oh my God, so comfortable—sofa.
“So, I know I haven’t said anything all week,” Helena began, “but congrats on finishing the twenty weeks.” She leaned over to give Leah a quick squeeze.
Dangit. She had been trying to avoid thinking about it.
“Thanks,” she said, and injected as much cheer into her smile as she could.
The thing was that along with feeling relief it was finally over, she also felt a little disappointed. Not because she wanted to go back—definitely not—but because the thought of never seeing Blue Eyes again made her twitchy. Especially after she’d acted on impulse and kissed the guy.
She didn’t regret kissing him—he had clearly enjoyed it—but she did sort of feel guilty for putting them in such an awkward position. She bit her lip, remembering the feel of his mouth, his body, his hand on her thigh. She had no doubt that he wanted to finish what she had started, and she wouldn’t mind in the least.
But unless she went back next week, it might as well have been a good-bye kiss.
God, she was in trouble.
“I thought for sure you’d quit after the first couple weeks,” Helena said. “Thanks for sticking with it.”
“Does this mean we’re okay now?”
Helena looked surprised. “We were always okay. I mean, I was furious with you, but I wasn’t going to throw you out.”
No one could loosen that ache in
her chest better than Helena. Leah didn’t know what to say, but her best friend understood her well enough to give her another quick squeeze.
Content, Leah selected a hot pocket and felt the last of her worries about their friendship slip away.
“Has Jay asked you out yet?” she asked, waving her hot pocket through the air to try and cool it off more quickly.
To Leah’s amusement, Helena turned pink. “Yeah, right. Lord of the Eyebrows? Did you see how squeamish he got that one time you started talking about sex positions? He’s so straight-laced, it’s embarrassing.”
“You could fix that,” Leah said with a smirk.
Jay lived on the floor above them. He moved in a year after they did, but they only met about six months ago when they all wound up needing to use the apartment washer and dryer at the same time. Since then, Jay became Helena’s go-to guy when she needed something heavy moved and Leah paid him for his time in baked goods.
“Don’t even! I’d never be able to take him out in public unless he let me attack his eyebrows with tweezers.” She made a face, and stuck out her chin. “Not that I’d want to.”
“Oh my God,” Leah said, laughing. “You totally want him.”
Helena’s last boyfriend had been six months ago. She dumped him after finding out he was a serious pothead. She and Leah had always drawn the line at drugs, no matter how wild things got in the past.
Six months was more than enough time for Helena to get a new boyfriend. For a while, she’d had a different boy every month. The only reason Leah hadn’t turned the accusations of sex addiction back at Helena was because she knew for a fact Helena hadn’t slept with any of them. Leah could tell when her best friend had sex because she was always unbearably cheerful the next day.
“I do not. And it’s not like it matters anyway, because Jay isn’t interested.”
“The guy came over and assembled all your furniture for you,” she reminded Helena. “Even though the directions were in Japanese. And he listened to you yell at him while doing it.”
“So maybe he’s a masochist,” Helena said, even as she hid a smile behind her wine glass.
“Or you’re both just dense.”
“Like you’re an expert. You’ve never had a serious relationship in your life.”
To her annoyance, Leah immediately thought of Will and what it would be like to be with him. Not just sex, but to really be with him. When she didn’t immediately recoil at the thought, she frowned and bit off a large chunk of her hot pocket.
“Anyway, how’s Elijah?” Helena asked.
Leah took a sip of her wine to wash down the chewy bread that was always too thick at the edges. But hey, it beat her ramen, eggs, and hot dog diet of a couple years ago. “He’s fine. My mom already made him dinner, so I just made sure he did his homework.”
“Your mom was home?” Helena’s brows rose. She had been a huge help in Elijah’s earlier years when Leah had been learning hands-on, with little help from her mother, how to care for an infant and then a toddler, still being a kid herself.
“I know, right? She said she just wanted a quiet night in. Whatever.” She shrugged and didn’t mention how Elijah had smiled all evening. It had pissed her off. Even though Leah had all but raised him, she still couldn’t one-hundred-percent replace their real mom. But if their mom was going to be absent, then she should just be absent instead of occasionally giving Elijah false hope.
“Well, glad to hear he’s okay. I’ll have to visit soon. Or you could bring him around.”
Due to Helena’s busy schedule, she hadn’t seen Elijah in a few weeks, and he kept asking after her.
“Actually, we should take him out this weekend,” she said, finally reaching for the remote to switch the channel away from the carcass the lionesses had left behind, which was now being picked over by vultures and other scavengers. “I’m not working.”
“I’m taking him to the observatory on Sunday. You should come along.”
They lapsed into the first comfortable silence since that night Leah had screwed everything up. As Helena flipped through channels, Leah allowed her thoughts to return to what had happened at the meeting and what she wanted to do about it.
Of course, she didn’t have to do anything. It wasn’t like they had made any promises. She didn’t have to see him again.
