“I’m offering. You want a safe place to experience it with someone who won’t laugh at you or judge you?” She pointed at herself. “You’re looking at her.”
He could barely fit the words into his head. Sex with any woman was alien territory for him, but Dara?
She grinned. “And it’s not like there’s much risk involved.” She gestured at her stomach. “You already got me pregnant.”
He stared at her incredulously. Then they both burst out laughing.
“This is insane,” he whispered. “I… I don’t even… I’d still be using you.”
“It isn’t like I wouldn’t be getting anything out of it. I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. Because, look, I’m not even a little interested in dating right now. I’ve had two marriages go to shit, I’ve got a kid to think about, and I don’t want to think about starting a relationship with someone else.” With a wicked grin, she added, “And I can already tell I’m going to be one of those pregnant women who’s constantly horny.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. Trust me. So if you want to call it using me to learn to have sex, I’ll call it using you so I don’t clean out all the sex-toy shops in Goldmount.”
Matt chuckled nervously. “That dusty shop in Aspen Mill isn’t good enough for you?”
“Already raided it.”
He laughed. “Wow.”
She laughed too, but turned serious. “I mean it, Matt. The thing is, the dating scene is brutal. It’s fucking cruel. Just figuring out if someone is interested in you is a pain in the ass, and hooking up with someone…” She paused. “To be blunt, it’s not like when we were teenagers, and everybody involved was clueless. Most people now have, you know, experience.”
He winced. “Aside from the late bloomers like me, right?”
“That’s where I come in, sweetie.” Her voice was soft. “You trust me, right?”
“Absolutely. But we’ve… I mean, we were always friends. We never…” He swallowed. “Shit, you saw me tonight. I can’t tell if a woman is flirting with me. I don’t even know what chemistry feels like, let alone if we have it.”
“Well, there’s one way to find out.” Gravel crunched between her feet, and his heart went crazy as she came closer.
He fought the urge to draw back against his truck. “What do you have in mind?”
“I think you know exactly what I have in mind.” Dara paused. “You’ve been kissed before, haven’t you? I could swear I saw you kissing Shana Williams back in college.”
His face burned, and he nodded. “A few times, yeah. That’s as far as it’s ever gone.”
She came even closer, and his heart sped up, especially as she murmured, “Do you want to do this?”
Now that you mention it…
“I’m not sure.”
Dara put her arms around his neck, and a shiver went through him. “Just so you know,” she said, “none of this is a point of no return.”
Matt nodded.
She didn’t move any closer yet. They stood there, eyes locked and bodies closer than they’d been in years. Oh God, they had done this before, hadn’t they? The way they held each other in the spotlight beside the barn was exactly how they’d slow-danced at prom, and he caught himself wondering why he’d never thought to kiss her back then.
Because back then wasn’t this. Instead of disco lights, she gazed up at him in the still, pale glow from above, and instead of sappy music, the only sounds were horses sleeping and munching in the barn behind them.
Dara swallowed. Her eyes flicked toward his lips. Back up again. His heart pounded and his hands shook like they did when he was on the verge of a panic attack, but he didn’t have that out-of-control feeling. Oh, this was out of control, all right, but in the “shooting down a mountain on a snowboard” kind of way.
He reached for her face, but the warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips made him draw back. She jumped too, pulling in a sharp breath, and now they were looking at each other again, his hand hovering beside her cheek and her eyes gleaming in the white light. This wasn’t just flying down a mountain anymore—this was that split second to decide between turning down the safer trail and heading straight for the dangerous near-vertical with the sheer drop-off along the edge.
And Matt had never taken the safer trail.
He slid his hand into her hair, drew her the rest of the way in and kissed her.
Everything stopped. His heart. His breath. Even the horses and the crickets in the background seemed to have fallen silent.