“Weird?”

Vicki nodded before taking a large gulp from the coffee cup he’d placed in front of her, then swore. “Ow, that’s hot!”

He automatically got up to fill a glass of cold water for her, but his limbs felt strange. Robotic. As if he was only just learning to use them. He handed her the glass and she thanked him as she took it. He watched the lines of her throat as she closed her eyes and swallowed.

He swallowed hard, too, as he sat back down at the table. He’d been starving when he woke up—great sex always revved up his metabolism—but now it felt like a heavy weight had descended into his hollow gut, pushing out any room for food.

Vicki put the empty glass down. “You’re always my knight in shining armor.”

She smiled at him, but he’d learned to recognize that smile over the past few days. While it looked real to the naked eye, it was far from it. He didn’t know what the hell was going on here, but he was damn well going to find out.

“What’s wrong, Vicki?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.” Again came the smile that wasn’t really a smile. “I just want you to know that I know last night didn’t mean anything.”

Again, his heart stopped beating. Right there, with one final thud beneath his breastbone, any doctor worth his salt would have declared Ryan dead.

The night they’d shared had meant everything.

He’d begged her to let him love her. And he’d thought she understood that being together was about so much more than just their bodies coming together and finding pleasure.

How the hell had he been so wrong?

In his stunned silence, she continued, “I mean, the sex was super good and everything—” She flushed at the word good. “—but we both know it was just one of those things that happens when an available man and woman are around each other a lot, you know?” She didn’t wait for him to agree or disagree before adding, “And with trying to convince everyone all the time that we’re really together, it was inevitable that we’d forget for a little while it was just pretend, and have sex.” She reached for the coffee again. “Just to take the edge off, and all.”

She put the mug to her lips again, but this time she was careful not to burn herself.

Ryan didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to say. He couldn’t imagine not touching her naked skin again, not being able to kiss the pulse that throbbed so fast just below her chin, not feeling her buck and cry out beneath him as he filled her.

Everything he’d thought he’d gained in those sweet, dark, perfect hours with Vicki in his arms had just been yanked from him so swiftly and abruptly that he could almost taste the loss of her on his tongue.

But even as he felt that loss, he knew there was only one thing that could be worse than losing the lover who had made him forget any other.

Losing his best friend would be the worst of all.

Which meant that if Vicki thought she’d made a mistake by sleeping with him—and if he didn’t want to lose her as a friend, too—he had to agree.

“So,” she asked in a voice that trembled so slightly only someone utterly attuned to her the way he was would have heard it, “are we still okay?”

It was the anguish in her eyes that got him to force the words, “Of course we are,” up through his throat and past his lips.

She paled at his totally unconvincing reply and when she said “Ryan?” in an even shakier voice he didn’t think before reaching for her.

Even as he pulled her onto his lap and buried his face in her hair to breathe her in, he knew he needed to be a hell of lot more convincing, instead of sounding like a lovesick fool who had just been dumped by the girl of his dreams.

Reminding himself that he’d already fulfilled so many more fantasies with her than he’d ever dreamed he would—and that he was going to have to be satisfied with that—he stroked her hair and pulled her closer to his chest.

Working like hell to ignore the way her curves fit against him so perfectly, and the fact that the robe was gaping open over her naked br**sts while one beautiful thigh was bared at the front opening of the fabric, he said, “We’ve always been friends, Vicki, and we always will be.”

He felt her nod against his chest as he stroked her back and shoulders. He knew he shouldn’t keep giving in to the need to touch her like this, but if this was going to be the last time, then how could he help himself?

With his other hand, he tipped up her head so that they had to look at each other and get past this. And make sure their friendship was safe.

“We had sex and it was great, but we’re both adults.”

She nodded again, but she still looked too serious. Too worried. It was going to kill him to do this, but for Vicki he’d bury what was in his heart and play it easy for her. Simply because she needed him to do it to make her feel better.

“Just one thing I was hoping you’d promise me. As you probably know, rumor has it I’m pretty impressive.” He raised his eyebrows at her and lowered his voice, “Don’t tell anyone the truth, okay?”

“The truth?” Her laughter was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. She shook her head before saying, “Trust me, the truth would make it hard for you to get out of your front door unaccosted ever again.”

A moment later she was sliding from his lap and back onto her seat. She picked up a piece of bacon and popped it into her mouth. “What’s it like being so good at everything? Cooking. Baseball.” She shot him a wicked glance that had his blood pressure spiking. “Sex.” She finished the bacon with a lusty sigh of appreciation that was way too close to the sounds she’d made in his bed for him to keep from sweating as he sat next to her. “Truly, it must be exhausting.”

“I’m bad at some things.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Name one thing.”

Making you fall in love with me the way I’ve always been in love with you. You only ever saw the jock while you let those artist ass**les chase you. And hurt you.

“Making a clay pot.”

She laughed, but shook her head. “You’d get there with practice.”

“Okay, then, I’m a shitty outfielder.”

She pointed her fork at him. “Bull. Remember that game in high school when they played you in center field? Hate to break it to you, but you were great.”

The word great from her lips instantly brought back the night they’d just spent together, and as their eyes met and held he was this close to chucking it all in and pulling her back onto his lap so that he could kiss her and touch her and love her again.