This time Cassandra didn’t pull away. Instead, she leaned into his touch like a cat begging to be stroked.
“Yes,” she whispered, looking up at him. “This is nice.”
“It can be more than nice,” Stone promised her, his voice dropping to a soft, lustful growl. “If you’ll truly let me pleasure you, Cassandra.”
“I will. But…but only to help the mission,” she said breathlessly.
“Of course,” Stone promised. “After this is over, we’ll go back to being just friends and partners.”
“All right.” She scooted closer to him. “Then let’s practice.”
Twenty-Nine
Cassie couldn’t believe what she’d suggested. Practicing touching? With her best friend and partner? Was she crazy?
The little voice inside her head informed her that she most certainly was crazy and that this was going to screw everything up. But the longing inside her to be touched—and specifically to be touched by Stone—was too great to ignore. His hands on her body felt so good—big and warm and gentle and knowing—and she trusted him not to hurt her or do anything she didn’t want.
Plus, Cassie admitted to herself, she was lonely—it had been over a year and a half since a man had touched her in any way at all. More like two years, actually, since her sex life with Keith had died well before their marriage had finally been dissolved.
Not that sex with her ex had ever been exactly great. Keith had a serious problem with premature ejaculation—he would come immediately when they had sex, sometimes even before he was all the way inside her. This wouldn’t have been a problem if he’d been good at foreplay, but her ex had sucked at that too. He never liked going down on her, complaining that his tongue and jaw got tired after about thirty seconds. He was also way too rough when he tried to finger her, resulting in Cassie wincing away from him, which only made him angry.
No, sex with Keith had not been fun. Not that she was going to have sex with Stone now, she reminded herself. Not even close. They were just going to get a little more comfortable with each other’s bodies, that was all. And it didn’t have to mean anything—in fact, Stone had promised it wouldn’t.
We’ll go back to being friends and partners when we get home, he’d said, or something to that effect. Up until then, Cassie had almost begun to wonder if her strong, stoic partner might have feelings for her. But after his promise that they would be friends, she realized that just because he wanted her, didn’t mean he wanted to be with her.
Those were the exact same words her friend, Gil, had said back in college, when she’d confronted him about bringing home the girl from his Sociology class.
“Look, Cassie,” he’d said reasonably. “I thought we understood each other. Just because I want you, doesn’t mean I want to be with you. We’re just friends and that’s all we’re ever going to be.”
The words had hurt her badly and pushed Cassie into a string of bad relationships ending with her failed marriage to Keith. But she resolved not to let the fact that her partner only wanted a friendship with her to hurt her now. After all, Stone only wanted what she wanted—not to ruin the best friendship either of them had ever had.
We can do this, she told herself. We can touch each other intimately and still go back to being friends and partners—as long as we don’t actually have sex.
The question was, how was Stone going to touch her?
Gently and slowly, if the way he was stroking her cheek was any indication. Cassie felt herself melting against her partner’s big hand. She was still looking up at him, looking into those piercing, pale blue eyes which had gone half-lidded with desire.
“So beautiful,” Stone murmured, looking down at her. “Do you know one of the things I love about you, Cassandra? The fact that you have no idea how fucking gorgeous you are.”
“Stone…” She could feel herself blushing.
“You said I could tell you how I felt when I touch you,” he reminded her.
“Yes, I know.” Cassie bit her lip. “It’s just…I never dreamed you thought those things about me.”
“I could never say them before,” he murmured. His big hand slid down her cheek and Stone cupped the back of her neck instead. Looking into her eyes, he tilted his mouth towards hers.
“Wait!” Cassie gasped, just as his lips barely brushed hers. She pulled away from him to see that Stone was frowning.
“What is wrong? I thought we were going to practice touching each other?”
“Touching but not kissing,” Cassie said.
“And what is wrong with kissing?” he wanted to know.
“It’s…too intimate,” Cassie told him. “It’ll make it too hard to go back to being just friends again if we go around kissing each other.”