Free Bedding The Best Man (Bedding the Bachelors Book 7) by Virna Depaul Page A

couldn’t even commit to a one-night stand. I can’t make anything work, or anything last.”
    “Bri,” Gabe said with a sigh, and ran his hand through his dark hair. “You’re being too hard on yourself. You’re as capable as anyone of having meaningless sex, but that doesn’t mean you should do it.”
    “No, I’m not, and why shouldn’t I?” she protested then fell quiet, pushing the pretzel sticks around on the table.
    Gabe found himself stuck for words. He wanted to tell her that she was too good, too precious to do something so tawdry and cheap, but she was right. Why shouldn’t she do what everybody else did? Why shouldn’t she explore her options? He sure as hell had over the years.
    “Will you be my one-night-stand?” she asked suddenly, her voice small.
    His heart almost stopped. He had to strain to hear her over the crowd and the music. And even then, he wasn’t sure if he’d heard her right.
    “What the fuck? What the hell do you mean, asking something like that?” he demanded, his voice sounding angry to cover the shock he felt. She was offering him the one thing he had dreamed about for years. And she clearly had no clue how much he wanted to say yes.
    “You know, help me out. Show me that I can at least get through a one-night relationship,” she said.
    Gabe gazed at her—perfectly formed shoulders bared by her skimpy top, red lips, and dark hair he’d always wanted to twine his hands in. He felt a tightening in his belly as the blood rushed to his groin, and he tried to stamp down the surge of desire pulsing through him. He prayed that she wouldn’t notice how much tighter his jeans suddenly felt.
    She doesn’t know what she’s asking, he thought, looking away from her because he was petrified that his overwhelming desire to say yes was written all over his face. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to dispel images of her naked beneath him. She needed a friend, not a meaningless fuck.
    “What would that prove, Bri? That you’re just as shallow and commitment-phobic as everyone else? What’s the point?”
    “It would prove to me that I could do it. That for just one night I could at least successfully follow through on a one-night stand, and not fuck everything up,” she said. Her eyes were pleading with him.
    It took every ounce of self-restraint he had to not pick her up and rush her straight back to his apartment and do exactly as she asked.
    Gabe’s jaw tightened. He’d wanted her for so long, but he’d been pretty successful in putting it out of his head. He and Eric were as tight as brothers, after all. But here she was, unattached at last, and practically throwing herself at him.
    But this wasn’t what he wanted, and he knew it wasn’t what she really wanted. She was still in love with Eric. He wanted all of her, not the broken remains of the girl his best buddy had left in a lurch. He had no intention of becoming some drunken experiment on her capacity for casual sex.
    “C’mon, Gabe. Be a friend,” she begged, leaning toward him from across the table.
    Reaching out, he brushed her hair off her face. “Trust me, Bri, I am being a friend. This is not the way to prove you’re not a fuck up. Just look at everything you’ve achieved. You’re smart, generous and your events are incredible. You’re the person people turn to if they have a problem. That doesn’t sound like a screw up to me, honey.”
    His body was screaming for her, but through sheer force of will he didn’t realize he had, his brain was winning. “You need a friend right now much more than you need a fuck buddy. You would hate yourself in the morning.”
    Bri’s bottom lip trembled.
    He wanted to take her in his arms, to ease her sadness, but he didn’t trust himself.
    She’s killing me, and she has no fucking clue.
    Gabe knew he should get up and leave the club, putting Bri and her proposal and their whole messed up relationship behind him. Hell, he shouldn’t even have come down here