🔥STEAMY ALERT—very mild steamy content in areas🔥

♫ Girl you're really gonna need a maid
To clean up the mess we made ♪
(Travis Garland—Homewrecker)

With a groaning—and still fairly intoxicated—Delilah in tow, Coralie dragged her suitcase through Heathrow Airport, fumbling with the extra weight of the clothes she'd impulse bought.

With her every step, she sensed her heart burrowing farther and farther into the depths of her core, nestling into the grave she'd dug for it the night before.

She'd woken groggy, her eyes bloodshot, and her body sore as if she'd danced for hours wearing the highest of heels. She'd woken grumpy, enraged, sorrowful, disgusted, and filled with regrets.

By the time Coralie had reached her, Delilah was fine. Yes, she'd ended up in a not-so-pleasant neighborhood. And yes, a few odd-looking men had hawked around her, waiting for the perfect moment to take advantage of her drunkenness. But she would have survived a few more minutes. She would have fended for herself while Coralie enacted her fantasy, to finish what she'd started. To kiss Ryan fucking Bennett for the first and likely the last time.

It would have been the culmination of her every desire; the dreamy, delicious kiss she'd always imagined they'd exchange. She'd had a few doubts in the past few weeks, pessimistic as she tended to be, envisioning a sloppy mess of clumsy tongues and excess saliva. But the night before, when she'd felt his breath over her lips and his fingers on her skin and his eyes plunging into hers, she'd known. She'd been certain that kiss would have exceeded her expectations and caused her to try to extend her trip to London to get more kisses from him.

But it wasn't meant to be, was it? She and Ryan weren't meant to lock lips, to brush their fingers over soft skin, to wrap around one another, get lost in one another, take each other on the ride of their lives.

As much as she hated to admit it, the universe sent her a sign—no, Coralie, you can't kiss Ryan. You can't fuck Ryan. Keep your legs closed.

Instants before embarking on the plane, her phone buzzed, giving her a reason to tune out of Delilah's rant about the after-effects of tequila.

"Yeah, well, I warned you," she said, as Delilah guzzled down her third bottle of water since they'd passed through security. "So you can't blame me for—"

Coralie's eyes bulged as she saw the message blinking on her screen.

"Fuck. Fuck."

"What?" Delilah shoved the near-empty bottle into her backpack and motioned for Coralie to give her the phone. "Is it him?"

Coralie didn't hand her the cell, but nodded, unable to remove her gaze from the words flashing before her.

Ryan Bennett: I can't stop thinking about you. I wish you hadn't left. That near-kiss is going to haunt me forever, Cora.

Though millions of different replies scattered through her mind, she bit her lip and shook her head.

If I answer him, I'm enabling him. Is that what I want?

The farther she was from the hotel, from the bar, from the city that staked her with memories that clouded her judgment, the clearer her thoughts.

Had she and Ryan kissed, everything would have changed. Sure, they'd already skidded by several boundaries—masturbating on video-chat, for example—but the kiss would have been real. Palpable, unforgettable, unstoppable. It would have set in motion a spiraling tornado of events she'd never recover from, and neither would he.

So, to her absolute shock—such restraint with Ryan was stunning—she ignored the message, put her phone on airplane mode, and locked it, slipping it into her purse.

On the plane, stuck watching some cheesy rom-com, she fidgeted. She was restless, unable to sleep because every time she closed her eyes, every time she tried to relax, he showed up in her mind.

He walked into a bar—resembling Scarfes—wearing that baby blue suit, ruffling the collar as he winked, unbuttoning the top of his shirt as he smirked. He marched up to her, sipping on a mojito, smacking his lips. In a few strides, he arrived at her level, spun the barstool, slid between her legs, pressed his hands to her thighs. Then his fingertips grazed upwards, tiptoeing over the hem of her dress, dancing up to her waist that he gripped tight to pull her against him. His breath wavered over her nose, her mouth, her chin, billowing down to the base of her neck, whizzing down between her breasts.

The first time the daydream took control of her, she'd opened her eyes and almost screamed out no, leave me the fuck alone! It took her a few minutes to remember she wasn't in her bedroom, but in a packed aircraft, with men squinting at her and women cocking their heads and children who might not appreciate her choice of language.

