“I think I believe that now, but I didn’t then. I couldn’t have. So I did what I always did when I needed to cheer myself up. I told myself a story.”

Easton stops two feet away and tilts his head to the side. “What kind of story?”

“I imagined I was the kind of girl you’d look at—”

“Not a stretch, since you were.”

“And that you desperately wanted to kiss me.”

“I did.”

“I told myself you were going to stop tinkering with Jake’s old bike and notice me sitting here.”

His nostrils flare. “I noticed.”

“Maybe if we’d been friends then—like we are now—I would’ve had the courage to tell you I wanted you to kiss me.”

“Maybe if we were friends, I would have had the balls to ask.” He steps closer, and even sitting on the counter, I have to look up to see his face. He nudges my thighs apart and takes another step to stand between them. He strokes a whisper-soft path up my thigh, pushing my dress aside on the way. “Do you want me to kiss you, Shay?”

“We are friends, right?” I whisper. “I like being your friend. Do you like it?”

He buries his face in my neck, and I gasp at the feel of his tongue flicking the sensitive skin behind my ear. “I like this.” He sucks my earlobe between his teeth. “And this.”

I whimper. “Yes, me too.” I turn my head, searching for his mouth, and he kisses me hard. His hands are in my hair, and our tongues collide. Desperate. Searching.

“As your friend,” he says, his voice all low and gravelly when he breaks the kiss, “I couldn’t help but notice the way you were looking at me tonight.”

“How did I look?”

“Like being friends might not be enough for you. Like you were thinking about me getting you off on your couch. Like you were thinking that maybe next time, you want more from me.”

My breath catches as his knuckles graze the damp cotton between my thighs. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” I confess, fighting the urge to rock into him.

“Me neither.” He dips his head to the swell of my breast above the neckline of my dress, opens his mouth, and bites down gently.

My breath shudders out of me. “I want to touch you.”

He groans against my breast, and I wiggle away from him and hop off the counter. He turns, watching me, and I drop to my knees, working at his buckle. “Christ,” he whispers. But he doesn’t stop me, and the desperation in his eyes is enough to send a shock of pleasure right through my core.

I free him from his jeans and nearly gasp at the feel of him in my hand—hard and silken against my palm. Hard for me.