Blurred Lines (Love Unexpectedly #1)(12)

I nod goodbye to John before detouring to the fridge for the prosecco bottle. Might as well leave it on the coffee table for easy access. At this rate, she won’t even register when it starts to get warm.

I plop on the couch next to her, top off her glass with a smaller pour this time, and pull her legs over mine.

“Talk or mute?” I ask.

It’s a game we play whenever the other person has something on their mind. You can either spill your guts, which is the talk option. Or keep it to yourself, mute, no judgment made, no offense taken.

“Talk,” she says surprising me. Then again, alcohol always brings out chatty Parker.

“He dumped me,” she says bluntly.

I already knew this, but I rub my palm over her shin. “He’s an idiot.”

“Yeah.” Her head flops against the couch cushion. “But so am I. I feel stupid for being blindsided, though. All the signs were there.”

This surprises me a little. I thought she’d been perfectly happy. Hell, I thought she thought she was going to marry the guy. She’d always seemed so…content.

“Well.” She takes a big swallow of wine before swinging her legs so her feet are on the floor before pouring a little more prosecco. She takes another big gulp. “We hadn’t had sex in this long,” she says, turning unsteadily toward me, hands held wide apart, index fingers extended. She nearly takes out my eye.

I gently catch her hand before she can blind me. “Oh, yeah?” I ask casually as I debate whether I can make a successful grab of her wineglass.

“Yeah.” It’s only one word, but she manages to slur it. Was she always such a lightweight?

“Two days, huh?” I ask.

I lean forward to take the glass from her hand, but she pulls it away with a snort. “Only in your world would two days without sex be a long time.”

“Two weeks? Are you f*cking kidding me?” I ask, incredulous. I try to grab for the wine again, but her drunken reflexes are better than I expected, and she pulls it away again.

The look she gives me is half amused, half-horrified. “What are you, some sort of sex hound? Two weeks is nothing.”

“Hey, I’m in my prime,” I say. I start to make another grab for her wineglass, before I register what she’s trying to tell me. If not two days, and not two weeks…

“Wait,” I say. “Wait. You haven’t had sex with Myers in two months?”

She tries to tap her nose as if to say bingo, but misses and taps her cheek instead.

I forget all about confiscating her wine. Hell, if she hasn’t had sex in two months, she needs it. “And you thought that was normal?”

“No, Olsen, I didn’t think it was normal,” she says with a bit of an edge. “But he was busy, and I was busy….”

“Two months,” I say again.

“I was going to fix it,” she says, setting her wineglass down too hard on the coffee table. Luckily the ugly glass is bulky and sturdy as shit, so it doesn’t break. Actually, now that I think about it, it might be plastic. Good call, Ben.

I take another sip of my beer as I process the information. Lance hadn’t touched Parker for two months? Maybe I’m more sexually prolific than most, but that just seems…

My thoughts scatter as I realize that Parker’s wiggling out of her shirt. What the—? “Keep your clothes on, Blanton!”

Her shirt hits me in the chest, and she’s on her feet standing to face me, flinging her arms unsteadily to the side.

“Look.”

My vision seems to go blurry for a moment, and I want to glance down to see if I’ve drunk more than half my beer without realizing it, because I’m downright light-headed.

But I can’t glance at my beer, because I’m looking at Parker in a knockout red bra. And I mean to look away because it’s Parker, but she’s…stunning.

There is no other word for it. Parker Blanton without a shirt is stunning.

I’ve seen her in bikinis before. On spontaneous weekend trips to the coast with the gang, or spring break in Cabo. But she’d always been with Lance, and I generally had a flavor of the month, and although I registered Parker as having a good body—a great one, even—it had been in a sort of detached kind of way.

But I don’t feel detached now, when she’s so close to me, all golden creamy curves and slim waist and full, round breasts. And damn, that low-cut bra displays them to f*cking perfection.

I chuck her shirt back at her. “Put this on. Now.”

“I was trying to fix the no-sex thing,” she says again, ignoring the shirt as it falls to the floor. “I bought this for Lance.” She gestures up and down her body and I take a deep breath.

“But I didn’t even get to show him.” Her voice is glum. “And the panties match.”

Her fingers move to her jeans button and I all but fly off the couch, heading for the kitchen to get another beer, or a glass of water, or maybe just a handful of ice to stuff down my pants.

She follows me, still rambling, and I pull another beer out of the fridge, tempted to rub it against my face in an effort to cool down. “You better have that shirt back on, Parks.”

I turn around, but no. No shirt. I lock my eyes on a spot above her head, even as I feel the distinct stirring of my cock. I’m only human, after all. Objectively, I know she’s Parker, best friend and platonic roommate.