Free Needing Her by Molly McAdams

coming right after this, promise. Just finish up and get dressed. I’ll be waiting outside the bathroom.”
    “Mmm, pillows.”
    Less than ten minutes later, Maci was walking out of my bathroom door, red hair wet, and hanging down over her shoulders . . . and in my fucking clothes. Shit. I hadn’t thought that one through. My arms automatically moved up to grab for her, and I forced myself not to pull her closer.
    “Feel any better?” I finally asked, trying to concentrate on something else other than the way she looked. Anything else.
    “Yeah, I’m tired. I just want to sleep.”
    “All right, let’s go,” I said and walked her into my bedroom.
    After I got her situated in my bed, I stood and froze when she grabbed my hand.
    “Connor? I’m sorry for coming over like this,” she said huskily and pulled me back so I was sitting next to her. “I wanted to come talk to you . . . just, not like this.”
    Whatever she was about to say, I didn’t know if I wanted her to say it when she was drunk. Because all I could think about right now was how much she’d consumed my mind in the last couple days, and how perfect she looked in my bed. “We’ll talk in the morning, Maci. I need to talk to you too.”
    Her heavy-lidded eyes fluttered back open and her brow scrunched. “You do?”
    I smirked at her and pushed back some of her wet hair. “Didn’t you get my message from this morning? I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but we need to talk about it.”
    Her confused face softened into something that instantly made me want to hold her. “Oh, right. The girl in your apartment this morning, I’d been able to forget about her until you brought up this morning again. Thanks for that, hope she was worth it.” Maci rolled away from me and grabbed at the comforter. “Good night, Connor.”
    “Whoa, what? Maci . . . worth it? What are you talking about? My sister was here with my nephew this morning when I got your text. She’d been here for a couple hours.”
    She stopped stroking one of the pillows, reminding me that she was still completely trashed, and turned back to me. “Amy was here? It wasn’t just some girl . . . ?”
    “No,” I drew out the word. “Why?”
    “I—I thought that . . . that maybe after what you did last night that you had . . . that there was . . .”
    I draped my arm over her, caging her to the bed, and leaned closer. “After what I did last night? Maci, what are you talking about?”
    “You . . . you stood up for me. You cared about me,” she whispered and turned her head to the side to look away from me. “For once.”
    Using my fingers to turn her face back to mine, I shook my head slowly and tried to find the words for a few moments before finally whispering, “What do you mean for once?” My breathing deepened as I waited for her to respond, but her eyes just bounced back and forth between mine. “Maci, what do you mean for—”
    She sat up and crushed her mouth to mine, and for the life of me, I don’t know why I didn’t push her right back down onto the bed. The fingers that had been pressed to her cheek slid through her wet hair, holding her face to mine as I deepened the kiss, eliciting a moan from her that shot straight through my body. Her hands slid down my bare chest, to my stomach, causing the muscles to contract; and, Jesus Christ, I wanted her to continue. But the second she whispered my name, and the alcohol barely masked by the Gatorade registered in my mind, I remembered why she was even here in the first place, and what I was doing.
    I grabbed at her hands and pinned them to the bed as I sat up. “No, Maci. Shit . . . no, this can’t happen. Not like this, not when you’re drunk.” Not at all . . . her brothers would kill me.
    “I’m not dru—”
    “Yes, you are. Maci, you’re trashed; you were falling in love with my pillows not even half an hour ago. This can’t happen . . .” Leave it at that. Leave it at that.