I could be happy, genuinely happy. There’s only one thing missing, and she’s over a thousand miles away.

Fiona

I’m headed out for drinks when Dex calls. Which has me grinning even before I answer the phone. “Hey.”

“Hey, Cherry.” His deep voice gives me a little thrill. Every single time. “What you up to?”

“Going out for drinks with Anna.” I dart across 5th and weave past a slow-strolling tourist family.

“Drew’s Anna?” Dex asks in obvious surprise.

“Yep. We’ve gotten to know each other over the years. Gray always invites her and Drew to spend Christmas with us.”

Drew lost both his parents when he was in high school, and Gray lost his mother to cancer around the same time. Gray has made it a priority never to let Drew go a holiday without family. “Family” being him, and now Ivy and me.

“Right, I forgot about that. Kind of kicking myself for going home to my parents’ instead of to Gray’s Christmas party last year,” Dex says with a wry laugh.

Because he’d been invited too. Every year.

“You were being a good son,” I say.

“I was avoiding the temptation of you,” he answers.

It makes me stumble. Frowning, I quicken my step. “Why did you avoid me?”

He sighs, and I can imagine him rubbing a hand along his beard the way he does when he doesn’t want to admit something. “Well, last year you were still in college, and I was a rookie in the NFL. There was absolutely no hope of us ever seeing each other. And, besides, you were Gray’s baby sister-in-law.”

“I’m still that. Although I object to the term baby.”

“Fine, younger sister.” There’s a smile in his voice before his tone goes serious. “I asked him, you know. If he objected to me making a play for you.”

“What?” I practically shriek.

“He’s one of my best friends, Fi. It’s man code. And you don’t mess with the code.”

“And what if he’d said no?” The idea of Gray lording over my sex life does not sit well with me.

“Then I’d have laid out a perfectly logical and irrefutable argument for him to change his mind,” Dex says. “Or I’d have pounded on him until he said uncle.”

I laugh. “So much for the man code.”

“Punching out an argument is an accepted form of conflict resolution in the man code. It’s part of our bylaws.”

“And you say women are confusing.” I laugh and hurry along so I’m not late. “So what about you? What are you doing tonight?”

“Same thing. Going out with my QB.”

“Finn Mannus?” I give a little sigh. “He’s dreamy.”

Okay, I’m still a little irked by Dex’s archaic “man code” thing with Gray, and payback is a bitch.

Predictably, Dex makes a noise of disdain. “Thought you didn’t follow football.”

“There’s a difference between following the sport and following a hot player,” I tease.

“Never thought I’d be the jealous type,” he drawls. “But I guess I am because I have the sudden urge to punch the little shit in the face right about now.”

“Don’t do that! You’ll ruin the pretty!”

“Fi.” Dex sounds ominous. And pained.

Laughing, I put him out of his misery. “Baby, you know I only have eyes for one guy. And he is way sexier than some skinny quarterback.”

“Yeah?” He’s practically purring now.

All my pleasure points stir. “Yeah.”

I hear him sigh, and his voice lowers. “I want to look at that pic you sent me. I want that so badly my dick hurts. But I know if I do, it’ll hurt more. I can’t beat off to thoughts of you anymore, Fi.”

My breath hitches. “Why?”

“I’ve had the real thing. Imagination no longer cuts it.”

“Have you… You used to think of me when you touched yourself?”

I swear I hear him swallow down a groan. “You know I did.”

“We could…” I sidestep a woman running toward the subway. “We could talk through it.”

Another groan from Dex. “No,” he says. “It’ll kill me, Cherry. Not being able to touch you.”

“I can touch myself. Pretend it’s you.” I don’t know why I’m pushing this. I’m in the middle of Manhattan and can’t do a thing. But teasing Dex is fast becoming one of my favorite things. Only because I know he likes it. Even more, he needs it. Dex is too closed off. Which wouldn’t really matter, but I’ve seen that spark of life in him that’s aching to come out and play.

I can hear it now when he gives me a dark chuckle. “Babe, the thought of you touching yourself is even worse. That’s something I need to see, not hear.”

“We could Skype.”

“Fi.”

“Ethan.”

The smile in his voice remains, but he sounds tight. “I don’t have smooth words. I’d fuck it up by saying the wrong thing. You don’t need to hear how today I thought of backing you into a quiet corner of my locker room so I could shove my hand up your skirt and fuck you with my fingers, knowing my guys walked around a few feet away. I’d tell you to be nice and quiet while I did it, not make a sound, even though you were dying to.

“Of how I’d pinch one of your perky little pink nipples with my other hand. Nice and firm the way you like it.”

I’ve slowed to a complete stop, my skin on fire, my breath short and rasping, as the world passes me by. Jesus. My nipple throbs as if he were here now, tweaking it with a rough touch; my sex aches, the ghost of Dex’s thick, long fingers pumping into it.