And fuck if my body doesn’t instantly respond. My cock jumps to attention, slamming against my zipper. My pulse is a throb in my limbs, and I suck in a deep breath.
“I just…” Her lips thin and she glances at the ground. “It’s… I don’t know how to feel around you. I think you like me and then you act weird. It’s throwing me off.”
Her honesty startles me, silences me. I’ve never met someone as open and blunt as she is. The girl holds nothing back. And it’s magnetic. I can tell where I stand with her, how she feels about me—it’s all over her face, in her body language, pouring through her tone.
She’s attracted to me and struggling over it.
Before I realize what’s happening, I cup the back of her head and tug her to me. The moment my lips press against her, I release a sigh that feels like it’s been in my chest for years, and then I part her lips with my tongue.
She opens to me, eager, pliant, submissive. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I yank her against me, our bodies flush, and she gives herself to me as I plunder her mouth, taste her. She gives a small whimper, her chest heaving, breasts pushing against me.
I’m drawn to her, wrapping my hands around her small waist, aching like fuck to feel her naked skin against mine. My fingers slide of their own volition to her waistband and pull her tiny tank top out from inside her skirt, and then I touch her bare flesh and I moan in her mouth. My dick aches so badly I can barely take it.
“Oh my fucking God,” I mutter. Her skin is like silk, soft and ready for me. I’ve never felt skin so soft. I want to touch her everywhere.
Aubrey whimpers and her body grinds against me in what seems more like an unconscious motion. “Yes,” she breathes against my mouth.
I push my hand under her shirt and grip her upper back, squeeze my fingers to dig into her skin. She grunts and sucks in a deep breath, arching against me. God, yes—
What the fuck am I doing? Making out with a customer in the back of the bar? I draw all my strength and remove my hands from her body, then step back.
Aubrey’s standing there, lips swollen, breath panting, eyes heavily lidded. She’s so innocent but so fucking primed for me. I could probably take her upstairs to my apartment and spread her wide and plunge deep inside her.
But I can’t do that. Because she deserves better than to be one of my random booty calls. I can’t ruin her. The kind of life I lead—it’s not for a girl like her.
Aubrey’s too good for me, and if she doesn’t realize it—I’ll have to help her figure it out.
The thought sobers me, and my cock deflates a little. “This can’t happen,” I make myself say. I see a riot of emotions flash across her face, but I continue. “Go home, sweetheart.” I make myself use the generic endearment instead of her name. I don’t want her to feel like something could happen with us. Because there’s no fucking way it can. “You’re drunk. Sleep it off.”
Aubrey just stares at me for a moment, her chest rising and falling. Her eyes are filled with things I can’t quite interpret. But I see the moment the shutters fall, and I feel the instantaneous pangs of disappointment, despite it being my fault, my intent. She gives a curt nod and without saying a word, spins on her heel and vanishes back into the bar.
I should be relieved.
I should feel like I did something good, something noble and selfless.
Instead, I feel like I cheated myself out of something amazing.
I spend another twenty minutes outside, cooling down, convincing myself that I’m doing the right thing. Clearly she and I would not be good together. She doesn’t seem like the hook-up kind of girl, which is all I’m looking for right now. I can’t give anything else, and I don’t want to. So why make things harder for both of us?
When I go inside, she’s gone, and I spend the rest of the night telling myself I’m not feeling like I lost someone special. Not at all.
Aubrey
My head won’t stop pounding.
I smother a groan, squinting my eyes open, and try to avoid staring at the light pouring in through my bedroom window. My head is a fog, my brain sluggish. At first I can’t quite remember what happened last night.
But the blissful naivety passes all too soon, and then I remember. My stomach sinks with mortification. Fuck.
I groan and tug the covers over my face. Maybe I can just lay here and die, and then I don’t have to face how fucking embarrassing last night was.
How I had the hottest damn kiss of my life…and then he basically pushed me away and told me he didn’t want me, in so many words.
I am the world’s biggest moron. And now I want to jump off a bridge. How did this happen? Smith is a jerk. A jerk and smarmy and rude and so ridiculously hot— Okay, I know how it happened. Because I was so turned on by him that when the moment presented itself, and he grabbed me to kiss me, I practically threw my desperate body on him. Wanting him beyond reason.
I was so turned on last night, I would have done anything he asked me to do.
And then he asked me to go.