But the second time, she let the dream continue. She let this specter of Ryan cup her chin while he placed his other hand on the small of her back, pressing her even closer to him. She let his lips tickle hers, his tongue traipse over hers, teasing, tormenting her as she arched her spine and fireworks exploded in her gut. And when their lips finally collided, when his minty tongue took hostage of hers and his fingers fluttered through her hair, she felt him.

Her nerves tingled and again, she pulled herself out of the fantasy before moaning in pleasure.

How had something that never happened—and never would—aroused her so damn much? Their lips had been an inch away from impacting, their bodies so close it was unbearable—but nothing had occurred. So why did her stomach clench when she remembered him? Why did her heart lurch, why did her womanly parts ache with the idea of what could have been?

Her sexual appetite had been dormant, and he'd poked at it when they had their sessions via webcam; but this was something else altogether. This was her needing him, craving him, like she'd never needed or craved anyone else.

Despite her negative experiences, she'd also had many positive encounters with men who had pleased her greatly. But she'd never felt this way about them. Not Benjamin, her first; not Victor, who was quite skilled; and not Jayden, who had no clue how to keep it in his pants.

What the fuck have you done to me, Ryan?

Once they landed in San Francisco, Delilah had entered a state of hangover—and so had Coralie, though hers was an emotional turmoil instead of a physical one.

When Delilah massaged her temples and cursed tequila, Coralie pinched the bridge of her nose and cursed Ryan. Why did he resurface in her life like this, rocking her world, flipping her upside-down, squeezing into her thoughts in the most obsessive, unhealthy ways? It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, and she had no notion how to move on from him.

As she unpacked her suitcase, she stumbled upon the black dress. Though at first she cajoled it, holding it against her and sniffing at it as if it would smell like him—and to some extent, it did—she flung it across the room and howled at it. It bunched at the foot of her desk, and the more she glared at it, the more she imagined it in that same bunched position, but at the foot of a bed, instead. A big, fancy bed covered in luxurious silks, with two sweaty bodies atop it, writhing and grinding and—

"Fuck this!" She stormed to the dress, picked it up, and hurled it into the trash can. No matter how much it had cost her, she didn't want to ever see it again.

That night, tossing and turning in bed as she attempted to return to a normal rhythm, all her steamy fantasies had dwindled, burning in some mythical bonfire that she'd started to cleanse herself from Ryan. It was as if the dress was possessed, as if its presence had played with Coralie's heart, fiddled with her memory, lulled her to Ryan when she knew better.

Now that said dress resided in a dumpster downstairs—she'd had no choice but to remove it from the apartment—the clouds in her brain had dissipated. She was no longer blurred by Ryan's scrumptious lips or his orgasmic physique or that smile that would smack her to her knees in two seconds. With the dress gone, she was freed, relieved, getting past him—

Ping!

"Ugh, what now?" Her phone had been going off most of the evening, with messages from her mom and her grandmother, and a few from Bella, checking in on her.

She grabbed the thing and unlocked it, the light so bright she had to squint and blink a few times to adjust to its intensity. But when she discovered the name on the screen, she lowered it and cringed.

"Why, why?"

Ryan Bennett: I hope you got home safely. I miss you. Please talk to me. Are you mad? Did I do something wrong?

She threw her phone onto the bedside table and grunted. "Yes, you did do something wrong. You barged back into my life and made me fall in love with you all over again, and I can't have you, you moron. I hate you. I hate you!"

She flipped to her other side, facing the window. Lights flickered behind her blinds and cars rushed by and laughter came from the sidewalk below. She focused on those, on the things she was used to, so she wouldn't have to answer Ryan and explain to him that she could never be mad at him.

No, she was mad because they'd almost kissed, and though she'd yearned for it for decades, she was wrong to do so. She cared too much for him to let them make such a mistake; for him to make out with her and put his happy marriage in jeopardy.

He doesn't even know that we'll click, and he doesn't know that it'll be worth it!

He might have loved her when they were teens, and they might have come close to being together now, but too much time had passed. Too many years of silence, of building their lives separately. Their second chance had been the night before, inside Scarfes—and the universe had decided for them. It decided against them.

As a tear rolled down hercheek, Coralie fetched her remote from the nightstand and turned on her Netflix,seeking a TV show to fall asleep to, so she wouldn't think about Ryan and howthey'd never see each other again.

♥♥♥