I WAS SO NERVOUS that I could taste my own heartbeat. Gavin Porter was not asleep, and I had been aware of this for a handful of seconds that were collecting like lifetimes. I don’t know how I knew it for sure, I just… knew. Maybe it was in the tension I could feel radiating through every part of him that was connected to me.
That was a lot of parts.
I wasn’t hungover, not even a little bit, even though I knew by all rights that I should have been. I’d done much too much drinking the night before, and I’d said much too much afterwards as a result. I was still kind of surprised that Gavin and I had even gotten into a fight at all.
I hated fighting, and he hated it even more than I did. Usually when we were mad at each other, we both just kind of bit our tongues and passive aggressively referenced it until we were over whatever the problem was. Not entirely healthy, I knew, but it worked for us.
And I probably should have felt guilty for trying to make Gavin feel guilty about spending time with his girlfriend. Probably. But I couldn’t because if I hadn’t gotten roaring drunk the night before then I wouldn’t have been waking up in Gavin’s bed, wrapped up in his arms. Plus, he’d even apologized for ditching me. And I’d definitely needed that apology from him.
But, see, here was the situation: A very awake Gavin Porter had me spooned in his arms, his hands on the bare skin of my stomach, slipped underneath the t-shirt he’d given me to wear to bed. There just wasn’t enough room between us for him to deny his very obvious reaction to being pressed this close to me.
I tried not to let it get to me—I really did—because I understood the basic biology of boys and the concept of morning wood, okay. And it wasn’t like Gavin and I hadn’t ever found ourselves in this kind of position before… We’d been friends for too long and too absolutely not to have been here once or twice in the past.
I wasn’t a girl with low self-esteem, who couldn’t believe that a boy could be turned on by her. I knew I was hot, and I even knew that Gavin Porter thought that I was hot. He’d never denied it. But see, this was the thing… Gavin was awake and he hadn’t moved his hands.
At least, not yet. And I wanted to enjoy every single second of it while it lasted.
It was usually at this point in the routine that Gavin would roll away from me, put some space between us, and pretend like this little bit of awkwardness hadn’t happened.
He had to be able to feel the way my heartbeat was slamming against my chest. My back had to be practically vibrating with it. He should have moved—should have changed the subject. What he did instead was curl his fingers against the bare skin of my stomach and bury his face in my neck, so that all of my skin erupted in goosebumps and all my thoughts scattered.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think past the idea of turning around, of sliding my leg between his legs, of pressing closer and closer until there was no closer. Oh my God, I wanted to kiss him so very badly. I wanted to turn around and melt into his arms and kiss him, just to know what he tasted like. Just to know what he felt like with his mouth against my mouth and his hands on my skin. Just to live in it, for just one moment. This perfect moment. I wanted to kiss him until the world slipped away. And I felt about ninety-nine percent sure that he would not only let me, but that he would actually kiss me back.
It was surreal in this freeing, kind of electrifying way. After weeks and weeks, and months, and years of waiting for Gavin Porter to finally open his eyes and see me…
I just couldn’t believe it was finally happening, and I didn’t trust it.
“Do you want a pain pill?” His voice was soft, sleep dragged, kind of lazy. It was the best morning sound in the entire universe, and I had always appreciated it. But this morning it seemed to sound better to me than it ever had. Probably because the words came out practically against my skin, all of his breath dancing down my neck as he spoke.
Sweet baby Jesus.
My stomach clenched, and I was almost scared to answer him. Like if he knew that I was awake too, then he would become the Gavin that I was used to again. The one completely oblivious to the fact that we had definite chemistry.
“Elle?” He moved his hands, trailing them against my skin until the one underneath me was free and the one on top of me was against my hip. The shorts I had on were a thin barrier and every single piece of me that he touched was aflame. I pushed out a slow breath, slowly peeling my eyes open.
This was not a dream.
I turned around until we were facing each other, and Gavin adjusted, his head still dropped lazily against his pillow. He lifted his hand to brush my hair from my face, his fingers trailed my jaw and my heartbeat shuddered. “Do you have a headache?”
I didn’t even mind his morning breath—I was that far gone.
I blinked, coming back down to reality, understanding slowly filtering through for me. His face was a little tenser than I was used to, but that could have been for any reason in the world. It could have been because he was still mad at me for getting drunk the night before, or because I’d yelled at him, or even because he’d yelled back at me.
It could also be because he wanted to kiss me just as badly as I wanted him to… It was hard to tell, and there was just no tactful way to ask!
The logical conclusion was that I was imagining it, of course. Because if you wanted something bad enough then it was easy to trick yourself into believing you could have it. And last night had been emotional for both of us.
The logical conclusion was that nothing had even changed at all. I knew that. And it just seemed all the more true when Gavin just kept laying there, looking at me, waiting for me to say something with an increasingly concerned expression on his face.
I sighed, careful to keep my own morning breath aimed away from him, and shook my head against his pillows. “No. I’m good.” And then I turned on my back to hide my disappointed expression from his searching eyes, because explaining myself was the absolute last thing I wanted to do right now. And Gavin always asked me what was wrong, every time that I frowned.
But—darn it!—I hadn’t imagined his hands. I hadn’t imagined the feel of his face as he nuzzled against my neck. And I knew perfectly well he’d been awake when he did it.
I sighed again. “I need to get up, anyway.” I rubbed a hand over my face, trying not to feed into the annoyance that I was starting to feel all over again. What had I even been thinking? As if this morning suddenly everything was completely different? That didn’t make any sense!
There was still a Tyler McClain, and I was still not her.
But Gavin groaned and reached, his arms encircling me once again. “Skip it.” He was whining, which was so typical of him at the mention of getting out of bed during the am hours that it really did feel like the status quo.
Maybe it was part of his idea of what a rockstar was supposed to do with their life? Sleep all day, party all night kind of thing.
I tried to shake out of his hold, but he wasn’t having it.
“You’re allowed to skip a class, Elle,” he complained, and his face found the curve of my neck again and settled there. “Shouldn’t you be hungover?” He said it like a complaint, and I didn’t manage to fight the giggle in response before it fell from my lips.
“I’m not.” I tried to wiggle away again, but he squeezed his hand on my hip and groaned.
“Please fucking stop that.”
All the tension in my body regrouped, goosebumps resurfacing, flames reigniting. I narrowed my eyes, the annoyance growing. “It’s too early in the morning for fuck, Gavin.” He sucked in a sharp breath of air, and I stilled. Because that time it hadn’t been intentional, but there it was, hanging between us. His very unconventional response to girls who said bad words.
“Ah, fuck.” This time I thought he’d let me go, and get out of bed. And then we’d pretend this had never happened. But he didn’t. He kept his hand above the t-shirt, but still on me as he mumbled, “I think you’re trying to kill me.”
And I felt like all the air was being sucked out of the room again. My stomach clenched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But my voice was much too breathless to be convincing.
Gavin saw through it. He sucked his tongue against his teeth and said, “You fucking liar.” But there was no heat to it, just teasing, and he still didn’t let me go.
He yawned. “Let’s just sleep in, baby.”
It was a stupid, enabling thing for him to do. But he probably didn’t know that. I did, though, so I should have gotten the heck out of there. I knew that. I probably should have told him that this crossed some sort of invisible line in the sand of our friendship, and I couldn’t do it.
But my heart was vibrating with the need to just lay there with him. And I couldn’t stop myself from giving in. He was warm and comfortable and this bed smelled like him. And he was holding me like he wanted me, which made imagining impossible to resist. Besides, I’d never been very good at denying him anything. That was the entire problem.