Unfriended(Love in New Highland Book 1)(17)

"Look, you're in my space. Could you please back up?'

He didn't move. It was like I hadn't spoken.

I shoved at him. He caught my right hand and held it.

Oh, shit, now he was gripping my wrist. And kneeling between my legs and  surrounding me … .Lying there feeling his closeness, my body secretly  burst into flames.

Forget my nipples, my pussy was involved now.

I hated when I responded to him like this. I am a very weak person.

"Stop intimidating me," I ordered, bringing in my lecturer voice. I  consider it one of my superpowers, to be used outside of the classroom  only in emergencies.

"You are not intimidated."

He sounded so sure. But how wrong he was. I was intimidated. I wasn't afraid of him. It was my own reactions I feared.

But I knew what he meant.

"I am, too," I lied, and scrambled to get my feet under me. That only  made the situation more crowded, trapping my knees against my own chest.

So then I used the ultimate weapon-my megawatt Big Sister look. "You're being super-pushy, Asher. I-would-like-to get up now."

"If you want to get up, why don't you just push me away?"

"What? I seriously just did."

"That was a baby pat, not a real push. You're fully capable of tackling me if you want to."

My mouth was hanging open. Why was he arguing with me? He was supposed  to just do what I said, as part of the UFC (Universal Friend Code) as it  pertained to friends of unequal strength.

"Well, I, uh, do want to get up." But my words were absent-minded. I  wasn't protesting anymore, I was thinking. Something new was going on  with Asher, and I needed to understand it.

"If you want my opinion, I'd say you definitely don't want to get up,  Char." His voice had taken on a suggestive tone I'd never heard from him  before, and I saw his nostrils flare.

I automatically sniffed. And then I smelled it.

Myself.

Oh. Lord.

No, no, no, no, no.

Mortified, I realized I could smell my own wetness. My legs were splayed  and he was right there, and, oh crap, he'd caught me basically  displaying in his arms with a sexual response.

Some guys wouldn't have a clue. Not Asher. Stud that he was, of course  he'd notice with it staring him in the face, or the nose if you will.

CRAAAAAP.

So humiliating. Sure, it's only the primal biological reaction of a  fertile female to a potent male. Totally natural. But WRONG in this  particular case.

I'm a closet cougar.

Not to mention how awful it feels-the pinching hurt, the emptiness, the  frustration-so familiar, so aggravating, so devilishly distracting.

Lust.

Normally I have a decent sex drive, nothing major. Around this man, though, my body goes haywire.

It's a real trial, the worst thing about my otherwise fantastic  friendship with Asher. I hate it even more than I hate my unreasonable  possessiveness.

He's cost me hundreds of dollars in adult toys.

I'd hoped he'd never know.

But now it had finally happened. Asher, the one man-no, the boy, he's a  boy relative to you-that I should never want, had noticed I was a perv  who got wet around him.

Mel's little brother. Still in college.

Cringification.

Should I apologize for being inappropriate?

I couldn't meet his gaze anymore. I turned my face away, trying to  distract myself. Was that a spot on the wall? Maybe a spider or just a  smudge from the time I accidentally kicked the wall in a dance move-

His fingers settled on my jaw, turned my head like he'd done before. And like before, I didn't know what to do.

Without closing my eyes, I couldn't avoid his gaze. And I couldn't close  my eyes, not with the way he was looking at me. What was he searching  my face like that for, anyway?

He shook his head slowly, like he was saying no to something.

Then his finger stroked along my cheek.                       
       
           



       

Well fuck. An arrow of electricity darted down my body, arching my spine.

And there went my nipples again.

"Whoa!" I gasped. "What are you doing? Dude!"

I saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. "Just wondering about your mouth."

"My mouth?" That husky note in his voice-I'd heard him use it with girls  he was into. He never used it with me. What in the name of Marilyn Vos  Savant was going on?

"Open your mouth for me, Charis Sloane."

