Avoiding Amy Jackson (28 page)

And then…I won’t let her go.

I won’t deny that Amy started out as a woman I wanted to fuck. There’s no disputing this. It’s a fact I think most men would understand. Amy is beautiful. She’s unbelievably sexy, and my cock seems to have an affinity for her.

Only holding her in my arms for three nights was the biggest challenge of my life. Harder than Basic Training and med school combined. It was a true test of willpower, and I’m shocked I survived the entire situation without getting her naked. I’m desperate to feel her beneath me, to be inside of her, to fuck the vulnerability right out of her. I’m desperate for a lot of things and all of them seem to revolve around Amy.

I’ve focused my efforts on dominating most of her time outside of work. Amy is a quick-trigger, and I’m doing everything in my power to keep her from going back to her old ways of one-night stands. Maybe this makes me a selfish bastard, but I don’t give a shit. I have zero desire to see the woman I care about get involved with assholes. She deserves better. She deserves someone like me. Someone who will love her and take care of her and let her know how fucking amazing she truly is.

Despite the urge to announce to the world about our one perfect night that involved the endless amounts of kissing Amy and I took part in, I know that I need to keep quiet. My gut instincts tell me that Amy is afraid to dive into an actual relationship for fear of ruining what we already have. I need to let Amy see that we’re friends, first and foremost, and nothing will ever change that. She’s important to me, and when we do become more, her friendship will always be my top priority.

Acting like the kissing never happened proved to be daunting. I wanted nothing more than to wrap Amy up in my arms and kiss the daylights out of her in front of my buddies. I had the constant urge to touch her, feel her, and keep her close to me. I somehow managed to survive. I kept up the ‘just friends’ act outside of our tent. I made a point to keep her laughing and show her that nothing would change between us if we became something more. For one perfect night, I let her take the lead. I let her make the first move and I obliged her. In my eyes, she’s irresistible, and there was no way in hell I was passing up the opportunity to be close to her, to kiss her, to feel her pressed against me.

I want everything Amy is willing to give me. In my eyes, she’s perfection. Her laughter makes my fucking day. Her big, brown eyes, her sarcastic sense of humor, her bossy demeanor… Everything about her makes me happy.

Hell, even her bitchy attitude is something I enjoy.

I want to be the one who is always on the receiving end of that bitchy attitude.

I want to be the one on the receiving end of a lot of things from that woman.

I’m standing outside of my SUV, filling up my gas tank. My mind is hard at work, trying to process the three nights I spent holding Amy in my arms. My eyes roam to where she is currently sitting in the passenger’s seat. Her feet are propped up comfortably on the dashboard. My eyes follow her long, bare legs, taking in one of my favorite things about her. God, those legs would look fantastic wrapped around my waist. Or over my shoulders. Or spread out around my face. I can picture those legs in a lot of places, and all of them include me.

The gas nozzle clicks, but I’m too wrapped up in dirty thoughts to realize the tank is full.

“Hey, idiot. Are you just going to stand there all day?” Amy is leaning over the console, her head hanging out of the driver’s side window and a smile encompassing her sarcastic little mouth.

I chuckle and shake my head, trying like hell to stop thinking about her perfect anatomy. I shut the fuel door and walk over towards the driver’s side, coming face to face with Amy. She’s still practically hanging out of the window, her shirt revealing a wonderful amount of cleavage. Sometimes I wonder if she’s truly aware of what she does to me.

“You want anything from inside?” I ask as I rest against the door, our faces mere inches from each other.

“W-what?” she mutters, her eyes still transfixed on mine.

“You want anything from inside the gas station? Something to drink? A snack?” I get the feeling that she’s just as attracted to me as I am to her. I inch a few millimeters closer, our noses practically touching now. Her eyes get bigger when our proximity becomes nearer, but she doesn’t pull away and she doesn’t respond to my question. “Amy?” I ask, despite the fact that I’d rather crush her mouth to mine and have my way with her.

“James?” she whispers softly as her eyes move down to my lips.