But she wanted to. And she wanted to know his name. And to talk to him again. She had no idea what to do with that.
“What if...” Leah began, but then her face grew warm and she couldn’t continue.
“What?” Helena asked, putting down the remote. She had settled on a reality TV show about ghost psychics.
Leah bandied the words around in her head. It all sounded stupid any way she put it, so she blurted, “I know I’m banned from sex until you give me the okay, but what if I met someone?”
“Leah.” Helena’s voice held a warning tone like an air raid siren. “You just finished therapy.”
Leah winced. “I mean, really met someone.”
After a short pause, during which she could practically see the gears turning in Helena’s head, Helena’s eyes went wide. She leaned forward, clutching a beaded pillow against her chest. “As in … as in someone you think you could have a relationship with? That kind of ‘met’?”
Leah cringed. She was talking about feelings again. She hoped this wasn’t becoming a trend. “Maybe.”
“Wow,” Helena breathed, leaning back against the arm of the sofa. She turned her face into the pillow until only large brown eyes could be seen over the beaded edges. “You must really like this guy.”
“Enough,” she muttered.
Helena’s expression turned gleeful and she made a muffled squeal into the pillow. “Oh my gosh! You might actually learn how to care about a guy. You might even fall in love!”
“Okay, you’re getting way ahead of me here,” Leah said. She grabbed another pillow and smacked it against the one shielding Helena’s face. Who said anything about love? That was much too strong a word to even think about yet for a guy she barely knew. Right now, she wanted him. And she couldn’t stop thinking about him and his voice and the way he looked at her or the easy way they’d talked about a less-than-easy topic.
She liked him. A lot. More than any guy she’d ever met.
“This has never happened in the ten years I’ve known you.”
“It’s never happened, full stop,” Leah said. Helena, on the other hand, had had enough boyfriends for the both of them, and she’d been in love no less than five times in the years since they’d met.
To Helena’s benefit, she had dumped one of them after he called Leah some choice words and demanded Helena choose between the two of them. She had been absolutely certain Helena would choose him because who in their right mind would pick her over the guy they claimed to love? She’d been shocked when Helena showed up at her parents’ estate and casually asked if she could sleep over before crying all over Leah’s bed. Leah might have cried too, but she’d deny it if Helena ever brought it up.
That might have been the moment she decided to hold onto Helena’s friendship no matter what. Besides Elijah, Helena was the one person who’d always been there for her without actually needing to be.
“So, what, you want to bring him with us on Sunday?” Helena asked, looking way too eager.
“Are you crazy? I’m not introducing him to you.” She hadn’t even decided yet if she wanted to see the guy again. She wasn’t about to bring him around to meet Elijah.
“What? Why?” Helena lurched forward until her face was inches from Leah’s. “I want to meet this guy! Details, Leah!”
Leah gave her friend a playful shove, and Helena retreated back to her side of the sofa. “I just wanted to make sure it was okay with you if … if I decided to pursue something. That’s all.”
With a giggle, Helena said, “You wanted my blessing?”
“Well, not anymore,” she said flatly.
Helena swallowed the rest of her laughter.
“In that case,” she said, “I might make an exception, but Leah—” She drew a breath, and the humor faded from her face, which immediately made Leah wary. She looked concerned as she flattened the pillow in her lap and reached for her wine glass. “If you really like this guy, I don’t think you should just jump in bed with him. I know you don’t agree, but I really do think you have a bit of a problem in how you process emotion and sex.”
Leah wasn’t willing to go over this again with her, so she didn’t reply.
Helena continued on, “If you want something longer than one night with him, maybe you shouldn’t have sex. Not because I’m not okay with it. But because maybe you aren’t.”
Leah swallowed and looked down at her glass. For a moment, neither of them spoke, and the raised voices of the people on TV filled the silence.
Finally, Helena tossed the pillow aside and leaned forward to grasp Leah’s hand. “Just think about, okay?”
Before she could respond, Helena tugged at her fingers and raised them close enough to her face that she could examine Leah’s nails.
“You need a manicure. Wait here.” She hopped off the sofa and disappeared down the hall to retrieve her box.
Leah held out her hand, studying her nails, but all she could think about was the way it had felt to slide her fingers through his hair.
Chapter Nine
After a few days to clear his head and think about things objectively, Will realized he was an idiot. He was lucky the counselor hadn’t thrown him out of the program. If James found out what had happened, it was entirely possible Will would be reduced to doing nothing but checking footnotes until he graduated.
But that kiss … He couldn’t get it out of his head. It was easier to push it to the back of his mind during the day. But it rose, persistent, to the surface at night when he was left to nothing but the silence of his apartment and his own whirling thoughts. That moment when she had been pressed against him with only the barrier of their clothes to separate them remained suspended in his memory, a perfectly taunting reminder of what could have happened.
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