Page 35 of Holding On To Good

With a murmur, she shifted onto her side. Urban grabbed the gray blanket at the foot of the bed and covered her, then went back out to his truck to get her things and his dinner. Back inside, he texted Verity to let her know he wouldn’t be home when she got there after work, then went back upstairs.

Willow had flopped over again, this time onto her back, the blanket tossed aside. Her bare legs were splayed, the dress now bunched up at her waist, giving him a glimpse of nude-colored silk panties with lace around the edges.

He jerked his gaze up, but that wasn’t much better. Her arms were tossed overhead, the top of her dress dragging dangerously low on her breasts.

Keeping his eyes averted, he reached over her for the blanket and covered her once again. As he tugged it up to her chin, her eyes opened.

“Urban?” she murmured.

“It’s me.” He couldn’t resist brushing her hair back from her forehead, telling himself it was a simple, friendly gesture. But the strands of her hair were baby fine and soft, like silk, which only reminded him of the silk she wore beneath the goddamn dress, and when he spoke again, his voice was gravelly. “Go back to sleep.”

He started to straighten when she grabbed his arm, stopping him.

“Do you ever wonder?” she asked, her voice a low hum of sound, the vibration of it lifting the hair on his arms.

Something in the way she looked at him, in how she sounded warned him he didn’t want to know what she meant. The same something that told him he was an idiot, a liar for pretending it was her hand on his arm keeping him there, bent over her, their faces close. That he couldn’t break free if he wanted.

He shouldn’t ask.

But he was an idiot and a liar and he did it anyway.

“Do I ever wonder about what?”

She slid her hand up to his shoulder. “About this.”

And she pulled him down and kissed him.

Urban froze, eyes wide open, hands braced on the bed on each side of Willow’s head while she smashed her mouth against his. He kept his arms rigid, his breath held. And his lips tightly closed.

Realizing that might not be the best plan of action for getting her to stop trying to slide her tongue into his mouth, he reached up for her wrist, pulled her arm off him and jerked upright.

She blinked her eyes open slowly, her gaze glassy. “You’re not a very good kisser.”

He was breathing like he’d just run a mile, was hard and aching and trying like hell not to take advantage of her in any way, shape or form, and she was critiquing his technique?

What. The. Fuck.

“Prolly just need more practice,” she slurred, curling up on her side, this time taking the blanket with her. She snuggled down into the mattress. “I’ll… learn you... better… later…”

Her jaw loosened. Her breathing evened out.

Sleeping again.

Do you ever wonder?

He dropped into the chair in the corner. Set his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. There’d been a time when he’d done nothing but wonder what it would be like to be with her. To touch her. To kiss her.

To make her his.

Hell, there were still times when he wondered.

But he always, always pushed those thoughts aside. Kept the want buried deep inside.

Because he and Willow were friends. Just friends.

It was too late for them to be anything more.

She was so dead.

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