Rue fell back on the bed and hugged her old friend. She kind of wished she could hug Ethan instead, but he was Ethan. Now officially the sweetest guy she knew, but he was hedging past off-limits and speeding full-tilt toward complicated.
And then he upped that by lying on the bed next to her. Granted, the dog was between them—this was so about Shaggy—but they were still horizontal. Where he slept. And of course it meant nothing to him because the only zone he had was a friend zone, but he’d just done what had to be the most accidentally romantic thing ever. And she was the one he wanted to share that with.
Shaggy chose that moment to wriggle free of her contented heap and shuffle closer to Ethan.
Rue snorted and stretched to scratch under the dog’s chin. “I see she has her favorite.”
“I did bring her home.”
As he spoke, Shaggy got up, gave them both plaintive looks, and jumped off the bed.
“Well then,” he said. “I stand corrected.”
“She loves you. She’d be crazy not to, and now you can honestly tell anyone who asks that you have another woman in your life.”
He rolled over to his side and faced her. “I think that’s my cue for a confession. I know you love her, and I kind of hoped you’d want to stop in and see her between trips to the edges of the earth.”
“Ethan Chase, you are not using that dog.” She poked him in the abs, finding them terrifically hard, and barely had time to swoon before he grabbed the offending finger. And then he closed his hand around her smaller one, dragging warmth from every corner of her soul.
Common sense fled, and she wanted harder than she’d ever wanted anything. Her belly flip-flopped as if she was twelve and her crush had just smiled at her. But hadn’t he?
“You’re wrong about two things,” he said. “One, I’m not using the dog. I’ll take the fringe benefits, should there be any, but she needed someone, and I’m beginning to realize I did, too.”
She mentally counted the inches between them. Maybe fifteen, and no dog in the way. And holy hell, were his eyes ever bright against the muted gray comforter. Everything about the man was intense, from the hardness of his body—no need to go there—to the platinum streaks in his hair. His hands were rough, but he held her so tenderly that she knew some of her unshed tears were as much for him as they were for knowing Shaggy had a home. She ached to know a man who cared so much had been so deeply devastated by life. That a love like his had been lost.
That she’d never, ever know anything like it.
But somehow just having him there, her hand in his, was enough. She could go have a dozen flings and never have this kind of intimacy.
She blinked back the resurging threat of tears. “What else am I wrong about?”
“I don’t have another woman in my life.”
“Well, she’s a dog, but still—”
“I have two.”
“Ethan…”
He reached over with their joined hands and knuckled away an escaped tear. “Just don’t lose my number. Good friends are hard to find.”
Dammit, she wasn’t supposed to cry. But he’d adopted the ugly dog, and if that wasn’t reason enough, nothing was.
“I just wanted to let you know,” he said in some deep, probably unintentionally sexy tone,” just in case you still felt guilty, that I’m glad you dragged me into this.”
She smiled. One that crawled straight out of her heart and beamed like one of those spotlights at a used car lot. “I’m glad I’m not torturing you, then.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t torture.”
She went to poke him again, only with their joined hands as her weapon it was more of a punch to the gut. He folded to dodge the playful blow, obliterating those fifteen inches to about two. Close enough to see that his eyes were flecked with neon.
Definitely close enough to notice the direction of his gaze drifted to her lips.
She was pretty sure she stopped breathing.
“Some forms of torture are better than others,” she said, trying so hard to make her voice sound normal that the words came out in some sort of strangled chicken tone that was anything but casual. She tried and failed to swallow the clog in her throat.