The worst part? She hadn’t even touched Dax. She’d wanted to—had planned to all evening with great anticipation. His hands had been all over her, but she’d been too busy with the whole soul-vanquishing thing to think straight.
Yes, she’d had Dax Harris in her sights, and she’d completely blown it.
…
“Will you quit it?” Dax said to Amy, wishing he could just turn on the TV and find something to watch to take his mind off the worst case of blue balls in the history of the universe. She was trying to apologize again, but he wasn’t having it. “Look, there’s no need to be sorry,” he said.
He was sorry, though. Not that they’d called a halt to the proceedings. Well, okay, he was sorry about that. But he wasn’t into pushing people into doing things that were clearly not good for them, even if they didn’t realize it. That was exactly why he’d checked himself that first night on the ferry. That made two times now that they’d gone from sixty to zero in a heartbeat. He was beginning to see something about Amy, and that was what made him sorry. All these years of bickering with her, he’d thought she was such a ballbuster. She’d brazened her way through any number of arguments and confrontations with him, and he hadn’t been very nice to her. He’d had no idea she was actually kind of fragile. It wasn’t that she lacked confidence, at least not professionally. It was just that she had always seemed so sure of herself personally, too, like she, with her stable, long-term relationship and her old-money family, was so much more grown up than the rest of them. And then of course there was the part where she was so wound up she couldn’t let herself orgasm even when she was on the very brink. In the midst of an encounter that she had initiated, at that.
Was it possible that he’d been wrong about Amy Morrison all these years?
“It’s just that I know you could be somewhere else right now, probably having a lot more—”
“If I hear one more word of apology or regret out of your mouth, I swear to God…” He trailed off, unsure how to finish the threat. The image that sprang to mind was covering her mouth with his own until she couldn’t talk anymore, but, yeah…that wasn’t happening. He grabbed the remote then and clicked on the TV. Screw it. He didn’t quite feel like he could abandon her yet, so why the hell not some insipid reality show to take the edge off?
“Real Housewives of Atlanta reruns? Really?” She was giving him the side-eye.
“Really.” He wasn’t watching the show, though. He was trying to figure out how long he had to stay. He was pretty good with post-sex etiquette, but post-not-sex-leave-the-lady-sobbing etiquette, not so much. Clearly, the best thing in this whole situation was just to back way the fuck away from Amy. She obviously needed to sort out her shit without him pawing at her—or bickering with her. It was time for a whole new era in Amy-Dax relations: polite but distant. Colleagues. Not unfriendly colleagues—no need to freeze her out after all they’d been through—but no more baseball games. No more making out on Jumbotrons. None of it. He sighed, relieved at having settled on a course of action.
Which was why, after the show, as he pulled on the rest of his clothes, his only explanation for what came out of his mouth was that aliens must have taken control of his body. “You should come to the island on Saturday. We’ll go paddleboarding or canoeing—whatever you want.”
What? The Fuck?
Then hell if her face didn’t light up like a little kid on Christmas. “I’d love that.” Then she smiled sheepishly and her cheeks turned pink as she said, “And maybe I can, um, make this up to you.” She waved her hand back and forth between them in a way that was hard not to find endearing.
“Nope,” he said. It was the aliens talking again. It must be, because the woman who’d turned his dick harder than it had ever been before—it was still protesting its abrupt dismissal—was basically propositioning him, and he was declining. “You, Ms. Morrison, do not need a lover. You need a friend.”
As soon as he said it, he realized how true it was. She was tight with Cassie, but Cassie was new to the scene. And her maid of honor had been Mason’s sister. If she was anything like him, she was probably too busy working to have much fun.
She blinked a few times. It was like she was trying to decide if she should be offended. But then a slow smile began to blossom. “You know what? I do need friends. Most of mine are couple friends I had with Mason.” She hopped off the bed, and for a moment he just stared at her. She was such a strange mix of qualities that should be contradictory. Was this the same woman who’d freaked out not thirty minutes ago? She stooped to pick up her clothing. “But don’t we hate each other?”