abbi wants to learn more about what to do in bed and her brother's best friend dean offers to help, not knowing she's always been in love with him. we know dean from the previous story as he fell in love with his best friend's ex and in this book, we see how he seems to struggle to get over her, without knowing he's long moved on with abbi
“Don’t worry about me, ’kay?” Too late. “Be safe,” I murmur, and my chest actually aches as I watch him walk away.
Dean: Ha! Well, I do have one of those, but that’s not what I meant either. My confidence in our chemistry comes from somewhere else altogether. Abbi: Don’t leave me hanging. Dean: Isn’t it obvious? You. That’s what’s gonna make it un-fucking-forgettable.
“Sit,” he says, waving to the small table and four chairs that make up my dining room. “You’ve been on your feet all day. I’ll bring you your dinner.”
“You’re always the one in the kitchen when our friends get together. I figured you deserved a chance to be the one relaxing.”
“When you touch yourself, think about me.” She opens her mouth, and I can see the objection in her eyes, so I put a finger to her lips. “Please? Seems only fair, since I know I’ll be thinking about you.”
“Tell me I wasn’t the only one suffering today.”
“Tell me you’ve been walking around as turned on and aching as I have.”
“I don’t think you’re teaching me to be better in bed. I think you’re spoiling me for all other men.”
“I’m determined to make you moan my name,” he murmurs, pinching my nipple. “Tell me what you imagined me doing when you were touching yourself.”
“I think about you all the time. Now tell me.”
“Don’t get me wrong—a woman in lacy lingerie is hot as fuck, but only if she wore it for me. Seeing a girl wandering around my house barefoot and in one of my old T-shirts is more my style.” His eyes sweep over me, as if he’s imagining it. “You’d look hot in anything. And if you wore it just for me, that’d be an even bigger turn-on.”
“Breathe, precious. You’re safe. Right here, right now, with me, there’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“Abbi,” I say. It’s not a warning or a question. It’s more like a prayer. A desperate plea for this aching need.
“I think you look delicious.” He glances toward the house and the empty front porch before stepping close and dropping his mouth to my ear. “You look so good that I’m not going to be able to focus on a damn thing. But did you forget the plans I had for you when I finally caught you in a skirt?”
“It could be just a dress,” he says. “Or it could be something you wore for me. Something you wanted me to see. Something you wanted me to do. Which is it, Abbi?” “I . . .” I swallow hard. I can hardly find words right now. “I wore it for you.” “I love that,” he growls.
“Tell me you want me,” I growl into her mouth. “I do.” I feel her smile against my lips. “So much.” “Tell me you’re mine tonight.” “I’m yours.”
“You’re beautiful. You know that?” I ask.
“I don’t,” she says, “but I almost believe it when you say it.”
“Abbi.” I kiss the side of her neck then down to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. I nuzzle her there, breathing in the smell of her, and groan. “You make me crazy.” She laughs. “Why?”“Because I don’t like thinking of this as something with a firm expiration date.”
“I’m not interested in anyone else, and I don’t want anyone else. I’m yours for as long as you’ll let this last.” Whatever this is. “I can’t be with you one night and plan to be with someone else the next. That’s not who I am.”
“What made you buy it? Were you thinking of me or just—” “You. This.” “Then I love it.”
“I’ve got you,” I murmur in her ear. “I promise you don’t have to do a damn thing.”
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” “I want to be. For you.” “You are.”
“I like the way you’re looking at me. I like . . . everything. It just doesn’t feel real, and I’m afraid I’m gonna screw it up. Or worse, wake up and find out none of it was real.”
“Tell me what you’re afraid of. Tell me how I can make you feel safe.”
“And you know how much it’s killing me to not be buried inside you right now, touching every inch of you.”
“I recall promising you I wouldn’t be rushed, but with your hands on me, with the sight of you bare beneath me?” I shake my head and cup her breasts in both hands. Her hard nipples pebble tighter beneath my thumbs. “I’ve wanted this too long, and I only have so much control.” She arches into my touch. “I like that.”
“Headboard, precious. If you touch me, I can’t make good on my promises.” Hell, her sounds alone could make me come. It’s a wonder I didn’t in Marston’s bathroom when she was squirming all over my face.
“I don’t make you see anything. You are beautiful.” I touch my index finger to her lips, then trail it down her chin, her neck, between her breasts and over her stomach. “I love this body.” I love you, I think. But I don’t say it. I know better, and after the reminder that this is just an arrangement to her, I can’t. Not yet.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “For giving you confidence?” She shrugs. “Yeah. You make me feel beautiful—make me believe I am. I needed that. But also for seeing me and for being my friend.”
“I like being more than your friend, if you hadn’t noticed.” I sweep my mouth across hers. “A lot.”
“You can’t hold that against me,” I say. “I like beautiful women.” I drop a kiss on her lips, then her neck, then kiss my way down to her breasts. “As is evidenced by the fact that I’m in bed with you.”
