Page 53 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
I’ll face the rest another day.
Chapter 15
GETTY
The bar is packed. The warm weather and the cloudless sky in this unusual summer full of storms has caused a massive influx of tourists to flood the island.
The bar’s abuzz as I take orders left and right from the other servers, so much so that I haven’t had much time to think about last night.
Well, that’s a lie. It’s all I’ve thought about. A few botched orders more than normal prove the point. But the bar’s so busy they’ve gone mostly unnoticed.
My mind drifts to Zander as I work. To our laughter at the restaurant. To the toast. To make-believe revelations about what outsiders would assume about us. To kisses that curled my toes and melted my insides. To honest confessions about what he can and can’t give me. And then to the question he asked me to consider, if I could handle knowing there wasn’t going to be more than the one thing he said was a disaster in the first place: friends with benefits.
A rum and Coke. A margarita with extra salt. A draft Guinness.
My knee-jerk reaction is yes. He was honest, up-front, and kisses me like the world is ending tomorrow—with every ounce of his being.
A Macallan neat. A gin and tonic. A round of IPAs.
Is that really smart, though, Getty? Wouldn’t you become too attached? No. Yes. No. I’d use the sex to help me get over my issues. Prove to myself that not all men are like Ethan. I hope. But isn’t that kind of whorish?
Definitely not something a Caster would do . . . which pushes me to want to do it even more.
A vodka cranberry. A Jack and Coke. A dry martini.
But am I really capable of such a thing ? I don’t know how to have casual sex. I actually don’t know how to have sex at all according to Ethan.
What am I doing even thinking about this? It’s a stupid idea. Such a tempting one, though. My doubt is ugly.
And Zander is so pretty.
I snicker under my breath at the thought, knowing he’d reject the description immediately.
Oops. Jack and Diet Coke. Not regular Coke. Messed that one up. Two seltzer waters. One glass of merlot.
Then the dream comes back to me. And damn. All doubts go out the window. Yes, it was a dream. My rational brain reiterates the fact I know all too well, but at the same time, a man doesn’t kiss like he does and not know how to make love.
Not make love, Getty.
Sex.
Just sex. No love involved. The L-word is never to be mentioned. Just nitty-gritty, scream-out-as-you-come, render-your-legs-boneless, romance-novel-type sex like I’ve never experienced before. That’s all he alluded to.
That ache he caused between my thighs comes back with a vengeance. I shift some, spill the overfull drink onto my hands as I move it to the server’s tray.
A Coors Light—in a bottle. Another rum and Coke for table six—this time with a lime. A strawberry daiquiri.
Just go for it, Getty. You want to be spontaneous? Be spontaneous. He rearranged the silverware drawer for you for God’s sake.
Justification at its finest.
But it is a good point. If I’m going to sleep with someone, at least I’d know he’s a good guy. And probably has some experience under his belt. By the way the bar suddenly fills up with the local women busily texting one another when he comes in to watch a game or have a drink, I can assume he’s had no shortage of women or experience in the sack.
An old-fashioned. Two Sculpins on draft. One Red Bull and Absolut.
Oh. But a lot of women means he’s most likely used to experienced partners . . . and I’m far from that. I stop and stare off into space for a moment. Twist my lips. Remember how he kisses. His hands framing my face. The scrape of his unshaven chin against the skin of my neck. His cologne in my nose and taste on my tongue.
Done. I’m gonna go for it.
