Her face softened momentarily and she nodded. Then she shot him a suspicious look. “In other words, you want to see how much of my food I’ll eat and if there’ll be any left over for you.”
“You don’t think I’m here to enjoy your company?” He feigned hurt and injury.
“I think you enjoy the company of my bruschetta more. I don’t understand why you don’t just order two meals for yourself. You always end up eating half of mine anyway.”
He smiled at her good-natured griping. “Ah, Morgan,” he said. “It’s nice to spend some quality time with you.”
“It would be nicer if you told me your secrets,” she replied before biting into her lunch.
He smiled again and a comfortable warmth settled over him. “I promise I’ll tell you my secrets—”
When making love with me will be your first priority. When the only thing you can think about is me. When your sweet body is sated by my mouth and my hands and my cock. When resistance to me is a foreign concept.
He looked her dead in the eye. “When the time’s right.”
Amy took another sip of her coffee and stared thoughtfully at her friend. Damn, he was hot. Handsome, charming and sexier than a pin-up model. She’d watched women drool over his honey-blond curls and sky-blue eyes. His devilish grin and impish dimples only added to his rakish appeal. Sometimes when she saw him, her breath would catch or her stomach would flip-flop for no reason.
It hadn’t happened in a long time. Yet for a fleeting moment she had an unexpected urge to kick her chair aside, stride over to the other end of the table and perch her butt on his muscular lap. Press herself against him and feel his erection grow and lengthen with every sweep of her hips.
She was sure she could get him to reveal his secrets then. She felt a sweet pull between her legs and licked her suddenly dry lips as she contemplated the thought. Hmm…even if he didn’t reveal his secrets, she might just head on over to his lap anyway.
No.
Seducing one’s friend was a very bad idea—there was no quicker way to destroy a friendship. All the dynamics of their relationship would change irrevocably if she slept with Daniel. Things would be awkward. There was no way they could go back to being just friends after that.
Instead she crossed her knees, rested her cheek on her hand and worked hard at suppressing the damn flush she felt staining her face.
Her philosophy was simple. It was one she learned the hard way. Friends were always around. Lovers left. Case in point number one: Simon left her. Case in point number two: her father left her mother. Daniel was a friend. He’d always be around. Unless he became her lover.
She’d known Daniel long enough to understand his pattern of behavior around women. He had an uncanny knack of leaving his lovers. Not cheating on them. Nope, unlike Simon and her father, the man did not have a malicious, unfaithful bone in his body. He simply did not have the capacity to sustain a long-term relationship. In the entire time she’d known him, she’d witnessed him loving and leaving plenty of women. None of them had been around for longer than six months—at most.
She wanted Daniel to stay in her life forever. The only way to ensure he hung around was to keep him as a friend. Period.
A while back she made a decision never to sleep with him. If once or twice over the years she had erotic fantasies to the contrary, well that was too bad. It would never happen.
Apart from the fact that Daniel was her friend, he was also a man. Loving a man made you vulnerable, opened you up to hurt and pain. She was through being hurt. She could survive very well without men in her life, thank you very much.
Well, except for Daniel of course.
Besides, now was not the time to be drooling over him. Daniel was under strain. His last assignment had dealt him a huge emotional blow. He was forced to face things he hadn’t dealt with in a long time and he was hurting.
Whatever was worrying him would come out soon enough. When the time was right.
She relented. “Okay. I’ll let it rest. You can tell me your secrets in your own good time.” She smiled and tactfully changed the subject. “How’s Laura?”
He rolled his eyes. “Her name’s Lauren. I haven’t seen Laura in months.”
“Laura, Lauren. Same difference. In the last few years you’ve had so many girlfriends I can’t keep up. I stopped trying ages ago.” She knew she ragged him mercilessly about his sex life, but he
was
commitment phobic and made no pretense to be otherwise.
“It’s over. I ended it a few nights ago.”
Unsurprised by his revelation, Amy clucked in sympathy. Another broken heart. “How’d she take it?”
He grimaced. “I tried to be as gentle as possible, but there was a lot of crying involved.”
“She never saw it coming, did she?”
“What can I say? She wasn’t the right one for me. Besides, I did tell her from the start it wouldn’t go anywhere.”
“Ah, Danny, my friend…” She smiled at him. “Have you ever told a woman it would go anywhere?”
For the briefest second his eyes darkened, turning the shade of a stormy gray sky. But then they cleared again and he grinned. “Not yet.”
“You really are a hopeless case, aren’t you?” She breathed a sigh of relief as she checked her watch, took a last bite of her lunch and pushed the remaining half of her bruschetta over to Daniel. Lucky she hadn’t made the enticing journey to his lap a few minutes ago. His attitude towards Laura or Lauren, or whatever her name was, just reinforced what she already knew. Daniel was a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of a guy. If she ever slept with him, his behavior would be no different. They’d have sex and then he’d leave her…like he left all his girlfriends.
She watched him polish off her leftovers, and as he licked his fingers, she couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like if those fingers were hers. How his warm, wet tongue would feel as it traced a path over her fingertips and down across her knuckles. Up her arm and over to her chest, stopping to tease her erect, tingling nipples. Pulling on them, sucking until she could bear the sweet torture no more and pushed his head down. What sensations his tongue would elicit as it licked her clit, dipped into her—
Holy crap!
There was no way she would sleep with him. If she did, she’d be hit with a double whammy. First she’d lose her lover, and then she’d lose her friend.
The lover part she could deal with—maybe. Losing her best friend was unthinkable.
Chapter Three
It was late Friday afternoon and as had become routine over the last five years of working together, Amy and her friend and colleague, Maggie McGill, sat companionably on the couches in Amy’s office. Amy was a counselor at The Sydney Fertility Clinic and Maggie one of the nursing co-coordinators.