Fuck, I need to kiss her. I’m desperate to kiss her, but I know that if I do, I could quite possibly screw things up between us. It’s one thing for Amy to open herself up to me when we’re in the privacy of our own tent, but it’s a whole other thing for her to show vulnerability in broad daylight in the middle of a gas station where anyone could see us.

“Sweetheart,” I whisper, and she responds by biting down on her bottom lip. “I need you to move so I can grab my wallet.”

“What?” she asks, her gaze still locked on my mouth, her teeth still sinking into her bottom lip.

Fuck, I want to bite that bottom lip.

“I need my wallet…so I can pay for the gas.”

“Your wallet?”

“Yes.” I nod in the direction of the console she is so beautifully lying across.

“Oh…
Oh!
Shit, sorry!” she sputters as she scrambles back into the passenger’s seat.

“No worries, doll. I was enjoying the view.” I wink at her as I grab my wallet and slide it into the back pocket of my jeans.

She lets out a snorting laugh as I walk around the front of the SUV and towards the doors of the small convenience store.

Why didn’t I kiss her?

I should have fucking kissed her.

God, she’s right.
I’m an idiot.

“Hey, idiot! Grab me a Diet Coke while you’re in there!” she shouts as I open the glass door and hear bells chime, notifying the clerk of my presence. Well, I guess I should be thankful that she’s still calling me
idiot
instead of digressing my nickname back to
Limp Dick
.

I’ve made progress. Yes, it’s at a fucking snail’s pace, but it’s progress nonetheless.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“My pussy just went on strike and

I could really use a hefty dose of Prozac right now.” - Amy

Three nights alone in a tent I spent with James. Three nights of being wrapped up in his arms and the only thing that occurred between us was one night of kissing.
Perfect kisses
. Indescribable kisses. Oh my god, the kissing. The perfect, sweet, utterly delectable kisses. James’s lips pressed against mine. His hands clutching the small of my back. His tongue gently entwining with mine, exploring my mouth with affection. His muscular perfection spooning me tightly and making me feel safe and content.

James. James. James
.

My mind seems to have an affinity for being obsessed with him. My thoughts aren’t of friendship, and they are most certainly not clean. My thoughts are dirty and passionate as they spur a deep-seated intensity of overwhelming lust to have his hands all over my body. I want him on me, over me, under me, and
inside me
. I want James everywhere.

This isn’t good.

No, this is bad.
The very worst kind of bad
. I’ve fallen hard for one of my best friends, a man I swore I wouldn’t ever fall for. How did this happen? How did I go from calling someone Dr. Limp Dick and making a career out of mean-mugging him at every opportunity to wanting him so badly that I can feel my muff screaming his name? My nipples are hard at just the thought of James’s lips on mine. My panties are wet from reenacting every intimate moment I shared with him.

Did I just say intimate?

This is bad. So very, very bad.

Amy doesn’t think words like intimate. Amy doesn’t fall hard for a guy. Amy is the type of girl who finds a good, hard cock to ride and then walks away before feelings get involved. And apparently, Amy is now a c-u-n-t who likes to talk about herself in third person.

I think I need to be hypnotized.

Does that work? Can I have someone hypnotize me into forgetting my feelings for James? What part of my brain holds these stupid fucking feelings? Maybe I can just have that part of my brain removed. That sounds completely doable. I pull my laptop from the coffee table and do what any medical professional would do—I Google. If I can just find the exact part of my brain that controls these feelings for James, I can call a neurosurgeon and schedule an appointment for surgery.
STAT.

Aha!
Well it looks like there is no definitive research that points to one specific part of your brain that controls your romantic feelings for someone. My Google exploration has found that there are actually several parts of your brain that may or may not be involved in controlling these stupid fucking feelings. If my research is accurate—
and I’m sure it is since I’m on Google
—I would need to have my hypothalamus, the ventral tegmental area in my mid-brain, and the Deep Limbic System in the center of my brain removed.

This seems realistic.

