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might have indulged in a fantasy where there could be more. A little longing or hope. But she’d quickly understood it wasn’t a romance in the making. And though a part of her cared for Nate on a level she couldn’t acknowledgeto him, there was another part of her excited by the raw rush of her very own too-good-to-feel-guilty-about night of passion. A night only he could give her. Because she trusted him.
    â€œFriends,” he said as if testing the word out.
    â€œYeah. I’ve missed you in my life. I don’t want to give you up again.”
    Tiny lines etched at the corners of his eyes as he held her stare. “Do you feel like you can go forward from here without this—” he waved a slow hand between them “—getting in the way?”
    She knew she could. She’d done it for years before Nate walked out of her life. “I can if you can. Even if you can’t tell if you’ve got a virgin in your bed.”
    Brows arching high as he let out a sharp laugh, Nate rocked back, pulling Payton over with him. “Be a while before I live that down, will it?”
    She squinted at him from her perch atop his chest. “Probably.”
    â€œThen I better steer this little chat back toward the ego feeding.” Settling against the pillow to get comfortable, he prompted, “So tell me how it is I score bedpost-notch status.”
    Payton readjusted around him and let her gaze run the length of his pure masculine perfection, complete with one heavily muscled leg thrown over the sheet, and wondered how he could even ask.
    â€œIt’s just it was so…intense without being…serious. It wasn’t candlelight and promises of love everlasting.”
    â€œYou don’t like those things?” he asked, running a finger down the curve of her shoulder.
    Guiltily she glanced away, then forced her gaze back. “No, I do. I’m sure I would—” If she ever actually felt that forever kind of glow, she would probably love it. If Nate had wanted to give her those things…
    Only he didn’t and she knew it. The only thing everlastingin their future was the schoolgirl crush she expected would never quite go away. And a friendship if she was lucky. “What I mean is this was so… hot and it’s never been like that for me before. Impulsive. Exciting.” She felt the blush creeping into her cheeks—held Nate’s gaze anyway, needing him to understand. “No strings. No expectations.”
    â€œHell, if I’d known that I wouldn’t have worked so hard.”
    She let out her own laugh then, swatting harmlessly at his chest. “You know what kind of expectations I’m talking about. The long-term kind.” It would be impossible to go to bed with Nate without some kind of expectation. His name was practically scrawled on the ladies’ lounge wall next to the words “for a good time”. “It’s never been so much…fun. So…free. My other experience wasn’t like this.”
    This time it was Nate’s turn to pull back. “Your ‘other experience’? As in singular? I mean, I knew your experience was limited, but that idiot was your first?”
    â€œNate! Can’t you at least pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about? And he isn’t an idiot.” Clint wasn’t perfect. Far from it. What she’d had with him was polite. It was pleasant. But it hadn’t been deep and it hadn’t been passionate. It hadn’t been real . How could it have been when one of the people in the relationship hadn’t actually existed? Not that Clint ever noticed or cared. But even so, it hardly seemed fair to discuss his lack of creativity and vigor with a man so completely out of his league.
    â€œI can’t believe you gave it up to Clint .”
    Payton bristled. Some long-ago disappointment—frustrated and immature—reared its head, lashing out.