Thrill Seeker (Sinful in Seattle)

“Huh?”

“I. Wouldn’t. Know. I haven’t been underneath anyone. Or on top. Or any other damn way.”

His breath tripped. Nope. Couldn’t be possible. She wasn’t saying what he thought she was saying.

She couldn’t be a virgin.

Matt searched his memory banks. She’d discussed sex with him lots of times and not in the abstract. He always got the deets if her boyfriends got her off—or if they didn’t. Usually he heard more details than he needed, and he reciprocated in kind.

For nine years, they’d been the kind of close friends where anything went. No detail off-limits.

Except him and Tristan being lovers. From day one, he’d hidden that from her, not knowing how she’d take it. Or knowing precisely and being unwilling to see the judgment in her eyes.

But she wasn’t judging him right now. What lurked in her gaze brought to mind something else entirely.

“What are you saying?” Maybe he’d read her wrong. Didn’t happen often, but it did now and then.

“I’m saying I’ve never had sex. Not all the way.” She reached for her mug and tossed back the rest of the tea, wiping her chin with the back of her hand when some escaped her lips. As if it were on a spring, his cock swelled and stretched for glory. “Maybe I should be like you. More open to all experiences. Find myself a nice whomever and go to town.”

In spite of the tightness in his groin, he grinned. “A nice whomever. Sorry to say, I’m not that indiscriminate.” At her eye roll, he added, “And nice doesn’t have a whole lot to do with what attracts me to someone.”

At least usually. In her case, it did. He’d been attracted to her for years, and the reasons weren’t all physical. She was so funny and sexy and sweet.

Cait was a nice girl. A good girl.

One he’d yearned to taint for so long he’d almost resorted to taping his dick down whenever she was within speaking distance. Another secret withheld between them.

She tipped her head to the side. “So what does? What made you one day look at Tris and say, ‘I want that ass’?” She made a face. “Or vice versa.”

He swallowed and fought the urge to take a step back from the perceptive gaze she trained on him. “Hypothetically,” he began, relieved when she smiled.

It was their little game, the way they revealed things to each other when the topic became too personal. Cait had started it the first time she’d told him about a guy going down on her, and she’d wanted his advice about how to encourage her boyfriend to give her what she wanted. Since then, anytime the conversation turned to intimate topics, they used the word as a signal things were about to get serious.

“Of course.”

“Hypothetically, it may have had to do with us both wanting someone else. At least at first. Now…”

Now everything had changed. If he hadn’t been in love with Tris a year ago—though he was reasonably sure he’d been on the way—he sure as hell was now.

That love was reciprocated, he knew. They didn’t talk about it because they didn’t have to. Like the other shared burden they’d avoided discussing since the first night they’d gotten together.

“Someone else.” She nodded briskly. “Someone I know?”

Matt had to smile. God, she could be so endearingly clueless. “Think you might have met her.”

Pain rolled over her face before she composed it. “So it’s a her?”

“Most definitely.” He reached up to cradle her jaw in his palm. Their gazes clashed and held, the air between them hot enough he expected to smell smoke. “Go take a look in the mirror, Cait.”

When her lips fell open, he pressed his advantage and moved in close. He’d waited for this moment, this opportunity, for so long. Maybe it hadn’t been presented to him the way he’d hoped, but he wouldn’t turn away.

If she really didn’t want him, if their occasional flirtations and lingering looks over the years just amounted to the natural offshoot of a guy and a girl spending too much time together, better he know now.

And if he still had any chance of getting her to see another man besides Tristan, he had to make this count.

Instead of going in for the kill, he laid his lips full on hers, absorbing the feel of her beneath him. Erotic images of her being beneath him in other ways filled his mind. Her legs opening for him, locking around his hips as he drove into her until she accepted every inch of him. Until she pleaded for more. Sliding into her so deep that he became part of her, as she became part of him.

He felt her tremble again, but she didn’t shake. The sound that escaped her mouth and slipped into his spoke of pleasure, not fear.