Page 55 of The Best Friend Experiment
“You’re talking to someone who studies marine life. I could tell you things about the state of the ocean that would keep you up at night.”
“I’m sure you could, but let’s save that for another day. I’ve already got enough existential anxiety.”
At the mention of the future, Brooke felt another stab of unease. There wouldn’t be enough other days to have this or any other conversation. Not in person, anyway. Tomorrow was Dylan’s last day here. Their last day together.
After he left on Sunday, things would go back to the way they used to be. The two of them would go back to being friends who talked on the phone occasionally but rarely saw each other. Even if Brooke made a point of keeping in touch better, they’d never have this moment again. They’d never have each other like this again.
When Dylan went back to his regular life, he’d be free to date if he wanted. And it sounded like he did. The way he’d talked when he first arrived, he was looking for a real, meaningful, permanent relationship. Exactly the sort of thing Brooke could never give him.
He deserved to have that, and she wanted it for him, but her stomach felt hollow at the thought of Dylan finding it with someone else.
If he started dating someone seriously, he wouldn’t have as much room in his life for Brooke. She wouldn’t be his best friend anymore. Not if he found the life partner he wanted.Shewould be his best friend instead, and Brooke would become a distant third wheel.
“Hey.” Dylan snapped his fingers in front of Brooke’s face. “Did you hear me?”
“Sorry, what?” She hadn’t been listening to him at all.
He pointed two fingers at his face. “Eyes up here, sailor.”
She belatedly realized she’d been staring into space—and the space she’d been staring into was occupied by Dylan’s six-pack.
His mouth twisted into a cocky smirk. “Listen, I know my bod’s, like, hella distracting, but if you’re just going to treat me like a piece of meat—”
Brooke grabbed him and kissed him. Full-on, urgent, devouring, tongue-down-his-throat kissed him.
“Okay, I take back what I said about treating me like a piece of meat,” he murmured against her lips when he came up for air. “Go ahead and treat me like meat all you want, if it means you’re going to keep kissing me like that.”
She kissed him again, and his hands roamed under her shirt, skimming the curve of her waist, stroking up her rib cage, and unclasping her bra. Straining against him, she pressed her softness into his hardness. She was so consumed with need it left her shaky and desperate. Her hands explored his torso as their mouths slid together, and she heard herself moan in the back of her throat.
His hands grasped her face, and as his thumbs stroked down her cheeks, he pressed his forehead against hers. “Hold that thought.”
Turning, he shoved the brownie pan in the oven and set a timer on his phone before returning his attention to her. He gripped her waist with both hands and shoved her back against the counter, pinning her with his hips as he bent his mouth to hers.
When he kissed her, all she could think about was how much she wanted more. More kissing, more Dylan, more everything…
If she didn’t know better, she’d think she was falling in love. But of course she wasn’t. It was too easy to get mixed up about what she was feeling, because shedidlove Dylan. He was one of her best friends. She’d walk through fire for him.
But that didn’t mean she wasinlove with him.
Her sex organs were currently infatuated with his sex organs, but that was all this was. Lust. Craving. Excitement. A shallow, temporary physical infatuation layered over a foundation of long-standing platonic love.
This feeling wouldn’t last. It didn’t make them soul mates. It wasn’treallove.
But that didn’t mean it would be easy to give him up.
She dragged him into the bedroom while the brownies were baking, and Dylan made good on his promise of dessert—and then some. Brooke was certain she would forever associate the smell of baking brownies with the things he did to her, and she wasn’t the least bit mad about it.
The rest of the evening was spent eating takeout Chinese and watching one of their favorite martial arts movies from childhood. Well…not so muchwatchingthe movie as lazily making out on the couch while the movie played in the background.
Eventually, after a languid slow burn, things heated up enough that they turned the movie off and retired to the bedroom again. This time their lovemaking was as slow and indulgent as their fooling around on the couch had been. They took their time, luxuriating in every touch and sensation. Baring their bodies and their souls. Neither of them in a hurry to reach their release, but instead seeking to draw it out, prolonging their shared pleasure. Dissolving into each other.
Much later that night, Brooke lay on her side watching the slow, steady rise and fall of Dylan’s bare chest. He slept like the dead, serene and boneless, with one hand thrown over his head. Like a child without a care in the world. Enviously, she reached out and trailed her finger down his chest.
It had been a perfect day. If she couldGroundhog Dayherself, she’d pick today to live inside forever.
Alas, time marched ever onward. As the minutes ticked away toward the morning of their last day together, Brooke snuggled against Dylan and lay her head on his chest. He murmured her name in his sleep without waking and curled his body around hers.
She lay there listening to their hearts beat together in a dreamy state of half-sleep, unable to pinpoint just where he ended and she began.
