Page 10 of Our Last First Kiss

“Audra…” he echoed.

Lilly’s head came up and she bit her bottom lip. “I can’t get her out of bed. She’s still wearing the wedding dress.”

Grimacing, Alec reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Her cheek felt hot as his fingertips drifted over it. “I’m sorry, sugar.”

Her beautiful eyes were fixed on him, the darkest blue, the deepest mystery. “How long should I wait until I wrestle her out of the thing?”

He would have laughed or at least made some comment about the lasciviousness of the image if he hadn’t seen the clear distress in her expression. He shook his head. “I don’t have an answer. I only know you’re a really good friend.”

“Audra’s a better one,” Lilly said.

“You were roommates in college, right?”

“Yes. We weren’t supposed to be. Audra had the single room on our floor. I had the horny roommate with the horny in-town boyfriend. The first week I spent my nights trying to sleep in the hallway while the sounds of their teenage fornication filtered through the gap at the bottom of the door.”

He remembered, with not a little guilt, leaving signals for his own roommate when a hookup was in progress. “Teenage fornication has its indisputable lure.”

Lilly gave him a knowing glance that communicated she supposed he’d engaged in more than his share of it. “Anyway, after Audra tripped over me a couple of times on her way back from the library, we got to talking and then she came up with a solution.”

“Horny Girl moved to the single and Audra moved into your double?”

“Yep.” She nodded. “We shared space for all four years. My family wasn’t too…available, and so I spent a lot of holidays with the Montgomerys too. I owe them a lot, including the job I currently hold in the financial management department of their company.”

“So Audra, not to mention the entire Montgomery family, would consider it fraternizing with the enemy if I ask you to have lunch with me? A drink?”

She hesitated.

He questioned himself too. Why the hell was he pursuing this, beyond the obvious, that unflagging impulse to give in to his appetites and take his fill of her sexually? It only promised some awkwardness and regret when it all came to its predictable end, and she was a good, loyal friend, just as he’d said. He’d probably come to like her very much and then the foregone finale would leave him feeling shittier than the case of blue balls she’d given him from the instant they’d met.

“What’s the point of lunch or a drink?” she asked. “It would go nowhere.”

To my room, he thought, to my bed. “Well—”

“Anyway, we have nothing in common. Not to mention I don’t have a lot of time outside of work and I really don’t do relationships.”

“To the contrary then, we have amazing commonality. Because it’s like you read my mind,” he said, and paused. “I don’t want a relationship either.”

She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at him. “I suppose you’d be satisfied with something you’d think of as ‘simple,’ like a one-night stand.”

Forget the one-night stand, what are you doing this afternoon? jumped to the tip of his tongue but Alec swallowed it back. “It’s probably the best I’ve got,” he confessed. “Well, possibly a few nights.”

For a moment he thought she was seriously considering the idea, and he held his breath, an unprecedented rush of sexual anticipation shooting straight to his cock. Then she shook her head, her shining locks of black hair catching the sunlight with the definitive refusal. “No, thanks.”

His blood cooled, fierce disappointment digging in. Christ, when had he experienced a rejection that clawed this deep?

“Don’t look so glum,” she said, faux-kindly. “There’s probably lots of women on these very premises who’d take you up on how little you have to offer.”

But not like you, he thought, and he should be scared spitless by the idea, but his logic seemed to have taken a hiatus. No one’s like you. His mouth opened to tell her so.

Then he heard “Alec!” and sensed a flurry of movement behind his back. He turned in the direction of the lobby just in time to catch an armful of blonde who launched herself straight at him. “Darling,” she said, looking down into his face. “I’ve been so looking forward to being with you again!”

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