Chapter 127

“Sex is intimacy,” Tyler shot back at her, his hard tone brooking no argument. “Anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t any good at it. But you need to decide if you can handle that. Because the Lexi I know has made it clear, in word and deed since the day I met her, that she wants no part of it.”

“I want a taste,” she heard herself say.

And she wanted to step back and put some head-clearing distance between them. Knock his hand away from her hair. But she rather thought he expected her to do all of those things, and more—that it would prove his point. So she did the opposite. She moved closer, and brought her other hand to his chest. Then angled herself against him, as if they were already in an embrace.

“A taste of me might be more than you bargained for,” he said, as if he could tell that she’d just gone ahead and lit herself on fire. “It will be. And then what?”

“What do you mean? Are your morning afters normally fraught with peril? Because they look very civilized. No broken crockery or rending of garments as long as I’ve known you.”

“For starters, my morning afters don’t normally occur with women who are staying with me. So there’s that to consider. But even if I gave you the weekend option, or even a week, just to make sure you were well and truly fucked properly in every possible way, do you really want that?” Tyler’s gaze was as hard as his chest felt beneath her hands, and twice as hot. “Because it seems to me that it would be one thing to go into your chilly little marriage with no knowledge of what you’re missing. But torture if you do know.”

She wasn’t sure moving closer to him had been her best idea, because he felt so good. Too good. And this close, she could smell him, and that was like a wave of sensation all its own. Something deep and spicy that made her think of forests back home. And something else that reminded her of the abundant sunshine here, even in winter. And holding it all together, him.

Tyler. All the versions of him.

“It will be my torture, not yours,” she said.

“Do you think I won’t care about that?” He took her elbows in his big hands, and held her away from him, almost splayed against his chest. Almost. “Because as we talk about opening doors that can’t be closed, sex does have a way of changing friendship. You must know that. I remember several right tossers trying their hands at befriending you, all for a chance to get in there.”

“They weren’t really friends.” She shrugged. “There was nothing to change. Or to lose.”

“We’ve been friends for years, Lexi. Think about that. If I give you what you want, and it’s everything you imagine it to be, what do you think will happen then?”

She searched his face, trying to figure out what the right answer would be here. What he wanted. Her experience with men had been limited to either the dates her father had sent her on, with men who had hardly noticed she was there. Or the men she’d actually dated, who had been so eager to please that she’d hardly had to express half a wish before it was excessively granted. And every now and again, the odd one who thought insulting her was the right tack to take—and it was certainly different. In all cases, it had always been easy enough to simply sway close, say something sultry, and sort them out with sex.

She didn’t understand why Tyler wasn’t so easily led. That drumming thing inside her got louder. Longer. And maybe that was the secret she’d been dancing around all this time. Men who could be led didn’t produce that giddy, begging for more effect. How could they? Standing at a rail looking out over Olkfield Harbour as the evening ferries slid past, that answer seemed so obvious. How had she missed it all this time?

“Nothing will change,” she told him. “This will be our secret. An experiment between two good friends and when I leave Olkfield, everything will just…go back the way it was.”

“Will it now.”

She laughed. “Of course it will.”

Because she couldn’t imagine any other option. Tyler shifted, one of those big hands moving up to slide along the length of her jaw, as if it belonged there. But it was like a storm. A hurricane, unleashed from every point of contact. Skin to skin, like something torrential. The heat of his palm, its faint roughness. Everything inside her…rioted. But she didn’t move. She couldn’t.

“You keep acting as if we’re talking about regular sex. Tepid, faintly embarrassing fumbles in the dark with men who come too soon and act like you should be grateful all the same. But what if that’s not all there is?” He shook his head slightly, his gaze so hard on hers it would have hurt, if she could feel anything but his hand. “I know you think that there can’t be that much of a difference. Not really. You’ve come to conduct your wee science experiment, but in the final analysis, you don’t really think I can rock your world. Change your life. Show you the difference between black-and-white and full-on color. Do you?”

And his hand was on her face like a brand. And he was crowding out the night, and the city, and the whole wide world. And her heart was beating so fast she was vaguely concerned it might turn into a medical issue.

“I think if anyone could,” she managed to say, “it would be you.”

She thought he should look pleased at that. But he didn’t. He looked as if she’d hurt him. “And what if I do everything I claim I can do, and more, and you do the very thing I suspect you think is impossible?”

Her eyes searched his, and she frowned, faintly. “I have actually had an orgasm before, Tyler. You don’t have to be quite so up yourself.”

“I’m talking about love, not orgasms,” he said with a certain brutal directness. And once again, there was that ferocity stamped all over him, so she couldn’t tell if he was about to laugh or shout or take over the world. All of the above, maybe. “It tells me everything I need to know about the sad sex you’ve had that you don’t understand how they could be connected.”