Unfortunately, it wasn’t up to him, and he respected her wishes. Though right now what she wanted was making it damned uncomfortable for his dick. With her moaning about the back rub and wriggling her butt between his legs, it was all he could do not to join in on the moaning. Instead, he gritted his teeth and did his best to make her feel good.

“You know what you really need?” he asked as he slid his fingers into her hair.

“Mmm. What’s that?”

“A good screaming orgasm.”

She stilled. “Isn’t that a cocktail?”

He laughed. “No. Well, it might be. But that’s not the orgasm I’m talking about.”

“Oh. Yeah, you’re right about that. I do need an orgasm. Or five. Or ten. It’s been a long dry spell for me.”

Great. He could already envision making her come—with his hands, his mouth and his cock. Why had he even brought it up?

Because you enjoy self-torture, Nathan?

“So why don’t you have one? You can do it yourself, right?”

“I can. And I do. But you know it’s not the same as having someone do it for you—or with you.”

He slid back on the sofa so Mia couldn’t feel his boner. This was a really idiotic topic of conversation and he had no one to blame for it but himself.

But now a thought entered his head. A really great one, too. “I have an idea.”

She half turned. “You do?”

“Yeah. Let’s have sex.”

She laughed. “Nathan. No.”

He turned her so she sat on one of his thighs. “No, listen, Mia. This is a really great idea. You and I are friends, right?”

“Yes.”

“Neither one of us is looking for a relationship right now. At least I’m not.”

“You know I’m not, either.”

“So it’s perfect. We both have high-pressure jobs, and what’s a better pressure reliever than sex?”

“Okay, that’s true, but, Nathan, we’re friends.”

“Exactly. We know each other. We trust each other. And we’re not looking for anything permanent. So let’s have sex. A friends with benefits thing. No strings.”

She opened her mouth and he knew she was going to object. But then she paused. “Okay, say we have sex.”

He grinned. “Yeah, say we do.”

“And say one of us gets . . . emotionally involved.”

“That won’t be me.”

“It won’t be me, either, Nathan. Honestly, I just have too many other things going on in my life.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“What happens when one of us wants to have a relationship with someone else?”

He shrugged. “Then we’re done. We’ll still be friends, just not sex friends.”

She frowned. “You make it sound so simple and I don’t think it is.”

“Why isn’t it that easy? We’ve been friends for years, Mia. I don’t plan on changing that. Do you?”

“Of course not. I trust you.”

“Same. But you obviously need to get off. So do I. And the dating thing right now is full of complications that I don’t need or want.”

“And what if tomorrow you meet the woman of your dreams and fall madly in love?”

His lips curved. “Not gonna happen. I don’t have time for the woman of my dreams.”

Her lips flattened and she gave him that look she always gave him when bullshit fell out of his mouth. “Say all the guys who will fall in love tomorrow.”

“Fine. But I’m not one of those guys. And if you meet the man of your dreams tomorrow, then you and I go back to being best friends who don’t have sex with each other.”

She sighed. “It kind of sounds too good to be true. And I don’t believe in too good to be true. I value our friendship and I don’t want to lose it.”

“If we do this the right way, and keep emotions out of it, we’ll stay friends. I can handle it. Can you?”

“Of course I can.”

He knew Mia was competitive. And even though this wasn’t a contest, he knew if he’d told her he could keep emotion out of this and handle their relationship, she’d step up and say she could, too.

He could handle it. He liked Mia. He wanted to keep her in his life. And there was no way in hell he was going to get emotionally attached to her. He wasn’t going to fall in love with any woman.

This was going to be easy for him. And he knew Mia was in love with her company, so despite her reservations, he knew she could handle this, too.

“You wanna think about it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. What I want is some relief from this constant stress.”

He swept his hand over her thigh. “Then let me take care of it for you. In a purely clinical, non-emotional way.”

She laughed. “Sounds so romantic.”

“That’s the key, isn’t it? To keep the romance out of it?”

She looked at him for the longest time. But that’s what Mia did. She considered things before jumping in.

Finally, she nodded. “You’re right. Let’s do this. Let’s fuck.”

His lips curved. Music to his ears.

He moved and lifted her off his lap, then stood and held out his hand.

“Okay, Miss Cassidy. Let’s get you off.”

FIVE

MIA LED NATHAN UPSTAIRS TO HER BEDROOM. SHE flipped on the light, then turned to face him.

“Now I feel weird.”

He smiled at her. “Change your mind?”

“No. I just feel weird. Like this isn’t spontaneous, you know?”

He stepped up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Want me to take you back downstairs and ply you with more wine?”

Her lips curved. “No. I want to be mostly sober for this. I’m just . . . tense, I guess.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s your whole problem. And don’t feel weird. It’s me, Mia. I’m not some stranger that you picked up in a bar and brought home to get naked with.”

“I realize that. Still, this wasn’t something that was on my To-Do list for tonight.”

“What? You didn’t put ‘Have Sex with Nathan’ in your planner?”

“Shockingly, no. I’ll have to add it in retroactively.”

“With stickers? And what do those look like? Are there planner stickers for sex? With penises and vaginas?”

“You are not funny.”

“Yes, I am. That’s why you like me. I lighten your mood and make you laugh.”

“Right now you need to make me come. So drop your pants.”

He arched a brow. “Oh, so it’s going to be like that, huh?”

“It is.”

He stepped toward her. “You know what your problem is, Mia?”

She frowned. “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“You’re tense. And when you’re tense, you’re cranky. I can fix that. But we’re not going to make sex all clinical.”

“We’re not?”

He swept his hand from her shoulder down her arm, feeling that slight shudder as her body responded. “No. We’re going to make it sexy and fun. But with no emotion, of course.”

“Of course.”

He reached for the button on her cardigan, popped the button open and slid it off her shoulders. “Let’s make you comfortable. Relax you.”

Mia was anything but relaxed. She couldn’t believe she’d even agreed to this. That after all these years, she and Nathan were going to do this again.

Back in college, it had been a wild, drunken tumble. Now she was sober and going into this wide-eyed and with all her faculties intact. Tomorrow there’d be no taking it back, no making a pact to be just friends.

Was she making an incredible mistake? She and Nathan had developed an amazing friendship over the past few years. Was she sacrificing that in the name of sex? Was losing their friendship worth it?

She lost sight of all those questions when Nathan smoothed his hands over her body, rubbing her back in that oh-so-familiar way that was suddenly something way more sensual. She melted into his touch, into the way he seemed to know her body with such ease, such familiarity.