I may need to be a lifetime supply of dopamine and serotonin replacements—as well as have trouble feeling any emotion at all—but
these annoying emotions would be gone! I wouldn’t be sitting here fantasizing about James. I wouldn’t be sitting here dreaming about what spending a lifetime with James would be like. I would probably just be sitting here feeling nothing… Absolutely nothing.

Ah, the good ol’ days when I actually did feel nothing.

When I spent most of my nights finding the one guy in the room to take home and then I did just that. I took that guy home, took what I wanted, and then tossed him aside like yesterday’s garbage. I rarely ever went back for seconds. I got my fill and relished in the fact that I never felt an urge to continue any sort of contact or relationship with said one-night-stand guys.

Damn, I miss that girl.

I really do. I miss the way things used to be when my annoying fucking emotions weren’t complicating everything. It seems those days are gone now. The only days that are in front of me are going to be filled with me being a stupid sap speaking in third person and constantly thinking about James.

Good-looking, funny, cocky, smug, egotistical, ridiculously sexy James.

I hate him and I like him and I hate him and I lo—

Never mind.
I refuse to let that word cross my sober mind.

The camping trip with James was one of the best times I’ve had in I can’t remember how long. We spent three days fishing, drinking, hiking, and spending time with his closest buddies. I drank my ass off during the day, and every night, like clockwork, James would let me slide into his sleeping bag, where he would hold me until we both fell asleep.

The first night I was worried things would be awkward, but to my surprise, they weren’t. James didn’t act any different towards me. He acted like the same old James. Smug and cocky and constantly making me laugh while simultaneously pissing me off. Then he’d flash that perfect dimple my way and all was forgiven.

Why does that dimple have to be so perfect?

And why am I noticing a dimple on a man? I’ve never in my life swooned over a man’s dimple. I don’t swoon. I’m not that fucking swooning girl. At least I wasn’t that girl. Apparently, I am now. I’m that stupid swooning girl with the annoying fucking emotions for her best friend.

Dear god, I’m a cliché. Someone write the screenplay because I’m the girl in every romantic comedy lusting over her best friend. I think I just felt my snatch crawl up inside of my stomach.

See? Even my pussy is disappointed in me.

Shit, I’m disappointed in me. I’m saddened that I let things get this far. I’m upset that I let myself fall this deep. And more importantly, I’m upset that there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s the awesome part about falling for someone. You can’t help how you feel. You can’t go back in time and change your feelings. I always kind of wondered if it was all bullshit.

Love at first sight.

Soul mates.

Spending the rest of your life with one person.

I honestly never really believed the hype, but now, I hate myself for being in a situation where I’m actually starting to understand. And my snatch, well… I’m pretty sure she kind of hates me too. She’s set up shop somewhere between my stomach and liver and I’m pretty sure she is on strike.
My pussy just went on strike.
My vagina has officially boycotted being a part of my female reproductive system, and I’m concerned I’m never going to have another orgasm again.

I’m strongly considering hypnosis or paying someone to slap me silly. Maybe I’ll do both. I could use a good spanking.
I bet James is a spanker.
Oh my, the mere of idea of James spanking me has my nipples beading up underneath my bra.

Damnit!

See? My mind won’t stop thinking about James. I wish my mind would boycott and my vagina would come back from her strike.

God, I want him.

I want James all day, every day, on constant repeat.

I lie back on my couch and place a pillow over my head while screaming into it at the top of my lungs. I might have to take up smoking again.

****

Thirty minutes later…

I’m back from my trip to the nearest gas station and now I’m sitting on my living room floor with a pack of cigarettes on the table, one in my hand, and swigging from a bottle of wine. If I can’t get rid of these feelings, maybe I can drink and chain-smoke them to death? This seems like a healthy approach.

****

Another thirty minutes go by…

A bottle of wine and half a pack of Marlboro Lights later, I hear Lizzy and Ellen walk in through the front door. They’re both laughing and carrying shopping bags. They look great. I look like shit and smell like a bowling alley attendant.