“You had no respect,” he said.
“If I remember right, you sexed respect into me. First time I’d ever had make-up sex.”
It wasn’t easy keeping a grin off his face. “That only made you want to pick more fights with me.”
“You never fell for that.”
He’d fall for it now. Over and over and over.
She put the guitar back on its stand, and when she turned to face him her expression had lost its glow. “I can’t believe you kept it.”
“Closet thing I had to keeping you.”
She frowned at him. Her distress harder to take than her angry tears, because it wasn’t a spontaneous expression of revelation and rage, it was what came after that shock. He knew it, because he felt it too. Worn and on edge and confused.
“What are we doing, Jay?”
Apocalyptic danger alert. “Hanging out.” That sounded disingenuous, so he added, “We can do friends and lovers, or just lovers,” and then he kept burbling, like he’d done about Grip’s fricking pants, “but eventually I will get hungry and we will need to eat and—”
“You’ll go on the rest of the tour and we’ll go on with our separate lives.”
Not a question. She said it like it was an instruction. Take two eggs and obliterate what they once were. It was a declaration of what she wanted. They’d be separate but not severed apart. It was a decent outcome. He should be happy with that.
Fuuuck, decent.
“I might actually watch your next Grammys performance.”
She was faking feeling better. He could help with that. Fake it before you make it might well have been his brand. “You didn’t watch the others?” He smacked a hand over his chest. “I think a part of me just shriveled and died.”
“Hope not my favorite part.”
There was half a room and a bunch of designer furniture between them. It was better than oceans, but they were still in deep water. “Which is your favorite part?”
Accompanied by a disgusted grunt she said, “Why would you ask that?”
“I’m a sucker for your sarcasm.” Hurt me good, Evie.
She advanced on him, taking the long way around a dining table. “You know my favorite part of you.”
He stayed where he was, a fixed object for her orbit.
“There are a few candidates,” she said.
Why was it only now that he understood he needed to do that for her? Stop moving, let her find her way to back to him. Wait for as long as that took.
Still half a room away, she looked straight at his cock, nothing fake about the intention. It made him quit thinking about what might’ve been and focus on what might happen right here and now.
“You have many, many fine parts,” she said, trailing her hand over the back of a sofa as she came towards him.
Commence electric sting at strategic nerve endings. He watched her like she was an eclipse, half afraid to see what she did next, fearful of being blinded by her. He nearly gave off sparks when she stepped in front of him, put her hand to his hip and slipped it around to his arse, slapping it.
“I seriously like what you’ve got tucked away in your pants. It’s all round and pert.” She brought her body to his, pressed herself against his highly engaged dick. “Then there’s this. It’s all soft and sweet until I need it and then it’s all veiny and the exactly the right amount of smooth and stiff.”
It was now. Not that she’d needed it to do everything it could so far. Could he make her spark too? His bare toes met hers as he eased her closer. His hands were busy, traveling over her body, tracing butterflies where he knew they flew on her skin, shaping love hearts he wished were indelible.
“Then there’s this.” She slapped a hand over his heart. “It’s a good one. Hardy. Shows potential.”
She still had a hand on his arse, holding their bodies in alignment. “You seem to be having trouble choosing,” he said.