“I love that we’re here now,” I say against her mouth. I kiss her, gently but deeply. It’s a promise of everything she is to me, and everything I want this to be. I can’t tell her, not with words, not yet, so I tell her with my kiss. I slip my hand between her legs, and she gasps. “I was an idiot for ever giving up.” “Giving . . .?” I slide two fingers inside her, and her question is lost on a gasp as I show her the first of a long list of reasons she should love this too.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you all day, and I don’t know if I can make it through dinner without getting my mouth on you again first.” “You . . . already have your . . . mouth on me,” she says, as if piecing the sentence together takes all her effort. “I do,” I say, flicking my tongue against her earlobe, “but I’m craving . . . other parts.”
“I can’t think when you do that.” I fucking love that I scramble her mind like that. I want her so turned on that she forgets all her worries and all her insecurities. So turned on that she forgets this Frankie guy. I only want her thinking about me.
“Are you okay?” When he pulls back, his eyes are red, as if he’s been crying, and my heart feels like it cracks in my chest. I’ve known Dean a long time, and this is maybe the third time ever I’ve seen the evidence of tears. I stroke his cheek with my thumb. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
“I just don’t like you knowing that part of me. I don’t like giving you any reason to think about it.” I want to know all parts of you. “What part? The one that clams up and won’t talk?” He huffs out a laugh and nips at my neck. “The one whose dad wasn’t ever around.”
“I can’t change who my father is, but I can promise you I am nothing like him. I’ll never, ever be like him. If I doubted that, I wouldn’t let myself be with you.”
“I know that, Dean.” I press my palm to his chest, right over the heart he just opened for me. “I know who you are.”
“You were in love with her, and you and I weren’t— We’ve never been real.” “You think this wasn’t real?” I snap. “You think every touch, every moment I’ve spent with you hasn’t been real for me?”
“There are a thousand reasons I’d choose you over and over and over again. We all have insecurities, Abbi. We all have pieces of ourselves we don’t want the world to see, but the difference between us is you walk around with yours visible to the world. It’s no secret that you’re not a size six.” Her face crumples, as if I just hurled an insult. “Dammit, I don’t fucking care what the number on your jeans is. Don’t you understand? It’s not a secret. I knew what you looked like when I told you I wanted to do this. I liked what you looked like then, and I like it now. You fucking turn me on and twist me up, and as much as I don’t understand why it should matter when you’re still so damn beautiful, I’ve tried to be patient because I know it matters to you. You carry these pounds like they’re scars of some shameful past.”
“No. You’re all the things you refuse to see in yourself. I love you.” The words come out so rough that they sound like they’re meant to cut. They sound like an insult. Hell, maybe they are. Right now, my own feelings are an insult to me. They’re killing me. “I love you,” I repeat, softer this time. “I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. It’s bigger and better and so powerful that no misunderstanding could destroy it. But I’m not sure you could say the same about the way you feel for me.”
“Everything you feel for me is muffled by the hate you feel for yourself. Until you get that in check, I’m not sure you really can love me. And even if you do, your self-loathing is breaking us before we ever have a chance, and I refuse to let these insecurities of yours make me hate you. You are the most beautiful thing in my life, and these weeks we’ve been together have been some of the best, but I refuse to let the way you hate yourself turn my feelings for you into something ugly. Don’t you see it? No matter how many times I try to prove my love, no matter how many ways I shower you in it, no matter how many times I try to remind you what I see when I look at you or how I feel about you, there’s absolutely nothing I can say or do to make you love yourself. And you’re going to have to love yourself before you can ever trust me.”
“I love you,” I repeat. “I’ll walk out that door still loving you.” I shake my head. This is all so fucking screwed up. It doesn’t need to be like this. “Do you remember what you told me about how much you needed to feel beautiful? How much you needed to really believe it?”
“Did you ever stop and think I might have some wounds that needed tending as well? That maybe after the way I was raised and the crap I was told, I needed someone to see I can be trusted as much as you needed someone who can see your beauty?”
“I’ll never be someone who oozes confidence or someone who believes she’s the prettiest girl in the room. Most of the time, I just want to hide anyway. I don’t want people to notice me, and a lot of that comes from not wanting them to see what I perceive as flaws, but I like when you notice me. I’ve always liked when you noticed me, even when I didn’t think I deserved it, even when I thought it was some sort of weird mistake.”
“Will you come here?” I nod, and he pulls me into his lap. “There’s no mistake. I love you, and you’re beautiful. I was an idiot for calling you on your insecure bullshit when it was really more about my insecurities. I was wrong.”
BEST QUOTE
“Listen, it’s hard for me to understand why you can’t accept yourself, but if you’d just try to see what I see, I’ll keep loving you every single day until you see it too. And even if you never do, if you can just promise me you’ll be good to this woman I love . . .”
“Be good to her. Be kind to her body and her soul. Because she’s the best thing I’ve ever had in my life, and it makes me crazy when anyone tries to hurt her.”
“I love you,” I say. “I love you, and if what you say is true and my love for you is limited by how I feel about myself, then you’d better watch out, because I’m working on how I feel about me, and you’re going to have some crazy-big love coming your way.” “I love you too. So much it scares me a little when I think about you walking away. I’ve wanted you for so long, but I gave up because I was afraid I wasn’t good enough for you. I’ve never wanted anything more than I want to be worthy of you.” “You are. More than worthy.” I touch my forehead to his. “Can we try this again?” He shakes his head, but I trust him too much to be worried. “No, we’re going to try something better this time.”