His lips curve into the sexiest smirk. “It’s a hard ask, but I can try.”
“You survived a long time without even attempting, so I think you can make it without another slipup.” My cheeks warm at the memory of last week.
“That was before.” His voice deepens.
“Before what?”
“I knew what you felt like beneath me.” He runs his knuckles across the side of my face. The air between us crackles, the goose bumps on my skin rising to the occasion.
It was stupid to ever think we could even attempt to be friends. There is no possible way of that ever happening—not when a simple brush of his hand makes my body react like that.
I hate it. I love it. I shouldn’t let it ever happen again.
I clear my head with a quick shake. “You know what? Never mind. I can’t be your friend.”
He pulls back, stealing his warmth and the tingling feeling running down the length of my spine away from me. “Why not?”
“You can’t even last five minutes without flirting with me.”
“Well, you’re setting me up for failure if you expect me to last five minutes around you.”
I give him a once-over. “Disappointed but not surprised.”
His face turns red in five seconds flat. “That’s not what I meant.”
“No need to be embarrassed. You’re older now, so I get it. I’m sure with the right pills that problem can get sorted out real quick.”
He takes a step closer. “I’m not embarrassed. I’m enraged.”
I fake a sigh. “Male fragility at its finest.”
“Lana.”
One word. Four letters. A thousand sparks blasting off my skin as he clasps on to the back of my neck and drags me against his chest. Our lips hover inches apart, the heat of his minty breath hitting my face.
No vodka.
My fingers curl against his chest.
His fingers press into the side of my throat. “I need to defend my honor.”
“I’m amazed there is still something left to protect.”
His eyes sparkle like a thousand stars exploding at once.
I’m antagonizing him. I know that, yet I can’t find it in me to stop, no matter how loud the voice in the back of my head shouts that nothing good can come from this.
Cal shocks me as he wraps his hand around my hair and tugs on it like a rope until my head tilts to the side and my breasts press against his chest. He drags the tip of his nose up the side of my throat. It’s erotic, the way a single touch makes my entire body feel like it might be consumed by flames. I shift, wanting to escape the feeling, only to rub against the one part of him I offended.
Fuck.
Every hard inch of him presses into my belly. I suck in a breath, and he chuckles.
“Right. About that.” His voice, now rougher than before, causes me to tremble. Tremble with what, I’m not too sure. Arousal. Excitement. Desperation. The options are endless, each one more dangerous than the last.
“You’re hard.”
“Astute as always.”
I blink twice. “Why are you hard?”
“Because you exist.” His eyes burn a hole directly into my heart, torching his way through the ice surrounding it.
I shake my head, trying to erase the image of his eyes imprinting on my soul. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
His fingers clutching my hair tighten. “I know.” He kisses the sensitive spot below my ear with a sigh. A shaky breath escapes me before I have a chance to swallow it.
“It’s wrong.” My heart pounds harder in my chest, declaring the complete opposite.
His eyes shut, but not before I catch the pain flashing within them. “Is that how you really feel about us?”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything.” I respond automatically, the impact of my answer written clearly across his face.
It makes me physically ill to hurt him, but I don’t have any other choice. To risk getting close to him in any way is to risk my heart all over again for someone who doesn’t even plan on sticking around.
I don’t have it in me to survive another heartbreak. I’m afraid the next one will be the one that finally makes me shatter beyond repair.
His hand releases my hair before dropping by his side like dead weight. “I apologize for crossing a boundary then. I…” He trips over his words. “I got caught up in the moment for a second.”
My chest throbs. The churning in my stomach intensifies, acid crawling up my throat, ready to purge itself from my trembling body.
Before I can stop myself, I offer an olive branch. A stupid olive branch I know I’ll regret but can’t take back.
“If you want to be friends—real friends—you can’t manhandle me like that anymore.”
His face remains unreadable. “I thought you didn’t want to be my friend.”
“Ehh, I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because the only other friend you have in town is my five-year-old daughter, and frankly, that’s kind of sad.”
The look on his face widens the pit in my stomach. “I don’t need a pity friend.”
“Too bad. It’s a bribe-one-get-one Castillo special.”
A real smile forms on his face, casting away the shadows in his eyes. “Does that mean you’ll help build the boat with us?” His excitement is addictive, and I find myself saying yes. I expect the regret to be imminent, but instead, I only notice a tingly feeling in my chest at the idea of building something special with Cami and Cal.
Maybe an activity like that will be good for us. Maybe we can get closure and move on from all the crap that has been brewing at the surface for the last six years.
He holds my gaze for a moment longer before taking another step back. “I should get going. We have an early morning with the contractor tomorrow.”
I blink twice before regaining sensation in my limbs. “Right.”
He passes me the bag with the vase before walking back to his car. I’m so distracted by watching him leave that I don’t notice the second bag on the porch until he is driving toward the main road.
I walk inside the house and place the first bag on top of the empty table below the stairs before going back out to grab the other.
“What the hell is this?” I grunt from the weight. My arms tremble as I deposit it on the floor beside the table.
First, I unwrap the vase. It’s simple, elegant, and exactly something my mom would have chosen for herself. The second bag surprises me. I kneel on the floor and pull out a wrapped cube. A white envelope is taped to the top of the wrapping paper, and I cut through it with my fingernail before pulling out a card.
Maybe you were right about wanting to make someone else’s dreams come true.
-C
With shaky fingers, I peel apart the wrapping paper to reveal a professional mixer. I recognize the brand as one that belonged in my never going to happen but might as well torture myself with looking at it list.
My eyes fill with tears. It’s not about the mixer itself, but the meaning behind it that turns me inside out.
I reread the card again, and the butterflies in my stomach rage and riot even harder the second time. The feeling has nothing to do with the urge to bake until two a.m. tonight and everything to do with the man who gave me the rush in the first place.