Page 84 of Hero Hair
She lays her hands on top of mine, and a shiver hits my body. “I can’t be your friend, Macs,” she murmurs.
I hang my head. The disappointment was expected, but the tiny fragment of hope that resides in my heart just turned to dust. “I understand,” I whisper.
She tilts my chin up with one finger. “Because I’m madly in love with you, of course.” Teala rolls her eyes.
I huff, exhaling a pent-up breath. “So, you are.”
She nods. “I can be more than your friend, but not your friend in the normal definition of the word. If that’s what you want?” Teala smiles through eyes brimming with tears. “You’re sort of a whore, so I understand if you don’t want that.”
“You’re awful. You know that? Playing me for a fool,” I say. “I’m not a whore, either. I haven’t had sex with a woman while we were apart. Apps were down.” I give her a crooked smile.
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter anyways.”
I widen my eyes. “Uh, yeah, it does. Why wouldn’t it matter? Were you with someone else? Multiple someones?” My breath catches in my throat. I will accept any answer she gives. I repeat that sentiment twice. I have to remember what my job has entailed lately, and try to formulate a way to explain what I’ve been doing. That matters as much as this does.
“No. Not for lack of wanting, either. Dr. Rhodes kept me on the straight and narrow. It doesn’t matter because the only way we can do this is if we start over completely.”
I could kiss that man right on the mouth. I kiss Teala instead. I pull her into my lap and she comes willingly, like she always has, her arms sliding around my neck as she straddles my lap.
“It wouldn’t feel like this,” she says against my lips. “And this is the only thing I’ve wanted more than my old ways. You.”
With one arm around her waist pulling her close and the other on the side of her face, I live in this moment. One I never thought I’d feel again. Her scent. Her familiar, yet foreign body against my bare chest, her lips are new and familiar at the same time. My head swims when I part her lips with my tongue and taste her. I could live like this—wrapped up inside her warmth. “I think the problem was the words. The emails. The black hole where sentiment is lost and emotions are fuzzed out and gray.
“Ask me again, what do I love,” I say, tracing her wet lips with my own. “Ask me.”
She sighs, and a dreamy smile lets me know she remembers our very first date—tells me I’m in safe territory after all this time of uncertainty. She’s receptive, and I can unload my weapons and sigh with relief.
“Give me the list, then,” Teala says, clearing her throat.
I lean away from her and fish my cell phone out of my pocket. “I won’t be your friend,” I say, scrolling through my images. “I won’t start back on date one either. I don’t care what your friends think.” That garners a scandalous grin for what it implies.
“Good. I’d hate to take you to Vegas as my friend,” she replies, surprising me. “The list?”
“It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s a hefty list, remember? I’ve been working on it for a long time.” I tap on my phone, my fat fingers fumbling when I’d give anything to make them speedy in this moment. I find what I’m looking for and send it. She tells me the Vegas trip is a go, and I can’t help but reminisce. It feels so long ago my only goal was to bag and bash and Teala was nothing more than a conquest.
Teala’s watch pings. Smiling, she brings it up to look. “A list of everything I love,” she reads my message aloud, and then brings a hand to cover her mouth. “The photo,” she chokes out. It’s the photo of her in my bathroom. She’s tousled, red faced, and more stunning than any woman I’ve ever seen.
“That’s it. That’s the whole list,” I admit.
“A big change from the last list, huh? No hair products, shoes or even your dick!”
Shaking my head, I bite my bottom lip and slide her down until her back is against this skinny bench. Her hands clutch my biceps to steady herself.
“My dick has missed you, though. You could probably say it loves you, too.” I see a white flash of teeth and then my lips are on hers. She’s biting my lip and wrapping herself around me while kissing me like it’s going out of style. Groaning, I melt into her touch, her lips, the warmth of her hot body against my skin, the small noises she makes that drive me wild. “On your mark?” I say against her lips.
“Get set,” she confirms.
We both say “Go,” at the same time.