Something shameful exploded in me. My brain said,  there-must-be-a-mistake-and-you-didn't-hear-him-right. Maybe he actually  said "All in the house with me." Mouth and house were really quite  similar sounding words …

"Mouth. Open." No mistaking that.

And his voice … he didn't sound young at all. That deep, rumbling voice stroked me all over.

"Mouth," I said stupidly, stalling for time.

"Yeah. Tilt your head back and open-your-mouth. I want to check something out real quick."

Okay, this was getting weird. Now I was curious. I lifted my chin and pretended I was at the dentist. "Like thish?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

I closed my mouth along with my eyes, and when I opened my eyes again, he was even closer, if possible. "What was that about?"

His nose almost touched mine. "I wanted to see the inside of your mouth," he whispered.

"Why?"

His thumb drifted from my chin to trace my lips.

Shock reverberated through me, paralyzing me. Whatever this  was-practical joke, payback of some kind-I couldn't seem to stop it. I  couldn't move at all. My heart was doing its damnedest to break out of  my ribcage.

"I wanted to know what it was about your mouth that makes me … "

He shifted closer. His hand was curling around the back of my head, pressing me forward.

Oh, fuck, no. He didn't just …

" … want to do this."

Now his finger was probing at my lips, tracing the moist inside, and my tongue came out and tasted him.

I couldn't help it. I had to. Besides, I knew, in a burst of relief,  that there was no harm. None! For it had suddenly occurred to me what  was actually happening. Blessed be! Hallelujah!

This was obviously an honest-to-God hallucination.

I was in bed right now, having a lucid dream.

Almost certainly.

Possibly someone had slipped me a pill in my water bottle. A student,  worried about a late paper-sometimes those undergrads really went too  far. Why hadn't they talked to me? I had generous office hours.

Right, so clearly I'd stumbled home and the whole Thai food thing hadn't really happened. None of this was happening …

"And this," said a deep voice.

Then the hallucination who seemed to be Asher put his mouth directly on mine.

Warm. Soft. Assertive.

Male lips moving expertly, sending tingles along the nerve endings of my mouth.

Tiny, teasing nips.

Wonderful, luxuriant sucks.

Holy crap.

This was starting to be real.

He lifted his head and sucked in his breath. "Char. Fuck. Kiss me back."

It was Asher. I wasn't imagining anything.

I shook my head, aware of breathing hard and feeling dizzy. "No. What  are you doing? You're acting crazy!" I shoved him away, hard enough to  budge him this time. And immediately he released me.

I scrambled to my feet, twisting the fabric of my sweater in my fists. I think I was kind of insane right then.

He seemed to be thinking along the same lines. He ran a hand through his hair. "What's wrong with you?"

I pointed. "You. That. What was that that just happened?"

His chest rose with his breaths, like he was breathing as hard as I was.

"Technically, it's the friction encountered when epidermis meets  epidermis, with a bit of mucosal tissue thrown in. If you want the  layspeak, Sloane, I was kissing you with tongue."

I scrounged up all my reserves to glare at him. "Not cool."

"What's not cool?"

I knew that innocent look and didn't trust it a bit.

"That. Whole kissing me. Thing." I backed up as if he were coming after  me, when all he was doing was staring at my chest, the lord knows why.  Had I spilled espresso on it?

"This is some kind of backlash, isn't it?" I blabbered. "You're not over  Aura yet. What do they call it in the lexicon of relationships-the  rebound. You're on the rebound. Or maybe it's the next stage of grief. I  think there are five or seven stages total. Obviously you're in one of  them and it's making you act loony. Unless-high! You're high! You  decided this one time you'd … no? Or, or, wait, I got it, it's that you're  dealing with understandably hostile feelings because I went and got  engaged to your brother."

The words were pretty much spilling out with no way to stop them.                       
       
           



       

"Hostile? You think what just happened was hostility?" He started to laugh.

"It's not funny, Asher."

He sobered. "No, it's not at all funny that you've managed to get  yourself engaged to a fucking commitment-phobe. At least now you'll be  calling it off."