Funny You Should Ask(69)

My head went back, eyes closed.

Oh. Holy. Wow.

We were still mostly dressed, but I was close. So incredibly close. Gabe was still kissing my neck, his body pressed against mine, so lost in his own rhythm that it seemed possible that he didn’t know I’d almost just come from the sheer pleasure of us moving together.

“Fuck,” he murmured. “I want…”

Whatever he wanted, I was completely willing to give him.

“You feel so good,” he said. “You feel so good…baby.”

It was the pause that slapped me out of my sexual haze. The hesitation between his sweet, hot praise and his whispered, unearned endearment.

He knew my name. I knew that he knew my name.

But something about the way he had paused, the way he’d said “baby,” quiet and questioning, made me think that there was a very real possibility that in that moment Gabe had completely forgotten who I was.

It was the metaphorical cold shower I needed but didn’t want.

Suddenly all the thoughts I hadn’t allowed myself to have—all the very real reasons I should not sleep with him—came rushing back.

“Wait,” I said.

I said it quietly, the word lost in the sound of his lips against my throat, the squeak of couch beneath us, and our shared heavy breathing. Because that metaphorical cold shower was already heating back up.

I was about five seconds away from losing myself in the pleasure again.

Gabe was moving against me, and I kept forgetting why I wanted to stop. It felt so good. He felt so good.

Baby.

It pinged across my brain.

“Wait,” I said.

This time he heard me, and his arms, his hips froze, pressing hard against me. A body-length shudder rippled beneath my hands as he buried his face in my neck. His skin was damp, my hair still fisted in his hand.

He let out a groan of disappointment.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Shit,” he said.

What was wrong with me?

Neither of us moved for a long moment, and then slowly, Gabe raised his head.

He didn’t look me in the eye as he untangled his fingers from my hair and lifted himself off me. My stomach dropped as he pulled back.

We sat next to each other on the couch, the silence awkward and overwhelming.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I—”

Our words overlapped.

“Did you—” He started, paused, and tried again. “Do you—”

He was making some sort of gesture with his hand that I didn’t quite understand but he also wasn’t looking at me. His brow was furrowed as if he was trying to figure out how to get out of this situation.

“I should go,” I said quickly.

“No,” he said. “No, don’t go.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

He tapped his fingers on his knee.

“Really, it is,” I said. “I can just get my stuff.”

“Just, uh…” He looked away. “Just give me a moment, okay?”

“Um, yeah, of course,” I said.

He got off the couch and left the living room.

I picked up a pillow and screamed into it. What was wrong with me? Why had I stopped something that had felt so good, and so right, because of one stupid word? Also because of journalistic integrity but that had been about a horse behind my own galloping libido.

So what if Gabe had forgotten my name in the heat of the moment? I was fooling myself if I thought that this meant something. He was a movie star. He had women flinging themselves at his feet, and he was here with me. Did I really think this was going to be anything more than what it was?

I’d had one chance with him and I’d blown it.

When Gabe came back into the living room, I was sitting up, hands on my knees, still trying to figure out how to salvage this moment.

“Look,” he said. “We can still—I can still—if you—”

“It’s late,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said.

I got to my feet. “I’ll go.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, putting a hand on my arm.

We both looked at it, and then he removed it, putting both hands first into his back pockets and then into his front ones.

“You can stay in the guest room and I’ll call you a cab in the morning,” he said.

I nodded.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, and turned to go.

“Gabe,” I said.

He turned—and it was probably my imagination that made him seem eager.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said.

I didn’t really know how to respond to that. Were we just going to pretend that what had happened on the couch didn’t actually happen?

“We can talk more in the morning,” he said.

He gave me a smile—it seemed genuine but also tired.

“Okay,” I said.

I went into the guest room and closed the door. I stood there.

“Come on, honey,” I heard Gabe say, and then the click click click of his dog’s nails across the wood floor.

At the other end of the house, I heard his bedroom door close.