Chapter Twelve

The problem with best friends is that they know everything about you. Dayton knows everything about me, about every last one of my rotting skeletons I keep locked away in a foolproof safe.

But as she and Aaron discovered, skeletons don’t stay buried for long.

She’s seen me in my deepest, darkest moments, and I’m seeing the fear of that in her eyes now.

“I’m fine, okay? I’ll be, don't worry.” I took a deep breath. “It’s normal to think about someone and be attracted to them, especially when they look like that.” My eyes cut to the door and her lips twitched. “But being attracted to someone doesn’t mean it’s anything more. It doesn’t mean I’m addicted. It’s just the…desire to be. It’s the temptation to give in to it. But I’m stronger now and I won’t.”

“I just don’t want to see you get hurt again. I don’t you are my friend.” Her eyes were clear and honest. “He’s not the kind of person you need, Brenda. Trust me. You need someone soft and stable and calm. Ivan isn’t that guy.”

I know. I know that just from my body, and that’s why he’s dangerous. The problem is, I don’t think someone soft and stable is what I need either am not the kind of lady.

What I need is wine, chocolate, and my vibrator.

But that isn’t going to happen right now because the “contract” Aaron and Ivan went to look over was apparently a very short one. Now, Ivan is leaning against the counter in the corner of the kitchen, his arms folded across his chest. I don’t want to look, but I do. I look at the way his T-shirt stretches over his shoulders and biceps and the way the material rises slightly where it should meet his jeans.

More than that, though… More than the way he looks and his alluring presence, it’s the way he looks at me. Steadily. Certainly. Yet his gaze holds a spark of wanting I feel echoes in my own body.

I pulled my eyes away from him at Aaron’s cough. But Ivan doesn’t do the same. He keeps staring at me.

“Dayton, we should leave for dinner now.” Aaron’s voice cuts through the silence. Unfortunately, he leaves the tension intact.

“Room for two more?” Ivan questioned.

I snapped my eyes to him. “I have plans.”

“So cancel them.”

“No.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and watch for his reaction.

“I’m going to get ready,” Dayton muttered, dragging Aaron behind her.

Tyler curved his lips and pushed off from the counter. “No? That’s the first time I’ve heard that word from your mouth.”

Asshole. “Now the answer is definitely no, you pig.”

He rounded the bar and sat on the stool next to me, facing me. He leaned in, pushing the boundaries of my personal space. “Come on, Brenda. So we did. We’ll be seeing each other a lot over the next few months, so we may as well get over it.”

“Get over it? That would imply that it bothers me.”

He took a lock of my hair between his fingers and lowered his voice. “So would the flush on your cheeks.”

I bite the inside of my lip. “It’s warm in here.”

Ivan twirled my hair around his finger and half-grins. “We have to get on for Dayton’s sake. You wouldn’t want to add to the pressure she’s under by having her wonder if the maid of honor and best man are going to spend her day under a cloud of awkwardness, would you?”

“I can’t believe you’re using my best friend against me. You’re a complete and utter jackass.”

“Are you coming to dinner?”

“Against my better judgment.” I slapped his hand away from my hair. “But don’t imagine that this is anything more than you wrongly manipulating me into it. So don’t even think about trying to get inside my pants again, because it won’t happen.

“We’ll see.” He twisted around as I stood, and it took everything I have not to slap his smug smirk off his face.

I stared at him down. “I mean it. Don’t even touch me.”

He stood and ignored me, grabbing my arm. With one swift movement, he spinned me into him and hold me there. “Really? Because I think you’d like me to touch you very, very much.”

I would. My arm were tingling where his hand were wrapped around it and my body is reacting to the hardness of his. But I won’t let him know it. I won’t push it.

I stepped back and yanked my arm out of his grip. “And I think you’re completely full of yourself.”

Heels clicked against the floor. “Is everything okay?” Dayton asked softly.