Page 38 of Tempt My Heart

She flushed at Jesse's words, remembering exactly how skillful Christopher had been. "So? Is this normal and I've just been doing it wrong all this time?"

"Yes," Jesse said at the same moment Freya said, "No."

Ali rolled her eyes. "You guys are so helpful."

"Look, " Freya said, uncharacteristically sharp. "Clearly you like him. He obviously likes you. The sex is good. What’s the problem?"

Jesse looked at Freya out of the corner of her eye and Ali couldn't help but agree. What was up with her?

"Well, he's my boss for one."

"If that was really an issue you wouldn't have been riding him like a rodeo bull in the middle of a shopping mall," Freya said and then turned back to her magazine with a sniff while we gaped at her.

"Okay," Jesse said at last, "who pissed in your coffee?"

She sighed as she set the magazine down. "I'm sorry, okay? It's just hard watching you make up excuses not to be happy, Ali. Some people would kill to have someone look at them the way Christopher looks at you."

"Are your parents putting pressure on you again?" Ali asked softly and Freya bit her lip and nodded.

"I don't want to marry just for the sake of it. I want to find somebody I love. They don't seem to think love should play into it."

"Well, they're wrong," Jesse announced before cursing as the water for the pasta began to bubble over. "Tell them to fuck off."

Freya snorted. "I'll get right on that."

Jesse focused back on trying to salvage dinner and Ali leaned in closer to Freya. "You really think I should just go for it with Christopher?"

"I do," she nodded emphatically. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"I fall for him and he breaks my heart," Ali said, only half-joking. "Besides, maybe he's only in it for the sex."

"I know some guys love to give, but generally they want to come too. So if it was just for the sex..." Freya looked at her meaningfully and she sighed.

"I just..."

"Don't know how to trust anyone again after Jared?"

"Yeah," she admitted, looking away so she didn't have to see the pity on her face. "How does he look at me? Christopher, I mean." She'd always avoided the topic or rolled her eyes when her roommates had mentioned it before, but now she found that she actually wanted to know how it seemed to them from an outsider's perspective.

"Like he'd fuck up anyone who hurt you and still sleep like a baby after," Jesse said, clearly having heard her question and Freya half-shrugged, half-nodded.

"Not quite what I was going to say but not untrue," she allowed.

"Then what were you going to say?"

Freya paused as if considering her words carefully. "He looks at you like he's scared."

Ali reeled back. "Scared?"

"Not of you, but for you. The kind of fear you feel when someone you love is talking about doing something stupid, the worry that you'll lose them before you've really had them. He looks at you like you're holding his heart in your palm and seconds away from crushing it."

The silence was loud, only interrupted by the faint bubbling of the food on the stove.

"Damn," Jesse said and Ali was glad she had spoken first. "You know, you have a very poetic mind, Frey."

Her lips twitched. "Thank you."

It definitely gave Ali something to think about, especially when she remembered the conversation she'd overheard in Christopher's car with Denver. Maybe whatever this was between them, she just had to leap and hope he caught her before she hit the ground. She had been too sleepy on the way home for them to have any tension between them, but how would she feel when she saw him tomorrow?

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