“I saw an interesting case today,” Maggie said. “A gay couple want to have a baby.”
“Men or women?”
“Women. They just want the facts right now. They’re not ready to make any decisions. One of them will contact us if they need our assistance.”
“Sounds interesting. Count me in for counseling if they come back.”
“I will.” Maggie nodded and changed the subject. “Up to anything exciting tonight?”
“It’s Daniel’s sister’s thirtieth. She’s throwing a party at Bronte beach.” Amy checked her watch. “Dan should be here any minute to collect me.”
“Brilliant,” Maggie beamed. “I can get a look at that incredible ass. You know…” She paused, looking thoughtful. “It still beats me why you haven’t slept with him. If I had such a sexy friend, I’d just want to spend all day shagging him.”
Amy shrugged. “The opportunity hasn’t arisen.”
“It’s not opportunity you want to arise. It’s his—”
Amy cut her off with a laugh. “I tell you this all the time. We’re just friends. Period. Sex would kill our friendship and I’m not willing to sacrifice Daniel for a night between the sheets.”
“He must be a stallion between the sheets.” Maggie’s eyes turned dreamy. “C’mon, admit it, there’ve been times you’ve wondered what it would be like. Sex with Daniel.”
Amy shrugged. She thought about it way more than she was willing to admit. “Sleeping with Daniel would screw up our friendship.”
“How?”
“You know Daniel. He’s commitment phobic. He’d make a lousy boyfriend. He’s slept with more women in the last year than I’ve slept with men in my entire life.” Daniel’s affairs never lasted. He once explained that long-term relationships weren’t his style. It was the thrill of the chase he liked, not the consistency of a relationship. “I’ve already lost one man I loved,” she told Maggie. “I won’t risk Daniel’s friendship.”
“Simon’s an asshole,” Maggie told her. “He wasn’t worthy of your love.”
Pain sliced through Amy as she remembered the agony of Simon’s betrayal. She would never allow herself to be hurt like that again.
Never
.
“I agree. Simon is an asshole.”
Amy didn’t need to look up to know Daniel was in her office. Not only did she recognize his voice, she knew what he thought about Simon. Calling him an asshole was about the nicest thing he’d said about her ex in a long time.
She hoped Daniel hadn’t heard any of the preceding conversation. That would just be embarrassing. When she looked up to read his face, she gasped and forgot her concerns. “Your hair!”
He’d cut it off. All his glorious, golden curls…gone. Replaced by a short, dark-blond layer of hair.
His look was rueful as he ran a hand over his head. “It was time for a change. What do you think?”
Amy studied him. He looked so different, so unfamiliar. “I…it’s…fashionable.”
“That’s the best you can do?” He laughed.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. You look good.” He did. Quite yummy in fact. The short length suited his face, accentuating his good looks. It highlighted his cheekbones and straight nose and turned his eyes a shade darker than a clear, blue pool. And his dimples seemed to have doubled in size. “You just don’t look like you.”
Maggie stood, grabbed her files and muttered under her breath so only Amy could hear, “Yeah, but I bet he’s still a stallion in bed.” Then a little louder she said, “Gotta go. Cool cut, Danno. Bye, Amy.” She danced out of the office, turned around and ogled Daniel’s butt. “Great ass,” she mouthed before closing the door behind her.
Amy smiled at the nurse’s antics and walked up to Daniel. She needed to get a feel for his new hairstyle. Stepping up close, she combed her fingers through his silky hair.
Her breast brushed against his muscular chest as she raised her arm and she was shocked to feel her nipple tighten in instant awareness. Daniel’s sharp intake of breath also shocked her. She yanked her hand away, breaking contact, and then made the mistake of looking into his eyes. They were now a stormy gray and she was damned if she didn’t see naked desire burning in his face.
Shit.
His nostrils flared and his eyes hooded. From the look on his face, she had no doubt he had one thing on his mind and one thing only. Where on earth was this coming from? Sex never figured in their friendship before. There was an unspoken understanding that they’d never sleep with each other. So why was he looking at her as if his cock might explode out of his pants if he didn’t touch her?
More over, why was the thought of his cock exploding turning her on so much she could feel the demanding tug of arousal between her legs? She shifted restlessly. This was all too much for her.
“It takes some getting used to.” His voice was an octave lower than usual.
“It sure does.” She wasn’t at all used to wanting to sleep with her friend so much she ached. How would he feel, hard and aroused and embedded deep inside her body?
“It’s shorter than usual.”
She doubted that. She’d seen Daniel in his boxers and size was definitely not his problem.
“But at least it doesn’t get in my eyes.”
What the…?
Oh God. He was talking about his new haircut.
Had she misread his desire completely? Was it just her conversation with Maggie that had her all focused on the wrong part of his anatomy? Must be, because looking at his face now, there was no sign of passion at all. Just a devilish smile and a sexy dimple playing on his cheek.
Feeling slightly foolish and very breathless, she stepped away from Daniel and squeezed her thighs together. “It looks good.”
Too good
. “You look all grown up.” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as raw as she thought it did. On the pretense of a cough she cleared her throat.
Her last statement brought a bit of reality screaming back. He was all grown up and still not interested in a serious relationship. Once again she reminded herself that sex with him would be a very bad idea.
Was it just her imagination or had she been reminding herself of that a lot lately?
He smiled at her. “I’ll take that as a compliment. C’mon, Lex will be wondering where we are.”
They climbed into Daniel’s four-wheel drive and set off for the beach. Amy took a close look at her friend. His gorgeous profile was etched with stress lines. “How’d your day go? You look tired.”
“I am. I’ve been trying to get all the prints developed. It’s taking time, but I’ll get there.”