Marriage of Unconvenience

“I’m not saying I don’t want to. You have no idea how much I want to, Lo. The fact that we’re not making out right now is killing me,” she said, and I gaped at her. She was so cool and put together that I guess I just assumed this was easier for her than it was for me. What I’d forgotten was the part about Cara being a fabulous actress who could put on a front better than anyone I’d ever known.

“I’m glad to know I’m not the only one. Because if I hadn’t agreed to this whole ‘take it slow’ thing, I would be tackling you right now.” Fire crackled and sizzled between us and the room suddenly heated up by about several hundred degrees.

“We shouldn’t be talking about this. Talking leads to doing,” Cara said, even though she wouldn’t stop staring me in a way that made it crystal clear what she wanted.

“Then stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” she said, crossing her arms and smirking.

“Like you want to undress me using only your teeth.” That made her chuckle.

“I think undressing you using my teeth would take far more effort than it was worth. Unless my teeth were razor sharp. Then it would be quite satisfying.” At last she blinked and looked down at her bag. “But really, we should try and simmer it down.”

“Good luck with that,” I mumbled under my breath as she dragged her laundry to the back door so she could take it down to the laundry room in the basement.

It was a little easier to keep my hands off her at my parent’s house, mostly because I didn’t want to get caught. My mother had eagle eyes, and could spot any sort of change, no matter how hard you tried to hide it.

Here? It was just the two of us, no boundaries, other than the ones we set. If we chose, we could have sex for an entire week and never get dressed and no one would know. Sure, our friends might be suspicious and we would probably get fired from our jobs, but we wouldn’t have my parents breaking down the door and giving us a lecture. Perish the thought.

I shuddered at the idea of my parents giving us a sex talk and followed Cara into the basement.

“I DON’T WANT TO WORK tomorrow,” Cara moaned as we cooked a quick dinner of ravioli with a spinach, strawberry, and feta salad.

“Me neither,” I said. We’d had so much happen this weekend and I still needed a few days to process all the shit that had gone down.

“I just want to stay here with you,” she said, popping up on her toes to kiss my cheek. I froze for a second. I wasn’t used to that kind of casual affection.

“Is that okay?” Cara asked as I tried to get myself together. It was a cheek kiss. No big deal. People in Europe did it all the fucking time.

“Absolutely. I’m still trying to get used to this new level of our relationship. Kissing wasn’t exactly part of our established friendship.” Cara rested her head on my shoulder.

“Except for that time when I kissed you at the wedding and then that time you kissed me while I was brushing my teeth. What was that, by the way? Were you just overcome by me sexily brushing my teeth? Do you have a toothpaste fetish?” I almost popped her on the head with my pasta spoon.

“No, I don’t have a toothpaste fetish, Care. I don’t know what came over me. I guess everything just built up until I couldn’t help myself. I had kind of hoped that you forgot about it.”

“No way, Lo. I don’t forget about anything you do.” I blushed and couldn’t hide the grin that spread across my face and made my cheeks ache.

“You can’t say things like that to me. It makes me all gooey inside.”

“That makes me want to say them even more because you’re so fucking cute when you blush, Loren.” I hid my face with oven mitts.

“Stop it.”

“Never,” Cara whispered in my ear before she ripped the mittens away from me. “I have years and years of compliments to make up for, so be prepared to get showered with them. No, not showered. Drowned. I’m going to drown you in compliments.”

“This is terrible,” I said, trying to grab the oven mitts back from her so I could hide my red face.

“No, you’re wonderful,” Cara said, throwing the oven mitts to the other end of the kitchen.