Page 105 of Betting on the Best Friend
She backs away when I reach for it, not taking her eyes off it. “Create opportunities for her to see you as dateable.”
“Seriously, toss it.”
“Number three, stay safe but become less comfortable.” She reads the rest and looks up. “You’re not supposed to destroy evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“That I matter to you.” She holds it out to me. “Am I still worth this?”
I take it and crumple it, not looking at it. “If we were going to happen, I never would have needed these strategies.”
She snorts. “Are you joking? This ismewe’re talking about, the girl who married off my three best friends using strategy.”
I frown. “Actually, you only married one of them off and they’re already divorced.”
“Only so they can get married again for the right reasons. Sami and Ava are just a matter of time. And it never would have happened without strategy.”
This argument is slipping away from me. I know I’m right, but I am losing every angle of how to get that through to her. “You’re not supposed to argue when someone tells you they don’t want to be with you.”
“That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. It’s called fighting for what you want. It’s what that list is.” She walks around the counter, and I back further into the kitchen. But it’s small. Very small, and she has my back literally to the wall in four steps.
“Charlie.” She takes hold of my T-shirt and slowly bunches the fabric in her hand, pulling as she does. I refuse to leave the safety of the wall, so all it does is reel her in toward me.
“Charlie,” she repeats, her voice soft, her eyes softer as she looks up at me. She uses her grip for balance as she rises to her tiptoes, her mouth turning up to mine.
Nothing has to happen right now. I’m tall enough that she can’t close the gap without my participation. The train is still on the rails . . .
Until I dip my head and meet her lips, and it’s over.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Charlie
The kiss is gentle.Gentle like Ruby is coaxing me. Like she’s showing me she’s safe. It’s so different from the kiss at the library, and I wonder how many more ways we have of kissing each other. Two kisses, two different experiences.
Different until I feel the slight parting of the seam of her lips, the flick of her tongue as she searches for more, a provocation, not a request or invitation. Ruby thinks she’s driving, thinks she’s deciding how this will go.
But I’ve never been the Chill Charlie she thinks I am, not about her. I drop the trashed list to grip her waist, returning the deeper contact she’s looking for while I back her up, angling her until she bumps against the cupboards, giving me all the leverage now.
I lean my hands on the counter to either side of her, pressing the kiss harder, and when she murmurs approval, I decide I’m not keeping her busy enough if she can talk. I pull away, her protest dying before she can finish it when I lift her to the counter.
“Stop talking,” I growl, and she yanks on my shirt, pulling me down. I return the favor by sliding her forward, which Ruby, brilliant woman that she is, understands puts her in the perfect position to hook her legs behind my thighs. She would have leveled me with that move if I didn’t spend my free time hanging on to rock faces for dear life.
I have no idea how long this kiss has lasted, only that it keeps building. Not like a wave; that implies building to a crest where the intensity naturally ebbs. That is not this.
This is fire, taking all my oxygen, leaving me gasping. Ruby can’t get her breath either. It’s crazy, unlike anything . . .
It’s crazy.
Thisiscrazy.
I pull Ruby’s hands away at the same time I step back, my chest heaving.
She blinks at me like she can’t bring me into focus and reaches for me, but I tighten my hold to keep her wrists in place.
“Ruby, stop.”
Her hands still but her glazed eyes stay fixed on my mouth. I give a soft curse and let go of her to shove my hands through my hair. Anything to keep them from reaching for her again. I walk out of the kitchen to get some distance.
