Page 114 of This Could Be Us

The laughter slowly fades, and she runs her thumb across my brows, down my jaw, and over my lips. “We’ll see. That was a test drive.”

“Then let’s take another ride.” I rise up on my knees and grab her by the thighs, crawling between her legs, only to start tickling her ribs.

“Judah!” she gasps, rolling away from my fingers. “Stop! I can’t take it.”

“I see that.”

I laugh, sitting with my back against the headboard and pulling her up to straddle me and then closer for a kiss. The kiss starts playful but heats and boils over until she’s rolling her hips over my hardening erection. We’re lost in each other again, but some distant sound breaks the flow of the kiss.

“Oh, shoot!” Soledad rolls away, leaving my arms and bed empty. She grabs my sweatshirt, scrambling to push her arms and head through it. “That’s my phone. We’re supposed to be doing a vision board party tonight.”

She rushes out, and her footsteps thud down the stairs. I pull on my jeans, not bothering with a shirt, and follow.

“Yeah, honey. I know,” Soledad says, the phone at her ear, her hippropped against the kitchen counter. “But could you just calm down? Tell Inez I said to give your sweater back. I’ll work on the stain when I get home, and you should be fine for pictures this week.”

She shoots me an exasperated look and rolls her eyes, one bare foot crossed over the other.

“Lupe, if I got blood out of our white sofa, ice cream on your sweater is child’s play.”

I come to stand beside her at the counter, taking her free hand and twining our fingers. I turn her hand over, frowning at an angry scar streaking across her palm like a bolt of lightning.

“You want Indian?” she asks. “Call it in to Saffron’s. Yeah, the one on the square. Order me butter chicken. I’ll pick it up on my way in. Gimme… I don’t know. Thirty minutes? Okay. No more fighting. I’ll be home soon. Yes, vision board party is still happening, but tell Inez Backstreet Boys is back on the table after this foolishness. Love you too.”

She disconnects and glances at our entwined fingers, a tentative smile on her bare lips. The lipstick is long gone. Her hair is in complete disarray. She’s outwardly discomposed, and that’s how I feel—like a storm blew through and disheveled my mind, my will, my emotions. Sex with this woman overturned my soul, spilling all the contents, and she stands here calmly talking about ice cream stains and takeout.

“I have to go.” She carefully extricates her fingers from mine. I recapture her hand and turn the palm over.

“What happened here?” I ask, tracing the long scar.

Her face clouds. She pulls her hand away and runs it through the hair curling around her shoulders. “Long story.”

“And you only have thirty minutes.” I walk over to the refrigerator to grab a beer.

“You know I have to get home to my girls.” She frowns and heads for the stairs. “You understand, right?”

I take a deep breath and a gulp of my beer before following her upstairs. By the time I reach the bedroom, she’s already wearing her underwear and bra and is on her knees looking under my bed.

“The other boot’s behind you,” I say, my arms folded over my chest, the neck of the beer bottle trapped between two fingers.

“What?” She looks over her shoulder, ass in the air, reminiscent of one of several positions I had her in.

I hadher? This woman hadme. Owned me between her legs. She must know that.

“If you’re looking for the other shoe, it’s behind you,” I reply, clenching my teeth tighter with every piece of clothing she puts on, with every minute that goes by, taking her closer to walking out of here like this was some kind of one-night stand—like I’m her fuck buddy, not the man who has been falling in love with her incrementally since the moment we met.

And now I’m too far gone. The intimacy we shared pushed me over the edge into something I’ve never felt before. I knew what this was, though. Soledad told me it was one night. She told me she needs to be alone right now. She didn’t lead me on, but frustration seethes under my skin as I watch her struggle with the zipper of her dress.

“Here, let me.” I step behind her to drag the zipper up the last few inches. Her hair falls in thick waves to the middle of her back, and I bury my face in the fragrant cloud of it, breathing in the scent of jasmine oil and the traces of us that still cling to her skin.

“I gotta go.” She turns to face me. “You know how it is.”

“Yeah, I know how it is.” Even I hear the tension in my words, but I keep my gaze on the floor when I feel her eyes on me.

“Are you mad at me?” she asks, her brows bunched into a frown. “I would stay if I could.”

“Is that true?” I meet her gaze before it skitters away again. “Because it feels like even if they weren’t fighting, even if there wasn’t a stain or pictures, or takeout, you would find some reason to run from this.”

“No.” She bends to retrieve her other boot, sits on the side of my bed, and slips it onto her bare foot, but leaves it unzipped at the ankle. “I’m not running. I’m just sticking to what we said. One time and…”

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