Read Online One Night With Her Best Friend by Noelle Adams - Free Book Online

her hand to his rough cheek. “If you’ve wanted this for a while, why
didn’t you do something about it before?”
    “What
was I supposed to do? Haul you into a kiss when you were lecturing me about
putting up my laundry?”
    “You
could have said something.”
    “I
know. Maybe I should have. But I knew you weren’t in the same place, and I knew
how you would react.”
    “How
would I react?”
    “You
would have thought your perfectly constructed world was falling apart, and I
would have borne the brunt of it.” He kissed her hair lightly to take the sting
out of the words.
    Her
belly twisted in concern, thinking about how right he was, how blind she’d
been, how much it must have hurt him for her to not consider him as anything
but a friend.
    “That
wasn’t a complaint. It was just an explanation. Maybe I was just being a
coward, but I felt trapped between my feelings and what I knew would happen if
I said something. You mean too much to me. I couldn’t take the risk.”
    She
nodded, understanding completely. “No need to explain to me about being afraid
to take risks. I’m sorry it took me so long to come to my senses.”
    “It
didn’t take you that long really.”
    “Fourteen
years?”
    “No.
It was less than an hour between the time you realized what I wanted and the
time you realized you wanted it too. That’s a pretty quick turnaround for
someone who prides herself on her rigorous planning.”
    She
chuckled at the irony in his tone. “Then I’m sorry it took me so long to even
recognize we could be something more than friends.”
    “Don’t
be sorry. You’ve been a better friend to me than I deserve. And I think the
timing was just about right.”
    She
smiled, warmed from the inside out. “Me too.”
    They
kissed for a minute—gentle and tender. Then her curiosity got the better of
her. She pulled away enough to ask, “So exactly how long have you wanted
something more from me?”
    He
glanced away almost diffidently, which just heightened her curiosity.
    “Aaron,”
she prompted, turning his head so he looked back at her. “How long?”
    “Honestly,”
he said, his voice almost rough, “I’ve been crazy about you from the first day
we met.”
    “No!”
    “It’s
true. I think I’ve always wanted more.”
    “That
can’t be right,” she gasped, sitting up straight in the bed. “You’ve dated a
ton of other women. You were married.”
    He
sat up too. “I wouldn’t say I’ve dated a ‘ton’ of women, but, yes, I kept
trying to talk myself out of it and fall for someone else.”
    “But
your marriage?”
    He
swallowed hard—she could see it in his throat. “I did love Carole, and I was genuinely
committed to her. I did everything I could to make it work. But I do think part
of the problem with the marriage was that she wasn’t—and couldn’t be—you.”
    “You
told her?”
    “No.
But, no matter how hard both of us tried, I could never get as close to her as
I was to you.”
    Kate
stared down at her hands, which were twisting together anxiously.
    “Please
don’t tell me I’ve creeped you out with this embarrassing confession. I promise
I’ve never been obsessive or stalkerish about it. You were always my friend.
That much has always been real. I just always wanted even more.”
    “I
wish I’d known,” she murmured, torn between guilt and an irrational
exhilaration.
    “No,
you don’t. Can you really tell me, if you’d known I had a thing for you, that you
ever would have become my friend back in high school?”
    “No,”
she admitted. “I wouldn’t have.”
    “Then
there’s nothing to regret. Because, without your friendship, my life wouldn’t
have been nearly as good. I wouldn’t have traded the years we’ve had for anything.
Not for anything .”
    “Me
either.” She reached out for him, letting him pull her down so they were lying
together again.
    She
was almost dazed with this new revelation, but her surprise was slowly
transforming into