Dash wasn’t sure he knew how to comfort her. His family wasn’t exactly cookie-cutter, and he wouldn’t say any of them—except maybe Poppy—were his everything. He also didn’t know Nina well enough to reassure her that she would talk to Sophie again. But as Sophie choked back tears, Dash found that he could no longer just stand and watch. So he moved around the car and wrapped her in a hug. She let her head fall against his shoulder, and they fit as closely as if their bodies were the nesting pottery bowls he sometimes made. He closed his eyes, and his hand brushed a strand of hair behind her ear as they stood together.
There was nothing to say in a situation like this. The damage was done. But with a sickening new realization, it dawned on him that if he hadn’t encouraged Sophie to try this TikTok thing in the first place, maybe she wouldn’t even be in this mess. She definitely wouldn’t have gone out of her way to see Ned. Perhaps Dash had made her life a bit worse by being in it.
“I never should’ve told you to lean in to TikTok. The internet is truly a trash heap.” He pulled away from her. “If you don’t want to work on the speech anymore, I would totally understand.” He did understand, but for some reason his grip on her shoulders tightened.
“Do you not want me to work on it?” She dabbed a tear away from her cheek.
“No, no, I’m—” His words evaporated like water on the burning concrete driveway. He didn’t love Los Angeles in the summer. It was too hot and too dry, and now he was starting to sweat around his hairline. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand as he tried again. “I want you to work on it. I just also want to make sure you’re okay, especially after…”
“You mean because we made out?” A little spark of playfulness flickered across her face, and while he was relieved, he also wondered if she was intentionally poking at him.
“Because of that, yes.” He rubbed at the longhorn tattoo on his bicep—a piece he’d gotten inked after leaving rehab—the forward-facing horns represented looking to the future, which is how he wanted the rest of his life to be.
The present, though, was Sophie, and a warm breeze brushed through her hair, whipping long tendrils along the side of her face. She was gorgeous: her cheeks had a flush, her breasts swelled as she breathed in and out, and those eyes—her absolutely dazzling almond eyes surrounded by thick lashes that focused solely on him. He was lucky she even bothered to look his way.
“You are a really great kisser, so I will miss that.” She chuckled, but he almost heard a sadness there. “But we’re okay, Dash. I totally understand. I mean, I don’t totally understand where you’re coming from, but I would do the same thing if I were in your situation. We’re okay.”
Sophie smirked, and Dash spotted her canine tooth—the one that had nibbled his neck the night before. And while he knew he needed to move forward and away from Sophie, there was an undeniable sense of loss that had settled in his throat.
He’d kissed so many women throughout his life—on set and off—forgetting her should’ve been easy. But Sophie said he was a great kisser—no, a really great kisser. And why did the thought of never getting to brush his lips against hers again hurt so damn much?
A light breeze swept across the lawn, and the ends of her dress swayed to reveal a hint of her thighs and the freckles that trailed up her legs. What would it be like to just slide his hands from her heels, up her calves, then just up, up, up…
“Dash?” Sophie’s voice cut through his thoughts. He swallowed his desire and looked up, only to realize she’d been watching him, too.
The problem was that absolutely ridiculous red floral minidress she’d worn for their road trip. Ridiculous because it was short enough to highlight her curvy legs, and the sweetheart neckline was doing an excellent job of emphasizing her breasts. He could almost see the faint buds through the fabric…
“I’ll come over when the speech is done, and we can run through it, okay?” She clearly wanted to leave, and he was the one who had a problem now.
He had no one to blame but himself, seeing as how he’d firmly planted the just friends stake in the ground. So he nodded a reply. But as she turned to walk up the steps to her place, he found he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. The truth bubbled out of him like lava: hot, thick, and unstoppable.
“I don’t know that I can be friends with you,” he called out to her.
She turned back and her mouth hung open, maybe in surprise. “What?”
Exactly. What was he thinking? Well, he wasn’t thinking was the problem. He was just letting his feelings do the talking, which he never normally did but he found he couldn’t stop them from gushing out now that he’d opened the hose. “I don’t know how this is going to work. I mean, look at you.”
She looked down at her dress, then back up at him. “I looked,” she said. “What are you saying here, Dash?”
Ugh, and the way she said his damn name, like the mention of him tasted sweet on her tongue. Why had he thought, even for a minute, that he’d be able to turn off his attraction and just go on like nothing had happened between them?
He couldn’t. Maybe he’d been single and sexless for too long, or he wanted more of the adrenaline he’d felt from kissing her, but he couldn’t just be around her and not touch her.
“How can we be friends when I know what you taste like?” He was more than a little amazed by his own bluntness, but her mouth was sweet citrus, and he wanted a little bit of that for himself.
She swallowed, tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then looked up at him. A kind of steady flame had settled in her eyes, so when she spoke, heat came out with her words. “You don’t know what I taste like. Not really.”
His eyes instinctively darted down her ridiculously short dress. No, he didn’t know what she tasted like everywhere, but his dick really wanted him to find out.
“You’re right, maybe we can’t be friends. But maybe we can be friends who…” She licked her lips as her gaze traveled up his body, lingered slightly at his chest, then eventually met his eyes.
His breath caught. He wanted nothing more than to get on his knees, pull down her panties, and explore her with his tongue, but he couldn’t let himself get close to her that way…not unless she wanted him.
“We’re both adults and clearly attracted to each other.” She smoothed her hands down her dress. “We can just get this out of our systems so it’s not a big thing. We don’t need a full-blown relationship. No one has to know about it. No commitments, just sex.”
Dash’s jaw had maybe completely unhinged itself and he must’ve stared at her with a dumbfounded expression, because she started talking again.
“Or I’ve just totally humiliated myself, and I’ll ask you to forget the conversation entirely. I’ll walk back to my place, and we can return to not talking to each other.” She ran a hand through her hair, which was in a messy bun, and her fingers got caught at the hair tie and then she had to awkwardly extract them. She let out an exasperated sigh.
He couldn’t help but laugh. Did she seriously think he didn’t want the exact same thing?